Tom Millas, VP, Brand & Communications, North America at Schneider Electric

Welcome to the podcast Above the Cloud: Stories from the Boardroom. In every episode, we interview business leaders who are navigating the complex world of B2B marketing. Whether you're trying to grow revenue, swoop into a new market, or launch new products, we promise you've landed in the right spot. And now, your host, Richard Bird. >> All right, on today's episode of Above the Cloud Stories from the Boardroom, we have Tom Milis. Tom is the VP of brand and communication at Schneider Electric. Welcome to the show, Tom.

Thank you so much for having me, Richard. Great to be here. >> Yeah. Well, uh we're really excited to have you on. Schneider is one of those companies that uh you I've always respected and you guys are um just such a massive company and you do so many things. So, I'll be really curious to to hear hear what you got to say about the company and your background and how you got to where you are uh today. But one thing that we do is a tradition here on the show before we jump into the the hard-hitting questions.

We have the the toughest question we'll ask all show and that is if Schneider Electric were a bird, what can a bird would Schneider Electric be? >> I would describe it. I'm going to go with a 2can for this one and I thought about it a bit and I think it's because uh a couple things. One is Schneider as a company and how I I believe in Schneider it is an impact company and a sustainability company at its core and toucans also are very associated with the rainforest area that is also associated with sustainability but more on personalitywise uh toucans although I don't have much experience with them myself um they are highly social uh birds and are very much uh a a pack as in they they tend to be impacts is my understanding and I think Schneider as as company and I've learned working in Schneider and being fortunate to be here.

I've learned that that the relationships matter and being social and working with others and collaborating is one of I think the the greatest parts of being in this company. And so I think Toucan's going to be the one that the one that I go and that's >> I love it. Well, uh, those are pretty cool looking birds. And >> that's right. >> If if nothing else, you got a a colorful beak. So, >> that's right. >> I love it. That's great. Well, I've known you for a few years now, but but for our audience, maybe maybe tell a little bit about Schneider Electric that people are not that familiar with him or maybe some things that they might not know about Schneider Electric and then maybe walk us through your career and and how you wound up there.

You know what I really have been always impressed with for Schneider is the ability to connect the outcome of what the energy and automation industries and industrial sectors are driving with core areas of of what I would call transformation in in the world around us. So what I mean by that is when you look at sustainability, efficiency, and you look at the the concept of bringing digitalization and electrification together to be sustainable, that's really what what Schneider does. So rather than look at the company as a company that makes a bunch of different products, which of course Shider does like many others, it is really a company that has a mission to be the partner for sustainability and efficiency leveraging the entire portfolio of the company.

So whether that's hardware, software, solutions, different layers within that and for all different types of industries, right? The name is Schneider Electric, but the industry served by Schneider is really pretty amazing. And so when I joined the company in my career, there were just so many amazing pieces to it that I've learned or or I've gotten to know over time. For example, Schneider does a significant amount of work and has for a long time in the data center space. a lot of the e electrical infrastructure surrounding it, the digitalization and the electrification of the different power supplies and also things like cooling for example of data centers.

A lot of the discussion today in the world is around the AI uh growth and the AI race particularly in the US and the discussion has largely been around the energy needed for it. So Schneider is a company that that is often thought of in that regard, but the relevance of data centers in terms of how they connect to AI growth, I would argue has never been greater. And so that's just one little area of what what Schneider does and what Schneider is capable of doing that made me really excited to to join the company.

And and when I joined uh Schneider was uh another chapter in my career like we all have. I was very fortunate in uh in as you mentioned Richard, we we've known each other for a while. I started my career way back uh in crisis and public relations was really what I started in. And I came out of school and primarily worked for for GE at the time, General Electric, which at the time was a true conglomerate in every sort of a word. Yeah. and was uh everything from making dishwashers to nuclear reactors. And I started in the nuclear reactor division, the nuclear energy business.

