Preparing for the future

Schneider Electric, at 188 years old, continues to evolve and prepare for the future. It is looking at its clients in Southeast Asia anew to forge forward as it tackles the five megatrends that will drive the next frontier of market growth, according to Chris Leong, chief marketing officer of Schneider Electric (SE).

SE is a French multinational corporation that specializes in digital automation and energy management. It is a Fortune Global 500 company, publicly traded on the Euronext Exchange, and is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index.

SE’s purpose is to create impact by empowering all to make the most of our energy and resources, bridging progress and sustainability. It is a global industrial technology leader bringing world-leading expertise in electrification, automation, and digitization to smart industries, resilient infrastructure, future-proof data centers, intelligent buildings, and intuitive homes.

It provides integrated end-to-end lifecycle AI-enabled industrial Internet of Things solutions with connected products, automation, software, and services, delivering digital twins to enable profitable growth for its customers.

Chris, who is based in Hong Kong, is visiting the Philippines for the first time as SE sees our country as an important part of Southeast Asia, an emerging market that is developing and posting a lot of growth economically and socially, and is growing in terms of jobs, wealth, education, and the advancement of quality of life.

For SE, she points out, the company has always viewed the world as constantly changing and thus now sees five megatrends that will guide the company in meeting the needs of its clients.

These five megatrends, Chris cited, are:

Energy transition, which involves the expansion of demand, combined with a need to decarbonize. Technologies, she pointed out, already exist to make companies energy resilient and allow them to achieve net zero. At present, 70 percent of carbon dioxide emissions can already be removed using existing technologies.

Digitization and artificial intelligence. The evolution of large language models and AI has accelerated market growth, while the requirement for “compute” has increased dramatically and requires power, cooling, and more data centers, which will drive more usage of structured data, applications, and connected products. All of these are part of SE’s broad offer, enabling it to capitalize on this trend. With the growth of AI, power demand is projected to increase by up to 20 gigawatts.

Evolution of wealth. Increased electrification and data provide opportunities in both mature and emerging economies, allowing SE to position itself to benefit from an infrastructure refresh in mature economies and new construction in emerging economies.

Climate change. A decade of climate change will require imperative measures ahead. Our generation and technology need to help resolve this challenge, Chris emphasized.

A new global equilibrium. With evolving horizons, a change is seen occurring in the global landscape. Again, SE is well positioned for the shift in paradigm driven by supply chain evolutions that will drive needs for more automation and electrification, which is estimated to require investments of up to $516 billion.

SE’s businesses include energy management, with products, systems, services, and software that allow homes, buildings, data centers, industries, and infrastructures to use energy safely, reliably, efficiently, and sustainably, including building management and grid automation software and services, and medium- and low-voltage electrical equipment.

Additionally, SE’s energy management includes sustainability, electrification, automation, cybersecurity and consulting, microgrid solutions, and electric vehicle charging stations.

Its industrial automation business provides solutions for the automation and control of machines, plants, and processes, including variable speed drives, motion systems, control and signaling; control architectures for discrete and process industries, including safety systems and services for digital transformation, cybersecurity, and project delivery.

Its agnostic software portfolio and partnerships with world-leading independent software companies bring energy and automation digitalization, empowering all users with a seamless and collaborative data flow across the entire lifecycle, from design and build to operation and maintenance.

In terms of sustainability, Chris said that SE has helped its customers save and avoid over 500 million tons of CO2 emissions since 2018, and has provided over 46 million people with access to clean and reliable electricity since 2009.

Gender equality

It was refreshing to be given the opportunity to interview a global female C-suite leader on the heels of a recent census by the Philippine Business Coalition for Women Empowerment that showed Filipino female executives still struggling to crack that elusive glass ceiling.

Chris Leong, who is Malaysian, is clearly a driven leader with extensive experience across continents and disciplines, including organizational and digital transformation, business strategies, sales, and marketing, across B2C and B2B industries.

Chris started with Schneider Electric in January 2012, and in March 2015, she was appointed as chief marketing officer, part of the SE Executive Committee Leadership Team. She is responsible for making marketing a competitive advantage for the company – building a strong purpose-led brand and leveraging digital to increase customer intimacy and drive business growth.

Previously, Chris led Nokia’s Greater China, Korea, and Japan region. During her six-and-a-half-year tenure at Nokia, Chris also held various global roles including senior vice president of global marketing, where she was responsible for Nokia’s Go-To-Market strategy, brand, and marketing with a $1 billion investment across 80 markets.

Prior to joining Nokia, Chris held various senior management roles in marketing communications firms, including WPP agencies Bates Asia (Hong Kong and Singapore), Ogilvy Europe (London, UK), and Grey Global Group (Singapore and Malaysia), working with global brand leaders such as P&G, Ford, HSBC, Heineken and various telecommunication brands.

Despite her high-powered career, the 56-year-old executive is also a mother to two collegiate boys. She also, interestingly, has an affinity with Filipinos, with her Filipina housekeeper, whom she treasures as her support system and who was especially concerned about her current trip here due to a typhoon.