By Cheryl Cranick, Honors Program
Phil Ventimiglia ’92 (ENGR-Honors) has been at the forefront of technology innovation for nearly two decades, working for industry giants such as Lockheed Sanders, IBM, Dell, and currently NCR Corporation. “I have spent my entire career developing new technologies and products. It is who I am. It is like breathing,” said Ventimiglia. But his career really began much earlier; at his family home in fact, when his engineer father introduced him to “the dawn of the personal computer,” he said. First tinkering with equipment that his father brought home, Phil eventually enrolled at UConn, bringing with him not just his first Commodore 64 but also his budding fascination for technology.
UConn was a top choice for this aspiring electrical engineer, and his home state connection made the decision easy. When Phil arrived on campus, he joined the Honors Program, “[which] was beneficial to me in two ways. First, it allowed me to explore my interests outside of engineering, in humanities and economics, in an intimate and intellectually challenging environment. Second, the Honors Program allowed me to customize my degree with an independent study,” said Ventimiglia. Furthermore, the program, “gave me direct access to the faculty and my Honors advisor, Professor Eric Donkor, who contributed valuable insights and guidance that helped shape my academic and, ultimately, professional careers.”
While still an Honors student, Ventimiglia was already laying the groundwork for his future, when a systems engineering course assigned Phil and a partner the task of developing a product to store medical information in digital form. “What I loved about this project was not the design of the digital architecture. I loved the functional design,” he said. “What was the problem we were trying to solve? Who is the customer? What do they need? How will it be used? How can we make it easy to use? What are the competing solutions? How big is the market? How much will it cost? And so on,” he said. “I had no idea that this could be a career, but my career has been all about answering these questions and what led me into product management and new product development.” The team’s project resulted in the “HealthWatch,” for which they earned not only a biomedical engineering award but also a patent.
His first position after UConn was in defense electronics. Though he found the work engaging, Phil’s interest in functional design did not subside. When his supervisor learned Ventimiglia was applying to business school for his master’s degree—in an effort to expand his knowledge about the peripheral aspects of the technology industry beyond system design—Phil’s boss volunteered him for a new position with the company so as not to lose a valuable team member. Some of the company’s technology was being prepared for private market, and the opportunity allowed Phil to “be part of a small startup team and assist in the development of our business and technical strategy,” he said. He cited the experience as an important early step in his career.
Ventimiglia knew decades ago that wireless data would eventually become a vital part of the way humans not only work but also live. “While I would never claim to have fully understood and predicted what the Internet and mobile would look like today,” he said, “I did have a small glimpse of what was to come, I believe, because I looked at it from the consumer’s point of view.”
Phil eventually did complete his master’s degree in Public and Private Management at Yale University’s School of Management, which solidified his love of technology and business, he said. From his degree, he built hard skills in evaluation and decision-making as well as softer skills in communication and leadership. “I learned that self-awareness and the constant process of self-evaluation and improvement is critical to be a leader.”
These skills helped him assume product management and product development roles at some of the world’s best-known technology companies. Beginning first at IBM and eventually investing a ten-year period at Dell, Ventimiglia provided product management leadership on the development of home PC and notebook lines, printers, panel monitors, and more. His business and engineering leadership helped create not just products but also infrastructure across the U.S. and abroad. “While at Dell, I helped build a global design center in Singapore in which the Dell printer, displays, and peripheral product lines were developed,” he said. In his most current role at NCR Corporation (a global company that provides hardware, software, and service solutions for the ever-expanding demand of transaction technologies across the retail, financial, hospitality, and travel industries), Phil leads as Vice President of Applied Innovation and Product Development. During his five years with the company, he has not only moved around roles but also the world.
Off to India
In 2011, he accepted a career opportunity that would be a life-changing experience for his family of five: a two-year assignment in Hyderabad, India. He was responsible for general management during the creation of the Hyderabad Development Center, a facility “with end-to-end in-market product development capabilities, including engineering and product management,” he said.
Phil, his wife, Laura ’94, and their three children, Benjamin (13), Abigail (10), and Aidan (7) are not new to travel. The family had previously followed him on the work posting in Singapore. Aidan was actually born there. However, Phil points out, his son is still a natural U.S. citizen, born to two U.S. parents. “He still can be President,” quipped Ventimiglia. “The only real difference is that his birth certificate comes from the State Department instead of a hospital.”
Though the Ventimiglias are seasoned travelers and expatriates, their only other long-term overseas experience had been in Singapore. “One of my good friends describes [Singapore] as ‘Maui meets Manhattan.’ The weather is great and being so close to the equator it is the same everyday—sunny and mid-80 degrees. There are great restaurants, museums, botanical gardens, shopping, and even its own island resort,” said Ventimiglia. They knew India would be different, but they were intrigued by the challenge.
“Living in India definitely tests you and shows you what you are capable of…extreme poverty, all manners of animals everywhere (including cows, buffalo, sheep, boar, and wild dogs), and lack of basic infrastructure such as consistent power and clean water,” said Ventimiglia. “The people in India are amazing, though. The culture is exceedingly happy, friendly, and colorful. The positive side of dealing with all of these issues is that you truly understand what is important in life. This has been the most profound effect on my wife and me during our time in India. It has forced us to adjust our priorities in our lives, to simplify and enjoy the moment.”
Luckily, the Ventimiglias are adaptable. As this was not their first expat experience, preparing for the move was easier than it had been in the past. “Each time you realize there is less ‘stuff’ you really need,” said Ventimiglia. “As long as our family is together, we are happy. So we take the things that we need to live (dishes, plates, clothes, etc.) and a few things to make us comfortable.” When they arrived in India, they learned their home was not yet ready for them, and of course, their personal items were slowly on their way. The Ventimiglias spent their first few weeks in a hotel, and receiving their boxes by air and sea required not just weeks of waiting and hours filling out paperwork at the pick-up facility, but also an immense amount of patience.
