Why Electronics As The World’s Next “Resource” And What That Demands Of Us, with John Mitchell

In this 'on-location' interview with Global Electronics Association President & CEO John Mitchell, I pull back the curtain on the rebrand, then go deep on the tech, policy, and talent issues reshaping the entire electronics manufacturing ecosystem. The hype around AI is loud, but the signal is this: real gains come from faster decisions on real data and from tools that actually change the workflow. Add in a wave of affordable robotics—capable systems near the $5k mark—and you get a recipe for rapid experimentation on the factory floor, new automation patterns, and fresh demands on engineering teams.

John and I talk through the policy shocks that have dominated the past year and why the churn is so costly. It’s not just tariffs; it’s the constant flipping that forces EMS providers to rework impact analyses for every customer, again and again. Agility is now a core competency, and industry leaders need playbooks that tie supply chain scenarios to compliance and cost. That’s where a global association adds leverage: translating signals from Washington and Brussels into actionable guidance, aligning standards, and advocating for coherent national electronics strategies across regions like East Asia, India and Southeast Asia, Mexico, and North America.

Talent is the thread that connects everything. In the short term, AI is a powerful tool that boosts productivity. The looming challenge arrives as agentic AI eats the repetitive work that used to train interns and new grads. If we lose those rungs on the ladder, we risk a skills gap at the mid and senior levels just as seasoned experts retire. We outline how shared curricula, competency-based certifications, and safe convening can protect the pipeline, giving companies consistent training while keeping learning portable across the ecosystem. Finally, we preview Apex: a central rotating forum spotlighting advanced electronics packaging, a strong Mexico pavilion, and leadership sessions designed to turn insight into action.

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EMS@C-Level is hosted by global inspection leaders Koh Young (https://www.kohyoung.com) and Global Electronics Association (https://www.electronics.org)

You can see video versions of all of the EMS@C-Level pods on our YouTube playlist.

Transcript

Rebrand To Global Electronics Association

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 0:07

Hello, I'm Philip Stoughton. I am at the Washington, D.C. office of the Global Electronics Association, and I am joined by their intrepid leader, John Mitchell. John, always a pleasure to see you. I just wanted to congratulate you on last year. I think the the renaming uh and everything you did around that was hugely successful. Thank you very much. Nice job. And I know it's a huge team effort, but Oh, absolutely.

John Mitchell, President & CEO, Global Electronics Association 0:29

Yeah. I mean spanning the globe as we do with, you know, and having this rich multi-decade history, you know, there's a lot of concern about trying to change a brand that's as iconic as IPC. And we cheated a little bit. We kept it. Uh so we still have IPC standards, we still have IPC certification, but now the overarching brand is the Global Electronics Association, which we feel, you know, really just represents who we are.

Tech Waves: AI And Affordable Robotics

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 0:57

Yeah, it just dropped in so naturally, didn't it? And that, you know, I think in June we were at Brussels together and you were giving people a sneak peek. And by the end of the year, it just felt like it was naturally part of everything. That's a great vocabulary. So great job. Anyway, I wanted to start by exploring some of the big trends this year. We've just come out of a CES, and it's always a time of year where we're thinking about what's going to have the biggest impact on our industry, both in terms of technology trends, but also, you know, geopolitical and political events. So if we start with technology, the elephant in the room is um is AI. That seems to be impacting everything.

John Mitchell, President & CEO, Global Electronics Association 1:32

Aaron Powell Yeah, AI is touching and I get a little a little uh testy about AI. Uh marketing folks are throwing around the term AI with way too much frequency. It's just not really AI in 90% of the cases where they're using it. But hey, it's it's selling them so uh for them, so I I get that. So you've got AI, you know, changing the speed at which we operate, the amount of information that we're able to take in and crunch. You know, we've been we've had big data for a decade or two now, right? But we haven't been able to do much with it. Well, now we can. Yeah. And that's that's fantastic. The other, you know, as you talk about technology, uh, you know, I was a little surprised. I was talking with some of the leaders of industry, and I I'm always asking them, you know, because they're living this. What where do you see it going? And they're like 26 robotics.

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 2:24

Yeah.

John Mitchell, President & CEO, Global Electronics Association 2:25

And um when I went to CDS, boy, that was slapping me in the face. I there were there had to be at least 200 different distributors of different types of robotics for five grand now. You can have your own robot. Yeah. And it wasn't too long ago that 3D printing was five grand, and now it's just a couple hundred bucks, you know. So I think that's gonna be another big thing to change the way we live.

