Jan Griffiths sits down with Ganesh Iyer, CEO of NIO U.S., straight off the stage at Reuters Events: Automotive USA 2026 in Detroit. Ganesh worked directly with Elon Musk at Tesla and now leads NIO in the U.S. He believes every person is a leader, and that his job is to work for his team and clear the path.
Ganesh explains why process should never become the product and why your customer doesn’t care about your balanced scorecard. He also shares how NIO measures every employee, from the chairman to the receptionist, on Honesty, Vision, Care, and Action. Then he gets to the heart of China speed: fast decisions, shortest-path communication, and the courage to act on what you know today without letting the fear of the unknown run the business.
If you lead in a legacy automotive organization, this conversation is a mirror. Let’s go get it done.
Episode Highlights
00:00 Introduction
01:16 A different lens on problem-solving
02:10 The car is now a physical AI
02:41 Every person is a leader
04:53 Process should never become the product
06:43 It’s how you get there
08:38 Your customer doesn’t care about your balanced scorecard
09:47 Stop reinventing the wheel
12:03 Standardize the battery pack
13:04 What’s behind China speed
15:13 Speed and scale
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The Automotive Leaders Podcast is hosted by Jan Griffiths, the champion for culture change in the automotive industry. From a farm in Wales to the C-suite of a $3 billion Tier-1 supplier, Jan built her career inside this industry. Now she's out to transform it.
Her argument is blunt. The pressure on this industry isn't letting up. The survivors will be the ones who reinvent how they work. Speed wins. Everyone else gets left behind.
Every episode, Jan sits down with the leaders driving that change. Real conversations about tariffs, supply chain shocks, EV uncertainty, AI, and the shift from command-and-control to authentic, human-centered leadership.
#AutomotiveLeadership #ChinaSpeed #NIO #AuthenticLeadership #AutomotiveIndustry
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