Many little things that seem so easy in the U.S. became challenges in India: cell phones are prepaid at small shops around the city, requiring unlocking the device, a local number, and a new SIM card, said Ventimiglia. The ordeal demanded haggling and a bit of attitude, as did most things in India. But eventually the entire family learned to assert themselves when situations demanded it, in a culture so unknown to them.
The children began school even before the family moved out of the hotel. It was an American school, with English instruction. They learned alongside local and other international students. And unlike their father, the children even began to grasp some of the local Hindi language.
The children, who have mostly only known the life of an expat, excitedly recounted new sights and sounds daily to their parents, Ventimiglia remarked on his blog: “While the kids may be unfazed, I sit in my office trying to concentrate while the incessant cacophony of horns outside my window is only broken by the dogs fighting and the screeching howls of the dog that lost. I miss the white noise generator that I used to hate so much in our offices in the States.”
But beyond the obvious difficulties of the third-world nation were the people they met along the way, especially those who helped make them feel at home. Unlike Singapore, which has a much larger expatriate population— meaning each sub-culture of transplanted people tends to stay together —in India, the Ventimiglias integrated into a diverse group of locals and expats from all over the world; people just looking for a community, he said.
The family joined an active running group, the Hyderabad Hash House Harriers, which explored outer parts of the city on Sundays, for running/walking, talking, and Kingfisher beer afterward. Many of the roads they ran were rustic, to say the least. “The roads are basically deserted during our runs, sans the migrant workers living in tents made of rotting tarps and scraps of corrugated metal,” said Ventimiglia. “The highlight of our runs is when the migrant children dash out of their ‘homes’ to cheer us on with their screams of ‘Hello!’ and ‘Are you running?’” On the most-recent Diwali (an important local holiday), “my wife decided to buy clothes for the children who regularly cheer us on,” said Ventimiglia. “It was great seeing them for the next two weeks coming out to wave to us with huge smiles in their brand new clothes.”
Both with their running group, as well as alone or with visiting family and guests, the Ventimiglias have taken advantage of the centralized location of Hyderabad, India. Their list of travels is rather extensive: other parts of India, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bali, Bangkok, Australia, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Kenya, and Israel, where Benjamin’s Bar Mitzvah was held. Often during these excursions, the Ventimiglias were invited beyond the tourist line and into the homes of locals.
The family returned to the States in mid-June, with a new Ventimiglia in tow: Daisy the dog, whom they rescued from the streets of India after much persuasion from their daughter, Abigail. The expats are now settling into their home near the Georgia headquarters of Phil’s company. “On one hand,” he said, “we are ecstatic to be moving back to the U.S.—the entire country seems like a 5-star hotel to us after living in India. On the other hand, India has changed us. We realize that we do not need a lot of ‘stuff’ to be happy.”
During the course of this interview, I asked Phil if he had any advice to share, specifically for young alumni and current students. Here’s what he had to say:
Look for early leadership opportunities.
Autonomy and exposure are key, said Ventimiglia. “The biggest impact on my career and development was the opportunity to take on significant leadership roles and projects early.” Working on the new Inspiron notebook brand for Dell, just two years out of business school, Phil asked his supervisor to define the product’s strategy. He received this response: “Good question. Go figure it out,” Ventimiglia remembered hearing. “Three months later I was presenting the Inspiron product strategy to Michael Dell,” he said. As his leadership responsibilities advanced, the challenges were not always fun, but they were molding his future.
Seek out professional development training.
Ventimiglia looked for opportunities both in the classroom and through immersive training programs. Phil noted you will not just learn how to be a leader, you will also learn about yourself. At one program, he could not believe the reactions others had to him. “They said they thought I was intimidating, intense, calculating, and aloof. It was a shock to me because I am an introvert by nature,” said Ventimiglia. “I was the youngest person in the room and I was intimidated during the first hour, and so I kept quiet until I became comfortable. Others viewed my behavior very differently, even without me saying a word.”
Find mentors.
Phil sees great value in having more than one mentor. “You are different and have to be self-aware and recognize your strengths and development areas are different than your mentor,” he said. And each one will have something else to teach. Moreover, “the second element to a successful executive mentoring relationship is making sure that the key executives know what you are interested in. …position yourself so that in the boardroom discussions about new business opportunities your name comes up as a possible leader to drive the opportunity.” In Phil’s case, his willingness for overseas assignments made him a natural fit for Hyderabad, India. Ventimiglia also noted that peer mentors may be valuable, if competition can be kept at bay.
Be open to global experiences.
“One of the great pleasures of my career has been the ability to live, work, and travel throughout other cultures and countries,” said Ventimiglia. “To be successful you have to be adaptable, and again, be self-aware, know yourself and how you are impacting those around you. If you can do this, the impact is tremendous because you develop the confidence to lead in any situation,” and may find opportunities that otherwise would not exist in your company.
And remember…
- You can only control your behavior (Your energy is better spent focusing on your own behavior and actions than trying to control the behavior and actions of others.)
- The cameras are always rolling (Those around you are always watching, especially when you are a leader.)
- Lead courageously (Make the hard decisions and be accountable. Decision-making is the most important role of a leader.)
- Quick action is the only response to adversity (Success is then defined by how fast you react and get back on track.)
- Be true to yourself (Leverage your strengths and do not apologize for your weaknesses. There is not one leadership style that is successful, but your leadership style must be genuine.)
- Follow your passion, not the dollar (Do what you love. Life is too short.)
- And, leverage the UConn Honors network (People, including Phil, are always interested in helping!)
Return to the Summer 2013 issue of the Honors Alumni eNewsletter