The industrial evolution of brand: Inside Schneider Electric’s shift

Gabriel: Hi, welcome to another episode of Brand Enabled. Today we’re going to be talking to Schneider Electric, a company that’s over 180 years old. We’ve talked to a lot of brands with a lot of history, but I think this is the oldest. It traces its roots back to 1836 when the Schneider brothers took over an iron foundry in Le Creusot, France, which is not to be confused with Le Creuset – if you’re a cooking aficionado.

Holly: My favorite cookware.

Gabriel: For those who don’t know, Schneider Electric created the miniature circuit breaker. It impacts all of our lives. Every time you turn… every time your lights don’t burn out, your circuit breaker trips instead – that safety net is part of Schneider’s legacy.

This is an organization that has always, for probably 150 years of its existence, just lived behind the walls in our homes and in companies. And today operates in 100 countries, plus/minus a few.

Monique: Over 100, yeah.

Gabriel: And is a company that everyone should know. And we’re going to be learning today about how to reposition, how to innovate – from a brand leader who’s been at GE, at ABB, who understands this world of industrials and driving change – so I’m so happy to welcome Monique Elliott from Schneider Electric.

Monique: Thank you so much. That was an amazing introduction to the company and to myself. I quite appreciate that, Gabe. And I’m so happy you mentioned our circuit breaker – the mini circuit breaker. We actually celebrated an anniversary. And if you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend… there is just one of the best recognition and celebration videos that we have out there that just honors the miniature circuit breaker, so you really should check it out.

Gabriel: Monique, let’s get kind of straight into it. Talk a little bit about your role at Schneider or anything else I might’ve kind of missed about the organization that you think is important to mention – kind of the evolution and the current state. I’m especially interested to have you touch on… like you came in within a business unit role initially and how that shift from BU now to kind of leading the corporate brand.

Monique: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that kind of sums up the experience at Schneider Electric. I think when I look further back, having 25 years of tenured experience within marketing, a lot of these… which I think historically we’ve categorized as industrial, I’d love to talk a little bit about how that has been shifting and evolving to talking about these companies more as technology companies… so maybe not in the same vein or context as we talk about high tech, but certainly an evolution of the way that we even position these heritage and these legacy companies.

So to answer your question directly, yes, I came in to do a BU marketing role. What we would call like a full funnel role – everything from strategic marketing to the mark-com aspects of it, communication, the digital marketing – and was recently… if you call three years out of 25 recent… took over the function that we have today, which is a very unique perimeter and one that you are starting to see a little bit more within organizations, and that is the integration of brand and communications. And that has really afforded us a lot of synergies and a lot of our ability to really evolve and transform the function by bringing these two capabilities together under one house.

Gabriel: So was it not like that before?

Monique: No, it was not. I think I would say it was a bit more traditional in that there was a brand perimeter or a brand capability, and then you had your traditional arms of communications from an internal and an external perspective. And it’s evolved over the last few years to this more integrated function, integrated organization. And I’ll tell you, it has really unlocked a lot of value in being able to have under one roof the expertise of what does the brand mean, how should the brand evolve, how do we want the brand to show up, with how do we then communicate that brand, both internally to our employees but also to all of the different external stakeholders we have as well.

Gabriel: It’s one of those it’s one of those interesting topics. I wonder if you think that this is one of those questions that has a definitive answer or does it fall into it depends? Or is it one of those kind of pendulum shift type discussions, you know, like you centralize and decentralized marketing, you just wait long enough and it’ll change. How do you think about this notion of integration of Brand and Comms? Is there a right answer or are there times where it makes sense to have them split up?

Monique: Yeah, I don’t think there’s a right answer. I fundamentally don’t believe that there is a right or wrong answer for this. I think it comes down to the maturity of the organization, what the strategy is, what is needed for the organization to deliver from a branding and a communication standpoint. And I also think it depends on the capabilities that one has in the organization and the desire to also potentially bring in some external talent.

One thing that I often tell people is an organization that has branding communications together does not mean that everyone in that organization is a brand and a communications expert in one person, right? Just like in any organization, there’s still different capabilities, there’s different expertise that happens within the team. And I have folks who are incredibly strong in brand strategy and portfolio management and people who are very, very strong in PR and analyst relations. So those folks do not all have the same skillset, but the fact that we’re together and you work on the overall strategy and communications and branding portfolio together is what brings that value.