>> And so I was really thrown into a world in which as someone I went to school for public relations, international relations. I was I'm not a scientist or an engineer. Um and I had to really learn the the ins and outs of that. So I'm very proud that I can still tell you how a nuclear reactor works. um whether it's a pressurized water reactor, a boiling water reactor, small modular reactor, I still remember it and uh and that was really my first learning of needing to become a domain expert in certain areas to then apply what I do in my role of leading communications and brand.

And so over the years I was extremely fortunate to have a number of roles. There were a number of leaders in GE who took a chance on me and that is not lost on me. I'm privileged to be in a position today where I can support team members and bring them along as well and hopefully give them great careers. But I was able to take on a variety of roles throughout communications and marketing. You know these are this was a time when we launched the first social media channels for parts of GE, right? We'd never done things like Twitter at the time.

Uh Facebook was still relatively new. There were lots of platforms that don't exist anymore to you know RIP things like Vine and uh on Periscope and I don't know we can all name the ones that that came and went or were acquired or merged or all that stuff right and so there really some formative times for me in in early in my career to build out what now I know is a a more well-rounded communications uh career. The other part of my career that was very important to me was being able to do a a job that was not fixated on one geography.

Um I was always uh brought up to appreciate the world and different cultures and is a big part of of who I am. And so I wanted jobs and actively took jobs to see the world and so I was very fortunate. I think latest is I've been to over 90 countries most of which are for work. Wow. >> Um some of which I visited a lot. some of them only once or twice, but it's it it gives you a perspective on the world which has always carried with me and why I continue to work in and around the energy industry is because being someone who is American myself, we often do take energy for granted in this country.

And we often just wake up and assume that the lights will turn on and everything's reliable and there won't be brownouts or blackouts and, you know, our energy bill will go up and down and we don't like it either way, right? uh we we don't want to pay for energy but we do there are parts of the world where people don't have that and we have to put all that in perspective and give the context of what we're trying to solve for throughout the world and that's why I think communications has become a growing necessity for the energy industry to better explain what the industry does but also know that there's a lot of work to still do and it really does regionalize and localize in many different ways so what is applicable for the US is not applicable for other parts of the world and vice versa.

The priorities will shift and change. And so over the years as I took on more roles, I was able to start leading departments and teams to help address that. I spent a number of years uh supporting different mergers and acquisitions which was a lot of work in the brand space as well as doing work in areas like distributed power uh areas that were were sort of qualified as emergency power generation. uh I spent a a number of years doing instrumentation, sensors, this sort of area that isn't talked about as much, but all the all the connection points as the internet of things kind of took off to make sure that the energy industry becomes digitized.

And so here we are, you know, now in the mid 2020s where no one's questioning that energy has been transforming, but the rate at which it transforms varies across the world. And in my role at Schneider Electric, uh, I focus on the North America region. We we focus on brand and communications across North America, which is a fascinating time to be in this region. I think I say that every year, but it still is a fascinating time to be in it. uh and and my background is uh sometimes a little bit more diversified in energy in the sense that I've been fortunate to start in power generation and then I spent a number of years in other aspects of energy like transmission distribution but then moved into the oil and gas space and the broader energy and chemicals markets uh which is which is where I spent a number of years particularly in in the city of Houston working for Baker Hughes which is an industrial energy technology company but has a long history in things like oil field services and rotating equipment.

And so I I bring all that perspective in the sense that as we now look at the next transformation of energy, right? Everyone was talking, what was it, Richard, you done this morning, five years ago, everyone was talking about net zero equipments for 2050, right? That was like the thing that that everyone talked about. They're still there, right? A lot. It's not like we we've we've gone away from that, but we all have started asking ourselves, okay, what do we do in the meantime, right? like it's such a long goal that you know a former business leader that I worked with always used to sort of joke he's like you know all the people who are on stages at events saying we're going to be net zero by 2050 will either be retired or dead by 2050 and so yeah >> you know do they do they really have any skin in the game like that and it's a very good question it's like who are the people actually who need to drive that and it's largely the people who are only 10 maybe 20 years in their career who have a long runway and are actually going to be responsible for making that happen.

