Profile in Leadership: Reggie Lai

Reggie Lai joined TE 12 years ago as part of TE China’s Government Affairs team. Throughout his tenure, he has assumed multiple roles that have enabled him to broaden his responsibilities, establish a strong internal network and cultivate a mindset focused on enterprise thinking. As the current vice president (VP) of Global Government Affairs and Corporate Responsibility (CR), Reggie leads a team dedicated to supporting the growth of the business units, assisting their portfolio and footprint management and ensuring their operation continuity. He finds great satisfaction in engaging with colleagues across the world, actively listening to their needs and collaboratively devising optimal solutions.

Describe your role, your responsibilities and what your favorite part about your job is.

I am VP of Global Government Affairs and Corporate Responsibility and have been in this role since November 2021. My team’s focus is to provide support to the business units by fostering their growth, assisting their portfolio and footprint management, and ensuring operation continuity. We build long-term political and community connections and cultivate a valuable reputation capital for TE, which is especially important in times of crisis. We engage in essential policy advocacy, tailoring our efforts to address the unique policy challenges across the different jurisdictions. We also strive to achieve quantifiable business impacts, such as obtaining licenses or securing incentives. We utilize thought leadership to effectively influence business decision makers. Ultimately, we want to create a favorable business climate for TE. In my opinion, a good government affairs department should be invisible in the corporate light. We try to be proactive, do a lot of work behind the scenes, and make an impact when an event or crisis actually takes place. We want to establish the right relationships and deliver the right messaging at the right time on the right platform.

My favorite part about my job is interacting with colleagues across the world, speaking with them to understand their needs and then working together to find solutions. 

What can you tell us about your role at TE and how you implement your strategy at a company this large?

My team is a small team made up of about 10 colleagues. We created a network called the Community Ambassador Program where there is a community ambassador at each TE worksite. In very close coordination and collaboration with the Global Government Affairs and Corporate Responsibility team, our community ambassadors represent TE in front of government and regulators at the local community level. We believe this local impact will benefit our reputation in the long term while improving our employee engagement.

What changes to TE’s strategy map excite you most and how does your role and team help TE implement our strategy and achieve our purpose?

The addition of Delivering entitled margin, revenue and free cash flow growth to the strategy map is a change that really excites me. It reminds us – why do we engage with governments? It is not engaging governments for the sake of engagements. Our engagement should yield direct or indirect quantifiable business impacts. For instance, one goal for my team is to identify and translate incentive opportunities into cash for TE. Even though we are a center-led function, we position ourselves as a profit center, rather than a cost center, by bringing incentive revenues to TE.

What is one project or TE initiative that you are currently most excited about?

 With the support from our subject matter experts (SMEs) throughout the organization, our team puts a lot of effort into creating the Corporate Responsibility Report, which thoroughly documents our progress in fulfilling our company’s purpose. In the report, we outline our progress towards, and evolution of, TE's One Connected World corporate responsibility strategy and review the issues that are material to both TE and our external environment and society, which helps us better understand our expectations from an investor, customer and employee point of view. We can then identify any gaps and continue working on those initiatives in the following year.

Sustainability is a big focus at TE. Can you explain how you and your team help to support and promote TE’s Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) journey?

The Global Government Affairs and Corporate Responsibility team is responsible for communicating our ESG performance with our key stakeholders – customers, shareholders and employees – through our annual Corporate Responsibility Report. Because of this, we led the creation of TE’s first enterprise ESG strategy called One Connected World, which debuted in 2020. This was the result of more than two years of research in which we collaborated with SMEs, departments and leaders across the company to assess what issues were most important for TE and our stakeholders. This is called a double materiality study. This study identifies what issues have financial significance to TE and what issues are relevant to the broader environment. To understand the results, we use an outside-in, grassroots approach. We interview our SMEs to understand what material issues are in their view, we benchmark industry peers and we look at international frameworks, such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals, to understand the general expectations of material issues on companies. This approach helps us to compile a number of issues, and we put together a three-by-three matrix—high, medium and low impacts on TE and high, medium and low impacts on the environment. Then, we submit these to our executive leaders for approval. Once our focus issues are identified, we talk to the SMEs responsible for each issue to define medium-term targets and long-term ambitions which become TE’s One Connected World strategy. Finally, we lead TE’s ESG steering committee – the One Connected World Network – to monitor progress and refresh the strategy as needed, which we did just this year.

How would you describe your leadership style?

I attempt to deliver collaborative coaching. When asked questions, I try not to offer answers right away, but instead, explore the meaning behind the questions by asking questions in return. For instance, sometimes a colleague will tell me they want to do something and then ask, “What should I do?” Instead of answering the question right away, I’ll ask them the why behind their question. Then we clarify the why together, which is important, before moving on to the how.

You have served in multiple roles during your tenure at TE. How have those experiences prepared you for your role today?

I joined TE 11 years ago with a role in China Government Affairs. At that time, I didn’t think that I could be VP and general manager of TE China one day and head of Global Government Affairs and Corporate Responsibility the other day. The TE China general manager role was a unique opportunity, as I was able to learn from the China functional leaders and their breadth of knowledge and experience. When I look back at my time at TE, I am grateful for all of the opportunities offered to me. I have gradually expanded my scope of work, built an internal network and developed an enterprise-thinking mindset. I have learned that the definition of success can be very different based on your roles and responsibilities and your own experiences and perspectives.

What recent industry trend excites you and what is the potential application for TE?

I am excited about artificial intelligence (AI), not just the large language model we talk about a lot these days. When I think about AI, I think about the number of other applications that it plays a role in— which TE has already adopted many of. An example is machine learning. This fundamental component of AI enables systems to learn and improve from data without the need for explicit programming. Machine learning has already been adopted in some quality and digital control processes. Another related application is computer vision, which enables the machine to interpret and understand the visual information from an image. This can be used in quality control, as well as things like autonomous vehicles and facial recognition. I think AI is very much an efficiency tool. 

What career advancement advice would you offer to employees?

You must take ownership of your career. We each own our own development, which is beyond doing your job well and waiting for your manager to plan your career development. Additionally, asking for help does not equal failure. For some cultures, like East Asian culture, it can be difficult to do this because it can be seen as sharing your vulnerabilities with others. But it’s important to remember that you should never hesitate to reach out for help.