But no, directly to answer your question, there’s no right or wrong answer.

Gabriel: As you came into the role, how would you have kind of rated yourself on each of those areas from an expertise standpoint?

Monique: That’s a very, very good question. I would say probably more expertise on communications, as it relates to the typical communication functions that reside under a marketing organization in a legacy, historical, heritage brand. So you have your internal comms, have your external comms.

The brand piece was one that we were also evolving at the same time. So that was a bit of a build for everybody because we were going through creating new types of brand capabilities. Brand storytelling, for example, was an area that we were really trying to strengthen and one that we were debating. You know, is there a place for a brand storytelling team in an energy technology company? So I would say it was it was a bit of a mixed bag

Gabriel: So, Monique, it’s a natural point of like, tell us about what that journey was like. You know, a huge engineering-led organization, when you start to have conversations about, “Okay, we’re going to build storytelling as a function.” Like, take us under the hood into how that decision was made and the journey from that first conversation to where you are now.

Holly: Particularly the objections that you got. How did you overcome those objections? Take us inside that, please.

Monique: I will tell you, and it was a journey. It was a journey. It actually was about an 18-month journey from when we first started having conversations of “Should we build up this capability that we’re starting to see in other places?”… whether it was a storytelling team, we heard a story lab, that was a concept that we started running across, and a lot of that came through the organizations and the networks that I had. And I was starting to talk to different people about how they were transforming their communications teams.

So it all started from an idea of “That’s interesting.” Other companies in different perimeters than ours were starting to have this, should we have it? And when we first started talking about it, it was often confused, we were conflating brand storytelling with thought leadership and we felt… well, we were sitting on such rich content that, to your point, gave the engineering expertise that we have and the knowledge that we have in the industry – how do we share this? And we wanted to share this with our customers. We want to share this and really establish a strong thought leadership pillar.

So we’re sitting on all this valuable content. And then comes the question, well, how do you communicate this content perhaps to an audience that isn’t as technical? And so how do you take this very rich, robust information and content and data and synthesize this down into something that’s more of a story or from a storytelling perspective? So we knew we were sitting on something valuable but we weren’t quite sure how to get that out to the different audiences.

So when you go through this process, we started looking at people who were more thought leadership type profiles. And so with that, you’re going to get more technical expertise. You’re going to get folks who are really, really rich in the industry. So that wasn’t quite the profile we were looking for.

Then we shifted with HR and they were wonderful partners in this process. And we said, no, we actually need… maybe it’s more journalistic type of skill set that we need. Maybe we need somebody who has more of a journalistic bend, but can understand this rich content and can help us translate that. So we kind of went down that route. But what we ended up getting there was more folks who were really strong in PR and had media connections, or maybe they were really good in writing press releases and that type of content. And that wasn’t it either.

So that took us better part of a year to finally figure out we weren’t looking for either one of those types of profiles. And that’s when we started looking at folks who were really strong in brand – brand strategy, brand articulation, the promise of a brand, the strength of a brand. And then once we unlocked that is when we thought, “Okay, I think now we’ve found the pocket of expertise and professionals that we were looking for.”

Holly: So you’re starting to sell this into stakeholders. Take us through some of the challenging conversations and how you overcame them.

Monique: I think some of the challenging conversations are always, “Well, what is this person going to do or what is this team going to do? How is it different from the other parts of the organization?” And then very, very quickly getting to proof points.

So we have a research part of the organization, our sustainability research institute, and this is the place where there is a lot of that rich content that’s being generated. And so starting to pair up the brand storytelling team with the Research Institute to be able to show proof points around, “Look, this content is really great and really important for folks who are highly technical in nature. We want to take that, we want to repackage it, we want to use it now in different audiences and for different stakeholders.” We did it very much by… and we’re continuing by the way, it’s, like I said, the journey is still ongoing… but being able to show those proof points and then once you have that, you can show how it is different from the other parts of the organization.

I’ll mention one other thing to it because it wasn’t just there. So for let me give you an example of consistency in executive positioning and being able to say… you know, it’s one thing to have a global and a corporate narrative but it’s another thing to be able to take that and abstract that down into, “Well, how should our senior spokespeople talk about this?” and making sure that there’s consistency there. That is the role of a good storyteller, right? I’m going to take the global messaging and this individual who sits in this part of the business, how do they tell that in a way that’s relevant and in their voice? So that’s also part of what that remit is.