Tariffs, Policy Whiplash, And Agility

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 2:52

Yeah. And it's fascinating, isn't it? You you see these things deployed domestically, but and same with AI, and then you think about how it's gonna be deployed in the factory, and you know, you see you see how that changes in different parts of the world. It's it's it's fascinating. When you look at the geopolitical situation, we had a year last year, which I think was quite unprecedented in terms of disruption, particularly around the tariffs issue. It kind of felt that everybody was panicking about tariffs and constantly talking about them. Now, when I speak to people about tariffs, it's like, yeah, we've got a strategy for that. We deal with that, we have to be agile, it's made us more agile. Um, do you think geopolitically we've settled into this current climate? I know it's challenged.

John Mitchell, President & CEO, Global Electronics Association 3:39

Um from uh the political side of geopolitically, I think it will continue to be used and and used uh and leveraged uh to various effects. Yeah. But in terms of getting used to it, yeah, we're more used to it now. But as I talk with industry, every time there's a change, and the changes have just been happening so fast. Yeah, and they're on again, off again, and and this is probably more disruptive than actually just having them. Yeah. Because um, you know, say you're in the EMS industry and you have all of these customers that you're having to deal with. Every time there's a change, every single one of those customers wants to know what that impact is for them.

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 4:24

Yeah.

Owning The Global Mandate

John Mitchell, President & CEO, Global Electronics Association 4:24

And then if it changes again next week, you got to do that work all over again. So it's there's a lot of spinning that's going on and really a lot of inefficiency with the frequency of changes. And that's that to me is the challenge. Our industry, the electronics industry is fantastic with dealing with change. That it is our nature. You know, I mean try to think of something you used 20 years ago that you're also using today in the electronics space that hasn't advanced significantly. It's uh uh tough. So unless it's in space because it was stuck there. Yeah, you know. Um so we're good at handling change. Um, it's just some of it feels very ineffectual. Yeah.

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 5:04

So just moving back to the Global Electronics Association, name change last year. It felt like it was an inflection point, it felt like it was uh clarification on what what the association does, which I think was is wonderful in itself. How does that reflect in the way that you're building muscle in the various different parts of the organization and what your expectations and your vision is as we go into 2022?

Electronics As The Innovation Resource

Strategy: Standards, Advocacy, And Insight

John Mitchell, President & CEO, Global Electronics Association 5:30

Aaron Powell So we've been living as the Global Electronics Association before we changed the name. This has really been who we are for some time. And the name just now finally reflects, which is part of the reason to your point earlier that I think it was so easily adopted. Yeah. Because that's really who we've been uh for a number of years now. But there's also a responsibility with this larger name. We are the Global Electronics Association. So what should we be doing to really demonstrate that even more fully? You know, we've been building and building uh in that fashion, and and now we're looking to do even more. So uh last year, as part of that, we brought in a uh vice president of uh US and Canada. Up until now, the focus on that specific region has been kind of the job of all the executives. Well, we've it deserves its own focus. Yeah, we've split Asia into two sections, East Asia and uh Indian Southeast Asia. And so we've got leadership over both of those. Um, we're looking and doing more in Mexico. So it's really about making sure that we can uh live up now to this name. You know, yes, we've been building at it for many, many years, but now the name's out there. Yeah. And so we need to be doing the things, providing the information. And so, yes, we are the source, you know, about about the industry, for the industry, and for other parts of the industry, other parts of not the industry. The the electronics industry to me is unique. I I've shared this in a couple of my keynotes, but you have water is necessary for life, right? Yeah, fossil fuels drove industry. Electronics are that next natural resource. It's not natural, but I mean, we've created it because it cuts across every single industry. It does. Without electronics, you don't have AI. Yeah, you don't have robotics, you don't have automation, you don't have all the innovation. Electronics are the innovation resource for every other industry in the world. And so, as that, that's also a responsibility that we are shouldering as the Global Electronics Association.

AI’s Talent Shock And Skill Ladders

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 7:41

Yeah. So when you think about that, you know, you've talked the talk with the rebranding and now you're walking the walk. What are what does that mean in terms of perhaps new things that you're bringing, or where do you see, where do you see the important focus? When I look at Global Electronics Association, you think, okay, well, maybe if you're that engineer that's been trained by IPC and that's been certified by IPC and is making making product to an IPC standard, you feel that that's that's the association you know of because that's what it touches your life. When I think of it from a leadership point of view, which is where I spend a lot of my time talking to people, it feels very much an ecosystemic thing, and it feels very much that it's it's an advisory because it's providing insight. It's your it's the industry's bridge to Washington, to Brussels, to politicians. Which of those areas are critical? Which do you need to build muscle in? Is it all of them?