And so that was part of the reason why in my career I also decided to to take my next chapter and join Schneider because the ability to decarbonize, the ability to electrify has moved from uh in some places a nice to have to a need to have and in other cases from a need to have to a mustave in different areas. So it's just a really fascinating time and a privilege to be a part of that that just stays in my career. Man, that uh that's a great way to sum it sum up your your career and you touched on a lot of things there that I want to maybe circle back on.

First off, Vine. How awesome was Vine? That was a great >> It was a great It was a great content. It was a great content. What You know what's what's even funnier now, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who's seen this, is that popular Vine clips have reappeared on TikTok as like a blast from the past. Like it's like a nostalgic thing. You know, people have recorded these minds either before they were taken down or or otherwise deleted and they're almost like having a second life. It's almost like watching, you know, some TV show from the 80s that's on at the morning.

It's it's like a really interesting interesting model. This thing, right? When you put something on the internet, it never really goes away. Like it's present. >> Yeah. It's like Yeah, it is warm. It's like watching Nick at night. It's like see Exactly. Exactly. I love it. But you know, one of the things, you know, our podcast focus exclusively on, you know, people that are in uh technical complex B2B environments and uh you know, certainly, you know, your career has always touched on that when you're talking about working in the nuclear energy space.

It's amazing because um you you really do have to uh you have to get in there and understand this technology and can be very challenging for somebody who was not you know educated and we're not engineers and we didn't go through engineering school and uh you know many people who are good at communications or didn't do so well in physics and uh chemistry and and all those things. So talk talk to me a little bit about that. Why uh how how do you because I think that is one of the things when I first met you I assumed that you were an engineer >> and because you knew you knew the technology so well.

>> It's a compliment for sure. Thank you. I never pretend to be one but I I maybe can pass as one. I don't know. I don't know what the right way to say it is. you know, I discovered actually if we go all the way back to my high school days, um I was struggling with what I wanted to do for a career, especially as sort of a let's call junior, you know, junior in high school, so around 16 years old or so. And the aha moment for me came actually when I was in advanced placement biology, AP bio, and I was presenting on something that I was doing and I think I got all the science parts wrong.

uh like I just I didn't I didn't do it right. Whatever it was and my uh professor I remember or or teacher I should say her name was Dr. Gregory I remember I saw her years later she came up to me after and it was sort of like towards the end of the year and you know I think I ended up getting a maybe a C+ or a B minus or something in the class and she said you know Tom you're really bad at bio and I was like that's thanks. I'm like, "That's great." But she said, "You're really good at speaking and you're really good at presenting and you're really good at writing." And she said, "I would be remiss to tell you that you should think about a career in communications." And I give her a lot of credit for for telling me that because that actually started a sort of spark in me to say, "Okay, how do I do something with this?" Because while but it goes back to I was interested in science, I wasn't very good at it.

And probably because I I don't know, I just didn't have the patience for it. I'm still very much a person who works in gray space. Black and white kind of isn't my thing all the time. I can work in it, but naturally I I tend to like gray space. So, you know, getting to know complex technical topics is not easy, but it is something that is needed because the only way that as marketers and communicators and brand leaders, we can hope to accurately understand what a company is really innovating on and what it should be known for and what its value proposition is.

You have to look of course externally at what the market demands and what customers are, but also what makes you different. And a lot of what makes you different is the people and the stuff that you innovate on. And that can be either a physical product that's manufactured. It could be a piece of software. It could be a service. Uh right when I worked at Baker Hughes and Baker Hughes is a massive services arm for different areas of of oil and gas and broader energy. And so I think it's on us as people who work in this industry of of marketing, branding, uh, executive leadership to take the time to understand what it is we actually sell.