Gabriel: And that’s both external and internal.

Monique: That’s actually a very good point. So how do you talk about your brand from an external perspective, but when you are also going through an evolution, and you’re… with any of the companies that you mentioned… trying to do a bit of reinvention, especially when you’re a heritage brand. You also have to communicate that to your employees.

Gabriel: I think you refer to that as laddering, right, Monique?

Monique: Yeah.

Gabriel: How do you do laddering well? And I’d love to connect to… an aspect of your background, which is like how you got into marketing.

You started by thinking you were going to go to education. And then, in college, you took a marketing class and realized you got there. And I was finding… it’s always really interesting and fascinating as we these conversations to understand the background, because I think there’s no other role where I think generalism is more important and where you can bring in other skill sets as well. So how was that? Can you kind of bring that intersection of the narrative and the laddering in, with your education background?

Monique: Yes, I’d be happy to. So I did. So I went to university, undergrad, with the expectation of education/humanities and ended up deciding to do a minor in business and marketing. And it was through that experience where I realized marketing and being able to tell stories and create value propositions and really have passion around solving people’s problems was actually where the ambition was. And so when I continued that, I actually, after school, went into more sales operations, commercial excellence types of roles. That was very much a core part of marketing, right? If you looked at kind of the wheel of marketing. And I loved it, I loved it. And it was very close to the customer. What I really loved about it was being able to be very, very close to the customer.

And so that naturally evolved into more traditional marketing. So I entered through kind of this education path. Going, “Alright, commercial excellence, sales, helping the sales people talk about what we’re selling, the products that we’re selling,” into, “Okay, I don’t want to just do that from a sales enablement standpoint, I want to be able to create those stories. I want to be able to market what we’re doing and to solve the customer problems.” So a bit of it I fell into, I guess is the way that I would say, because it wasn’t the intended outcome, but there were themes along the way.

And I think it was themes around natural curiosity, wanting to solve those customer problems, a level of creativity, and that communications piece kept coming back as well. Being able to really be able to tell those different stories, I think was a big undercurrent throughout the whole time.

Gabriel: Let’s talk a bit about then the role of brand within Schneider Electric. Again, when we talk about B2B tech, where brand isn’t the first thing that people wake up thinking about, I think one of the things I’ve always been quite impressed is how brand really does get a seat at the table in important decisions at Schneider.

But at the same time, I know one of the challenges is, how would you get 100,000 people to understand their role in being a part of the brand? Can you maybe start to talk about that journey inside, and kind of what it is today, and what kind of drives that success and what some of the challenges are still?

Monique: I would have to also kind of credit those who have come before me on building the brand through Schneider Electric. And I think this is one of the benefits of having a heritage brand. Because clearly there has been something very, very important to these companies for the brand to sustain for so long, right?

Now, I think it’s important to think about brand, in my context or in the B2B world that I live in, we always have to remind ourselves it’s not about a logo per se, it’s not about a tagline, it’s not about the look and feel. It’s the promise that you make to a customer and it’s the ethos. It’s the ethos of the company at the end of the day. And I find that when you explain it that way to folks, even people who are highly technical, they understand. They understand that’s what we’re talking about.

I think there’s a big difference in preserving the brand and having pride and passion in the brand. And then there’s the marketing activities that you do around that. And I think sometimes it could be a bit harder in B2B companies from a marketing standpoint. It’s not necessarily a consumer model. You have a very, very deep value chain there. You have end customers, you have suppliers, you have distributors , you have system integrators in there. So I often feel that sometimes marketing can be a bit more complex and harder for folks to understand in B2B. Brand, when you think about it in the context of it’s the promise you make and it’s the ethos of the company, people can get their minds around that. There’s pride in who you work for.

Gabriel: But what is it… what are the conditions within Schneider that mean that you get a seat at the table? That you get pulled in by other teams? Whether it’s HR working on new values work, or it’s sustainability team that’s pulling in the team where they don’t have… like the team has been able to establish kind of, I guess, a sense of influence where people want to have them in the room.

