Profile: Erin Spring
Meet Erin Spring. Director of New Ventures, Goodyear.
Name: Erin Spring
Current Job: Director, New Ventures at The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company
Current City: Akron
Hometown: Troy, Michigan
Q: What is it that you do at Goodyear?
Goodyear is one of the world’s leading tire companies, with one of the most recognizable brand names and operations in most regions of the world. Goodyear develops, manufactures, markets and distributes tires for most applications. It employs about 63,000 people and manufactures its products in 47 facilities in 21 countries around the world.
Q: What’s a problem that you are working to solve?
In New Ventures, we are focused on the new mobility ecosystem, or the future in which mobility will be defined by shared fleets of autonomous, connected vehicles. We are working to understand the needs of these emerging customers to build connected solutions, making the journey from A to B safer, more sustainable and efficient.
Q: What’s a lesson you’ve learned that has helped shaped your work?
Get out of the office and know your customers, beyond an interview or customer satisfaction survey. I’ve learned that inspiration starts with knowing your customer – their goals and challenges, but also their key day-to-day activities and pain points. Keeping your customer at the center from early prototype to ramping up your solution is essential to unlock hidden potential.
Q: What’s a trend in technology or innovation that you believe doesn’t get enough attention?
As fast as change is happening in mobility and transportation, with vehicles that are increasingly becoming autonomous, electric, connected and shared, many people are overlooking the fact that the pace and ability to change is only possible with transformed skills and capabilities.
Too often, the focus is on the mechanical or digital changes required to deliver new solutions, but the skillset of the people doing the work must also match up. An example in Goodyear’s future mobility focus is complementing our advanced work in Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things, proprietary algorithms and much more with the changing face of our people.
While we still have many mechanical engineers, chemical engineers and the like, we have added user centered designers, data scientists, technical scouts, cloud platform engineers, and other new-skill categories.
Q: What’s one moonshot idea that could help make Ohio a world leader in technology and innovation?
I think being able to combine what Ohio is uniquely good at, such as manufacturing, with new technologies and skills would make a winning combination.
For example, being able to digitize our existing manufacturing businesses at the core, to best leverage AI, machine learning, and additive manufacturing to most efficiently serve customers, open up new markets (e.g., custom products) and business models (e.g., subscription bundles).
Q: What’s a recent book, podcast or news story that you found interesting?
The War at Work by Mattison and Medcalf was a recent read that I enjoyed. Technology has brought transparency of information to many aspects our of lives, from shopping, to sharing our daily activities on social media, to instant customer feedback. The workplace is not immune to this.
The War at Work talks about this change through the story of a senior leader who learns this the hard way and changes his leadership style in the end to empower his team and ultimately deliver results in a tough business environment. It summarizes many lessons on how organizations are changing from an era of hierarchy to that of interconnected networks.
Q: What's your favorite place in Ohio?
Whenever I’m asked this question, I always say our network of county and national parks. Specifically, Cuyahoga Valley National Park is truly an unexpected gem of Northeast Ohio – from numerous hiking and biking trails, to several beautiful waterfalls.
Q: What makes Ohio special to you?
Family. This is where I met my husband and we are raising our two rambunctious boys!
Connect with Erin on LinkedIn.