And so I've been fortunate, you know, even at at Schneider Electric, right, I've been fortunate to be able to go already into several of our factories and really understand what we do there and how do we make it and what is what is it what does it matter to the customer, right? It sounds kind of like an obvious question, but there are too many people in our field, I feel, that that don't take the responsibility of saying, "I need to understand what we actually sell. Not just know the best marketing tactics or the best brand strategy, but actually know what it is we make, how it impacts our customers, and how it drives an outcome to them." And so, I do think it is the responsibility of of everyone to do that.

You know, I I always go back to another aha moment when I got early in my uh career, actually still in school. I I interned at PepsiCo and I lived in Dallas, the Dallas area for a summer and at the time PepsiCo had a I believe it was a requirement if I remember correctly where every employee had to do a ride along with a PepsiCo employee who worked on the front line. And it was amazing because you could really understand what someone went through who was for example a delivery driver for Chamber the supermarket right which was which was a major customer.

So that was to like that was my way of understanding that was my technical download like wow it is very difficult to understand how do you do inventory how do you bring all this stuff you got to hit 10 grocery stores in one day you know for someone who's in marketing or communications or branding like that's not always what we know every day but it was really fascinating and I I try at least to continue that in my career. Well, one of the things you talked about there, Tom, that I would thought also was interesting was you're talking about the different you can't paint the globe the same way.

And some energy sources are more important in other areas and uh of the world than they are in others. So I was at a conference at the University of Houston a couple of weeks ago at the carbon management institute and they were talking about uh how in some parts of the world a lot of third world countries the just the the fuel that they use for cooking can be very bad for the environment and bad for the people who live there. And if they switch from kerosene or you know animal dung sometimes to natural gas that would really improve their their lifespan and it would be a lot better for the environment than the sources they're currently using.

So it really was uh eye openening to me. I have been exposed to a lot of things in energy world but I didn't realize that that that source uh was was so bad you know for the environment. It is a it is a really sometimes sobering notion of how different the needs are for different parts of the world. And going back to where we talked a little bit earlier, I've been fortunate enough to see a lot of the world with with energy. And it is such a stark contrast within different countries, within different regions, but even within the US, I would argue there are are very big changes, right?

I mean, the the the variance in weather, temperature, humidity, heat, uh you know, the the way in which cities are built very different in places like the northeast verse parts of the south versus parts of the west coast or the or the mountain ranges and things like that. And so we know a few things to be true, right? We know that generally speaking, electrification is a amazing path to sustainability. And we know that also the ability to measure everything from emissions to efficiency also is a path towards ultimately decarbonization.

And there's a an interesting mix, you know, it's been around for a few years now. Many of us talked about it. The concept of the energy trillemma has been around now for a while and we all know these industry terms come and go. Some of them stay for a while. Some of them morph, some of them are are replaced. But I particularly liked when that when that one started becoming a more of a normal vernacular because you think about those legs of of the energy trilmma and affordability is a big one, right? And sustainability is another big one, but also the resiliency and reliability of energy.

sometimes sometimes called energy security. Of course, it depends on the context >> is a really important one and it goes back to cultural norms, right? If you look at the US, most of us in the US are unwilling to sacrifice convenience for something that is better for either affordability or sustainability or something else, right? Where you look at other parts of the world and that's not the case. And so we have to balance the right way and we have to you know share our part of our our purpose is we make we say we make the most of our customers energy and resources make the most of it.

So what does the most mean right the most can mean reduce the amount of waste for energy. It can mean be the most efficient. It can it can mean be the most sustainable. It really depends on what the need is. And so it is not a a uh at least to use the American term it's not a peanut butter approach of everything we have to do. We have to think about it in different ways and and in some of the parts of the world, you're right. I mean, moving from coal to gas, for example, or moving from some other form of of fuel that maybe as basic to your point as a cooking fuel, you know, in some parts of the world would be a step.

other places the leap to a fully renewable system may make the most sense, but we have to make sure we balance the the needs of what I truly believe is a modern society which balances everything from convenience to security to affordability with sustainability as an underpinning of all of it and also an outcome of all of it. And I think what's what's exciting about the industry right now is is there is less and less I would say justification for thinking through sustainability as a requirement and a need and a competitive advantage.