Monique: I think it’s because there is a high level of respect for the brand and for the impact that we have made. And so I think it’s also when you have recognition and when you have… when that is being validated, whether it’s through… some of the recognition we’ve received with the world’s most sustainable company with Corporate Knights or with Time Magazine or the recognition that we receive through our industry analysts, right? And how, what we’re doing from a technology perspective is being recognized and the brand is getting an uplift from that and a recognition from that. I think when you hit that mark, then others in the organization go, “Well, I need to make sure that I am protecting that, I’m respecting that, and I’m not doing anything that would damage the reputation that we’ve established.”

I think it might be different if one was with a brand or with a company that maybe hadn’t necessarily achieved that yet. But we find that there’s a tremendous amount of respect for the brand and the desire to want to take care of it.

Holly: It becomes a source of pride, right Monique? I mean, it’s something that you want to defend and protect and that’s when it probably becomes a lot more fun to talk about brand across the organization. Versus where we see in some companies where that role of brand ends up playing the cop role, right? Where they’re there to rein people in, put guardrails, let people know when they’re going too far. Instead, you’re talking about coming from a place of abundance where there’s pride, there’s pride of ownership and legacy to protect and advance.

Did you find that your audience was also giving you ever a sense for the kinds of stories or content that they needed? How did you listen to them and how did you tap into their point of view to know how to drive better into that agenda?

Monique: Absolutely, absolutely. And Holly, before I get there, I think it is important to mention one will always need that governance and that sense of consistency.

Holly: Yes, yes, to be fair.

Monique: One will always need that, to be fair, and especially in a very large enterprise. But I think the beauty of it, and to your point, where it’s fun, is where you have the balance of both, the value of both.

So to answer your question, was the audience asking for something different? I will tell you something that we did a couple years which was our Impact Maker campaign. And that was really working with our customers and, to your point, listening to our customers around being able to celebrate the amazing impact that our customers were doing in the areas of sustainability and efficiency. Now, yes, they are customers of Schneider and they are using a lot of our offers and our services and our products, but really hailing them as the Impact Maker was, I think, a beautiful way of being able to listen to our customers and respond to the way that they wanted to also be positioned. How they wanted their brands to be positioned in the market as well.

So that’s one way, right? That’s one way to do it. I think also… I go back to the thought leadership piece. So yes, companies, you know, manufacturers can sell product, they can sell offers, but being able to advise your customers and being able to provide them with information to help them with higher value order challenges from a thought leadership perspective was another way for us to be able to leverage the brand. And also be able to curate content and communications for them that they needed. That they were asking us for – “Tell us how to evolve in this market”, “We want to go down the path of digitalization. Tell us how to do that”, “How do we help with efficiency and sustainability?”

And that is a different conversation than going back just on answering questions for or providing products.

Gabriel: I’m going to touch on this impact campaign piece for a moment, because I think there might be some people listening who would love to be able to do more customer-oriented storytelling. Because there’s nothing better. And I’ve always found that Salesforce has been… like in the world of B2B is the gold standard in how to do that. Like you go and look at their ads, you know, it’s always the customer holding hands with Salesforce. I mean, they brand them, right? They’re called – in the same way that yours are the Impact Makers – they’re the Trailblazers.

If there’s someone listening to this who’s thinking, “I’d love to be able to shift our marketing to less talking about us and our benefits, to be able to put the customer at the centre of the storytelling,” any kind of advice? Do’s and don’ts of how you get started and some of the learnings maybe that you have. Or some of the preconditions that you need in order for this to work.

Monique: You know, the first thing that I would say is just ask. I mean, I think you’d be quite surprised, right? That there are… your customers out there are also looking for ways to build their brand presence and their brand awareness in a very authentic way that shows that they are contributing and solving a lot of the challenges that are out there. So I think the first thing I would say is, you know, if you’re thinking about it, and you want to have a more robust… whether it’s a customer stories program, sometimes they’re referred to as customer reference programs, and you want to incorporate, not the value that you’re bringing to your customer, but the value that your customer is bringing to their ecosystem and to their world through your support… It’s a one-step removed, but it’s a one-step removed to show the impact that is made. It’s like a ripple effect of impact that happens. I would just say, ask.

There’s customers who want to be able to tell those stories and perhaps they haven’t found the right outlet to do it. Now how you curate those right stories and how you find the right positioning for them, that does take work and you have to be very strategic around how you do that.

