Leadership in Manufacturing How to Lead When the Rules Change Between Startup and Enterprise
The autonomy of a startup feels freeing, until the guardrails disappear and every mistake is amplified.
The structure of a large enterprise feels slow, until you realize some of those constraints exist for a reason.
Most leaders do not get to stay in one type of organization their whole career. The question is whether you adapt or just repeat what worked last time.
In the Leadership in Manufacturing Podcast, host Sannah Vinding speaks with Chris Lanier, Managing Director, Americas at Exein, to explore what actually changes when you move between large and small organizations, and what leadership skills travel with you no matter where you are.
Chris has built and led global go-to-market teams across Microsoft, Wind River, and Exein over a 25-year career, giving him a rare vantage point on how leadership instincts shift with context. In this conversation, he shares his trust-first philosophy, how he hires for attitude and aptitude over deep experience, and what it takes to lead cross-cultural global teams with clarity.
Chris also breaks down the cybersecurity challenge facing IoT and manufacturing leaders today: why centralized security is not enough when devices are scattered across facilities, what the EU Cyber Resilience Act means for device makers, and why a casino fish tank thermometer became the entry point for a major data breach.
This episode is for engineering leaders, operations managers, and technical sales leaders navigating organizational growth, scale, or transition who want to lead with clarity and trust regardless of the environment.
In this episode, you will learn:
- Why autonomy in small companies amplifies both your best and your worst decisions
- How to extend trust from day one, and when to recalibrate
- Why in-person time with global teams compounds over months of remote work
- How to hire for attitude and aptitude when deep experience is hard to find
- What distributed device security means for IoT and manufacturing leaders
- Why the best leaders combine vision and confidence with genuine humility
- How to recognize when your leadership style no longer fits your environment
About the guest:
Chris Lanier is Managing Director, Americas at Exein. He spent more than 20 years at Microsoft in multiple director-level roles leading Americas and worldwide sales organizations across IoT, cloud, automotive, and embedded platforms. He also held executive leadership roles at Wind River. Chris is known for his people-first approach, his commitment to transparency and trust, and his track record of building high-performing globally distributed teams.
Hosted by:
Sannah Vinding is an engineer, B2B marketing strategist, leadership educator, and host of the Leadership in Manufacturing Podcast. She helps leaders across electronics, manufacturing, and supply chain lead technical teams with clarity, trust, and confidence as complexity and AI reshape how work gets done.
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Stay curious. Keep learning. Keep leading forward.