>> Yeah. >> To drive growth. It took us a while to get there. We're and again we're never perfect, right? We have to admit that. But if I go back 10 years in my career, 15 years in my career, right, I remember the the the big topic was we had the the production tax credit, the PTC for when for example in the Obama administration, which then lasted and kind of came faltered and came back and the like a lot of uh you know bills it had its its day etc. And there was so much discussion at the time of all this and crew member of is wind really going to take off?

What's the deal with solar? How do we integrate it? And then you you look now at the US and you know the state with the most wind energy is Texas and >> that has been the case now for a while. Uh so it is it is interesting to understand the short-term needs and the ability to move from one fuel source to another for the ultimate goal of sustainability in the sense of decarbonization but also sustainability in the sense of reducing the amount of waste in your system. And so that can mean a different form of energy for certain parts of the world, certain parts of end users in certain industries.

>> Yeah, absolutely. And I think with these data centers coming on, you touched on that earlier, those are real uh require a lot of energy. And I think we're going to need a we're going to need all of it. I think we're going to need it from wind. We're going to need it from solar. We're going to need it from from natural gas. and and your old friends in the nuclear energy as well. >> That was that was one that uh for those of us who work in the nuclear industry, it is fascinating to see and I can't say I work directly in in nuclear energy right now, but uh of course it is an industry that's seen like many some wild swings in public perception over the years and the the understanding of it has gotten greater over the years which is a good thing.

>> Yeah. But also the evolution of the technology is one that shouldn't be taken for granted either because the concept of a small modular reactor for example that's just one of of course a lot of technologies right now was really kind of a pipe dream for a while and not just necessarily with the technology but the cost profile of it just the the amount of capital expenditure or otherwise capital had to be put up was sort of like unheard of and then there just wasn't understanding of it and So we have to remember that a lot of times these industries have to play the long game of thinking through where where energy is going to move to and what sources are most valuable and so it is uh I will say I'm always a little bit selfishly happy that nuclear is having another uh kind of turn of it and I think it is valuable and I think it is an important part of looking at again the energy mix of what we need particularly here in the US.

And we uh speaking of nuclear, we have a client that's in the um aerospace industry and we were at a conference and they were talking about colonizing the moon at this conference. And one of the things that they were talking about is they're going to need energy up there. And the most uh the the thing that makes the most sense for those companies is or for just having extended, you know, having an electricity on the moon is nuclear. And imagine, you know, putting a a small micro grid powered by nuclear on the moon.

>> And uh you just think, wow, that's just like sci-fi. There's no way. And they say technically there's not a there's not a technological hurdle, it's a regulatory hurdle because who uh who's going to regulate the surface of the moon and and uh and what jurisdiction uh is the you know does nuclear fall under on the moon? So I thought that was such a fascinating conversation. So talk to me a little bit about your day-to-day at at Schneider. Tell me about your team. What do you guys what do you guys do?

what are you what are you working on from a sales and marketing perspective there in brand? >> So at Schneider we have a a very regionalized model in the sense of much of how we perceive the brand and enhance the brand. Of course Schneider is a global company. We have amazing talent around the world. We know that our customer base of course wants to act and interact with Schneider at a very localized level. And so part of the the company's of course mission and part of our values as we like to say we're the most local of global companies.

And so I'm fortunate to lead the team for North America which includes not just of course the US but Canada, Mexico, Central America >> to really think holistically about how do we enhance the reputation of the company? How do we protect it when we need to? but also how do we differentiate ourselves in the market given that we always know that this market is is a crowded one and knowing that we've set up our team in I would say a fashion that is not unlike other companies but with purposes right so of course our department for branded communications includes external communications includes media relations PR as well as executive file leadership it includes brands so of course we are the regional operational brand team so We have, I always say, the luxury of taking what Schneider has developed globally and has been able to transcend across geographies and in some cases personalize it for our market.