Gabriel: One of the things that I love about the way that you manage brand internally, I mean… firstly, just to finish that topic of consistency, what I’ve always found very interesting at Schneider as to why governance consistency works is because it’s a very kind of rules-following company. So I think when you think about governance, you could have three different organizations, similar characteristics, but the culture is such a key dependency for what kind of governance works. So Schneider is rule-based and everyone loves guidelines. I mean, I’d never seen so many guidelines in my life somewhere else. And in any other org you might go, “There’s too many guidelines, I’m just going to follow them.” but actually at Schneider, it works because of the culture. I don’t know it was different when you were at ABB or GE or other places, if you want to comment on that.

Monique: I would say I have had the luxury, the pleasure, or maybe even sometimes the headache of being in rules-based organizations. It’s quite consistent. I would say it’s very, very consistent. Look, it could be a function of being in technology companies where that’s more of that engineering kind of background. So yes, everyone does love a good guideline. It does help. It certainly does help. But I would say there’s quite a big difference. And I’ll say this kind of with any company, there’s a big difference between a guideline and a policy. There’s a big difference between a guideline and a standard. So I think it’s definitely culture-based is how I would answer that.

Gabriel: I think that’s a perfect kind of segue into one of the other things that I love, which is how you position the brand team, the brand experts internally, in many ways, not just from a title standpoint, but in how they act and operate as internal brand consultants. Can you talk a little bit about that strategy, that approach, kind of what and why it works?

Monique: Yeah, absolutely. I’ll talk about it in the context of the brand expertise that we have. It’s a very similar approach that we use with communications as well. It’s an organization that has a heavy amount of expertise that works with the businesses, works with the countries in order to help them basically execute on the deliverables and the strategy.

So the brand organization is a very, very lean team. But one of the beauties of it is that it works closely with the businesses on different types of strategic branding projects that, you know, one may look external to go do – with agencies and different types of research firms, which we still do as well – but starting with the brand team first to be able to determine is this something that we can help support inside the team? And the benefit of that is because this team sits at the global level and so it can see across the group. So what may be starting to percolate in one part of the organization, and they see that something else is starting to happen over here, to be able to connect those dots. It’s the connection.

I have it in organizations where this team didn’t exist, and what you have is you have different parts of marketing in the organization trying to start up different projects, working with external agencies, and sometimes the dots don’t get connected, and you start to go kind of sideways on things. So this team really helps connect, potentially, the different initiatives that are going on.

The other thing that’s really great about this team, if I take it more from a talent development perspective, is there are very few places in any organization where you have that ability to interact with different segments, with different BU’s, with different countries, with different product lines. And so as a place where you can really learn and you can really understand the breadth of the portfolio, this is a great place for people. And then from here, you can go deep into some of the other places.

Gabriel: I think that talent development piece is huge, and doesn’t happen other places. That exposure that you give, where they get to see and interact with every business unit that gives them this strength of perspective, that then enables them to move into other roles across the business, which is pretty rare when you think about other brand teams. You know we were talking about a person who we know who was part of the brand team and then moved into executive thought leadership. And, you know, in a lot of other organizations, kind of your people who were in a big B brand role end up being a little bit constrained.

Monique: It’s great point. You mentioned that progression which was a lovely case study, an example, going from brand to executive communications. We have someone on the team who went from brand to M&A because they were working on really interesting branding projects and understood that. Or maybe you go from brand and you go into marketing in one of the divisions, right? And then now you’re a brand expert working on marketing initiatives. So it is something quite unique, I didn’t have it in some of my previous places. I will say it existed at GE, and I saw the value of that in an enterprise which was very, very large.

Holly: Monique, I’m wondering what influence or support AI might be providing in that sense because it really is allowing mastery to happen faster, right? I mean, it’s enabling us to kind of be a little bit more dexterous in how we take on multiple roles. As a technology company, how is Schneider thinking about AI and leveraging it from a marketing perspective?

Monique: Absolutely. Look, I think it’s probably safe to say that we are somewhat in the same level of maturity for a lot of folks. I was recently at a marketing conference, a brand conference, and everyone with us is… still very much, everyone’s talking about the same. And we’re all somewhat in the same place. Look, I would say my philosophy on it and the way that we are trying to inject and use more AI into the day to day is that you have to find the places where it works and the places that can really make you a better marketer and a better brand person.