In other cases, simply apply it to different end segments and end users. And so we work very integrated with uh I say in a very integrated approach with many of our marketing colleagues across North America whether it's end segments and channels different personas we we really act as as one team. And so what we do on the brand side though more civically is really shape the narrative and the market leading narrative of what our region stands for. And that's something that as always we continuously look at and so we we handle the brand component in that sense.

We also handle the internal communications of the region. So Schneider is a very diversified company from a regional footprint perspective and we have a multi-hub approach which is a a way of saying we don't all sit on one campus and we don't all have the luxury of everyone drives through the same gate every day. But I would argue that's also not uh it's actually a luxury for us not to have that as well because we are able to have a diverse footprint in the US that allows us to be closer to our customers.

And so Schneider has a little over 21,000 employees in the US. And so they sit across across the country. We have several hub cities. Uh I happen to to sit in Nashville where we have a very large operational center. And so we handle the the narrative internally around our goals, our strategy, our ability to execute our customers and the priorities of telling our story across this amazing region. And so it's been a really great experience, you know, in in my career to be able to lead a few teams like this in some way.

But what I particularly like about the work that we're doing today is connecting even more than usual the shifting sentiment of customers with how our employees have to shift their perceptions over time. And so sometimes you have customers because I just be like, "Oh, that's sales thing, right? Let them deal with the customers." And everyone else kind of sits in the background. >> But as we all know, you know, customers shift their sentiment over time as to what they care about, what they value. And that continues to shift in the US, right?

Customers are wanting to look at more affordable solutions, more efficient solutions as underpinned of course by sustainability as as sort of a non-negotiable in many ways. And so it's important that we as a team take the lead on working with our our marketing colleagues, our business colleagues to understand what the market's telling us and then internalize it and interpret it in a way that our employees can understand. And so we do a lot of work with that. We work a lot with our business strategy team with our commercial operations team in managing that and I love that the team is integrated between the external and the internal with brand too because ultimately it all goes back to Schneider is still like any company or most companies it's still one logo that everyone sees.

It's one company that people interact with and so what we say and do externally and internally uh as I say has to pass like a vibe check. has to be, you know, feeling like it's the same company. And it's easier said than done, right? Any large company will have many sites. We'll have various subsidiaries. We'll have everything from a joint venture to a different part of the company that maybe was integrated or maybe long term. There's so many different things and so we have the privilege of managing that.

So our team is is diversified in that regard. It's also diversified geographically. So I have team members across the region which is which I always think is an advantage because we get different perspective and I al actually think from a brand and cons perspective and marketing perspective having too many team members in one location is actually a risk and >> it's a risk in the sense of you do get a bit of group think too much sometimes >> and also we live in a country where it is not a homogeneous set of customers right I mean what customers need in in Texas where you know I used to live and and uh I know you are Richard you know Texas is very different than Massachusetts Massachusetts is very different than California is very different than Florida and so it from a marketing and communications perspective it's actually somewhat almost more critical than other functions I think to have people based or at least have very good knowledge of those parts of the region so that you can really think through how something's going to be perceived when you roll it out either internally or externally >> that is So interesting.

You know what we see a lot is you know companies they will be centralized or they will be dispersed. It sounds like you guys are really managing it and doing both at the same time. That is that's fascinating to me. >> Yes. >> It's never it's never the easiest thing to do when you are trying to drive I would say transformational change and try to be different. It's easy to be centralized in my opinion and all show up to the same place every day and just kind of do a mediocre job, but actually to move in a step change and be a market leader, the perceptions that you have to get have to come from everywhere and we are a country that of course is not and and therefore, you know, even if you were to get on a plane and try to gain knowledge, living somewhere is different than visiting it.