So I’ll give you a few examples. So within our analyst relations group, we have a lot… we get a lot of reports, right? A lot of reports that are talking about our technology, talking about the evolution of our technology, and to be able to synthesize through all of that is very, very difficult. And trying to understand how the brand is showing up in all of the different types of firms. And so the team there has truly embraced AI to be able to understand how the brand is showing up within our analyst relations community. Really synthesize that down into something that’s consumable, that then we can share back into the organization and say, “Hey, when you look at this product line in this market, this is the way that they’re talking about us and how it’s evolving.”

So I think it’s helping us not just from a productivity standpoint, but also really being able to receive and use the information faster. And also, I think, with a different lens of expertise on that as well. So it’s good. But I will say it’s a journey.

Holly: Certainly

Monique: It is. And I think when we actually start talking about it, not as an add-on or as a bolt-on, is when you know that maybe perhaps you’ve arrived. Like I remember, and this will date all of us, but it was always, “So tell me what you’re doing with digital marketing.” Nobody does that anymore. Like, when was the last time you did a digital marketing podcast? Like you just don’t really anymore because everything is digital, right? So that’s the moment that I’m waiting for.

Holly: So true. Yeah. Actually, that was really kind of a fun moment, darn memory lane. And for any of us who are finding ourselves overwhelmed by this, just remember, we’ve been through this cycle before.

Monique: Yeah, 100%.

Gabriel: I’m going to connect the dot here between the notion of journey and initiatives that need to be connected, not as bolt-ons, which is related to the topic of heritage. And more specifically, how we use brand anniversaries or “brandiveraries”, if we use a composite word to bring that. And Schneider’s had lot of opportunities to celebrate milestones because you’re coming up on 190 years. And Holly and I always think about, “Oh God, that’s a subtopic that we haven’t covered in any conversations yet.” So when you think about how you use these types of milestones as a way to drive outcomes…You know, at one end of the spectrum is, “Great, we’re just going to create an anniversary logo. Wonderful.” And obviously, the other end of the spectrum is then, how do you do anniversaries really well? What are some of the do’s and don’ts? What have you learned? What’s your approach?

Monique: So, look, I love good celebration. I think that as people, and with everything that’s going on around us, taking a moment to celebrate something is something that we all need. I think the.. and to your point, I have been with companies that have very, very long celebration timelines, right? When you’ve been with companies that have the heritage and the length of tenure as the ones that I have, I think you can use them in a couple different ways.

One is if you are a company that’s celebrating 190 years, 150 years, 100 years, not only are you a company that has a long history, but that means that you are a company that’s been able to evolve and transform and recreate and have new chapters along your way. One of my favorite things to do… you want to talk about being a brand nerd, Holly… one of my favorite things to do is to look at the evolution of logos with companies. Those are chapters and they’re beautiful chapters to see that the way that they’ve evolved and in some cases they’ve evolved based on different industries that they’ve entered or different companies that they’ve acquired, right? Or different countries that they have, you know, established in and each of that is a chapter.

So I like to think of the anniversaries as this is a moment to talk about what comes next, not necessarily just a moment to talk about what’s already happened. And so I think maybe for me the tipping point there or the nuance is: yes, let’s definitely celebrate what we’ve done and how far we’ve come, but let’s celebrate what we’re about to do because we know we’re going to turn that page, and we know there’s going to be a next chapter because we’ve done it for the last 190 years. And so I think there’s a future-facing thing with birthdays.

Holly: I love that Monique and without being too provocative what occurs to me now is that a celebration that’s just entirely backward-looking is actually a funeral.

Monique: Oh, yeah.

Holly: I mean, so, you know, really, when you think about it at a birthday… even when someone hits a milestone, 70, let’s say… we don’t wax on necessarily about everything that they’ve done without talking about what she’s still doing today and what she’s got planned tomorrow. She’s still on the tennis court. She’s still… Right? And so I think that’s a really good rule of thumb – when we stop talking about the future it means that, you know, we’ve stopped breathing. So I think that’s a really good rule of thumb.

What’s your greatest aspiration as you kind of think about what’s coming in the future? What’s a big wish on Monique’s list for the brand?

Monique: For the brand, look, we are at such a great inflection point. We are celebrating the 190 years. We’re also talking about the company and our strength as an energy technology partner. And that is very exciting. And being able to talk about how we have been at this convergence of automation and electrification and digital intelligence and all of these perimeters that are important in solving the problems of the customers that we have today.

My aspiration, my next big milestone, is I would love to be able to celebrate 290 years. I won’t be here for it, but this is what I’m building. This is what I’m trying to build forward. Maybe to answer it also from a people perspective, and just the brand and the strength of the brand and the talent that we’ve built, my aspiration is that I want to see us be even more of a lever for the organization. And talk about that pride that we have in that seat at the table. I want to see the brand folks and the communications folks on the team proliferate into all parts of the organization. And for people to say, “I really need someone with brand expertise on my team because we’re going to launch this new product and I need a brand person here to help me with how we’re going to do this.” That to me is a big win.

Gabriel: Monique, can you zoom out even further just for a moment to help us think through this through the lens of what it means for, not even consumers, but as humans… like, how does the energy tech story connect to some of the issues facing society? How do they touch us as individuals, whether kind of globally or locally? Things that we might not be thinking about?

Monique: Yeah, look, we like to say that, you know, people matter, the planet matters, technology matters, energy matters. Energy drives all of this. And so energy is what… and this is what I love about the story and the narrative of energy and energy technology, because energy can be defined in lots of different ways. So there’s the energy when we think about resources, and energy management, and you know, we’re talking about the circuit breaker, and how do you manage your energy in your home or your energy in your business. There’s the energy of people, right? The energy that you bring to the table, the energy that you have in your personal life and in your professional life. So there’s so many different levels to energy and I think it’s a very, very relevant topic for anyone today, whether you’re in the industry that I’m in or you’re in other industries. And you couple that with technology and you couple that with innovation and the power of having energy and technology together, I think, is an incredibly… it’s a winning formula, it’s a winning equation.

And even the term technology, we kind of started at the beginning – Are you an industrial company, are you a manufacturing company, are you a technology company? If you think about technology in its purest form, most companies can say that they have a technology heritage and a technology backbone. Right? Everything that we’re doing. And so I think it’s an incredibly relevant place to be, and I think that we have every right to play in that space.

Gabriel: And I wonder how much of it’s connected, then going back to the AI discussion, the adoption of AI is then driving this explosion in the number of data centers, which is driving then this explosion in the need for energy. There was a comment by Sam Altman the other day that you know, they’re going to need… the grid is going to need the capacity of you know, the whole of Europe… I’m getting the data wrong, but don’t let the facts get in the way of the story.

Is that a big element then that Schneider is part of helping to solve and be a part of those conversations?

Monique: Well, certainly we have a presence in the data center space and the energy space around that. I would say that as different… as we advance as a society and a civilization, where there’s going to be a need for energy and where there’s going to be a need for capacity, efficiency, sustainability… resilience is another key area… companies like Schneider Electric are there to help tackle some of those challenges that we’re facing into. It’s another phase, right? It’s another part of the evolution, I think, as people.

Gabriel: Monique, we’d love to ask a bunch more questions, but we know you have to jump. So we’re just going to ask kind of one final question, which is easy to answer. You talked about talent management. Can you share with us like one of your favorite or best interview questions that you use to kind of evaluate talent?

Monique: Oh, okay, so a question that I would say, not one that I’ve been asked?

Gabriel: I mean, you can go both if you want. You can pick one. Either.

Monique: You know, one of my favorite questions is full stop, whether it’s something that I’ve asked someone or whether it’s one that I’ve had before, “If you weren’t doing what you’re doing right now, what would you be doing?” I love it too, because it’s…

Gabriel: And what would you be doing?

Monique: You know what I would be doing? Traveling. I’m a traveler. I’d be traveling. I would have figured out some way to do something that I was able to earn a living and still travel. And I guess one could say I do that because I travel all the time and earn a living, but in quite a different way. But it’s a great question because it gives you an insight into the passion that people have and where people get their energy.

So maybe we’ll end it on the energy note, but it’s a good question.

Gabriel: That’s a wonderful question. Monique, thank you so much. It’s been a wonderful conversation.

Monique: Thank you so much for having me. I really, really had a good time. I’d be happy to come back anytime, Holly and Gabe.

Holly: Thank you, thank you.

Gabriel: Careful, careful.

Holly: We’ll put you on the roster for next year.

Monique: Better than say next week.

Holly: We know you have a few things to accomplish between now and then.

Gabriel: Yeah, we’ll let you get through Thanksgiving.

Monique: Thank you. I appreciate that.

Holly: Thank you so much. This was an awesome conversation.