John Mitchell, President & CEO, Global Electronics Association 8:42

It's all of them. Um so so we're we're never going to move away from our base. Uh absolutely. We're there for how we you build electronics. You know, we changed our vision just slightly. It used to be build electric, you know, build electronics better, right? Yeah. And now it's better electronics for a better world. Yeah. And that better world is again encompassing this larger concept. So a lot of our efforts are really about uh maintaining that, but in addition, talking to the world, talking to other industries, talking to countries around the world, saying on behalf of the industry. So it's not just doing things for the industry directly, we're also doing things for the industry indirectly. By, as you mentioned, talking to these governments and saying, look, each of your nations needs to have an electronic strategy, no matter what industry you're prioritizing, because we impact all of them. And so that's the message we're going out there with trying to help the thought leaders, the policymakers, the governmental leaders, et cetera, um, really understand how critical this is to their future. Yeah.

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 9:47

Yeah. And it's a two-way street, isn't it? You know, as you spend time with those politicians, you're you're gaining some of the insight of what they're thinking, and you can share that back with them.

John Mitchell, President & CEO, Global Electronics Association 9:56

Absolutely. Because the better better information we have, the more easily we can respond and adapt quickly.

Convening The Industry Safely

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 10:03

Yeah. The the last area I wanted to talk about, and it's purely because we talk about it all of the time, and I consider you a bit of an expert, is the is the is the talent equation, which has been absolutely critical in the industry for some time, and it feels like it's even more critical. It feels like AI is providing us with a challenging inflection point in that part of how we operate our business. Do you spend time thinking about what AI is going to mean to all the good folks that work in the electronics industry, how it's going to support them, how it's going to maybe mitigate some of the talent shortages? How big a disruption do you see that being?

John Mitchell, President & CEO, Global Electronics Association 10:44

Um, over the next three years, it will be a minor disruption. People will be adapting to these new tools. So they'll treat it as a tool, which is great.

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 10:54

Yeah.

John Mitchell, President & CEO, Global Electronics Association 10:54

And they'll we'll get more efficient, just like we've done with every tool, a spreadsheet helps us over, you know, ledgers, you know, things like that. But that's really just the first piece of it. The part that raises questions for me, and I I don't have the answers to we're working on it. Um, is as AI becomes you know, you you start moving from just um generative AI to agentic AI and then beyond, yeah. Um when you start with agen agentic AI, you start talking about you know, these agents acting as employees. Yeah. And the kinds of tasks that they're going to do very, very well are repetitive tasks. Well, think about your incoming population of students, people coming out of university, people just entering the industry. What are the first jobs that they do?

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 11:45

Yeah.

John Mitchell, President & CEO, Global Electronics Association 11:45

Exactly. These are exactly those things. So where are they getting the skill set to move to the higher level jobs when the current set of people who are in the higher level jobs retire?

Apex Preview And Closing

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 11:57

Yeah. And I don't have a good answer. Trevor Burrus, Jr. No, that's uh one of the things that I I had brought up very recently was that AI could have a huge impact on internship. You know, the fact that every job that's done by an intern can potentially be done by an AI agent, which I I I think poses just a huge risk. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

John Mitchell, President & CEO, Global Electronics Association 12:19

It does to the future of our capabilities. And and we'll I I'm sure we'll figure it out. I I have great faith in our ability to sort this out. I just don't have a good answer, but to me, that's one of the biggest looming problems about AI in the workforce. Workforce is still absolutely the critical thing that the industry at large does. I I've quoted I quoted it with you before, but um, you know, uh I was talking with a leader of one of our uh uh one of our uh members, and and he says, you know, look, John, everybody can buy the parts, everybody can buy the equipment. The differentiation is the people and how they use that stuff. So you really need to invest in the people. And we uh at the Global Electronics Association believe strongly in that and are investing on behalf of the industry in that because our our member companies uh are fantastic, but their job is to build electronics. They're not set up as training institutions, even though they have to do that. So we're we're investing on behalf of the industry so we can supplant that and give them some consistency. And literally, just like we do standards, yeah, we're grabbing experts information from hundreds of companies instead of you being stuck with just you're one expert at one company or one site or something like that. So uh that's how we're gonna have that job till the end of time.

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 13:44

Yeah, and I think it's it kind of underlines the way that you tackle those kind of problems. It's that approach of bringing everybody together in a collaborative environment. Global Electrolics event uh association events always feel like that safe environment. Yeah, people we're a convener, and that's what we do. Yeah, absolutely. You bring everybody together. And I think that trickles down into everything you do, but it also trickles out into everything the industry does.

John Mitchell, President & CEO, Global Electronics Association 14:09

And it's one of the nice things about being a nonprofit is we provide that safety net around that. Otherwise, you get into this commercial issues. Yeah, are are you are you are you doing things illegal that you shouldn't be doing? So we are able to do a safe and uh protect provide a safe and protected space where people can talk together and solve real problems. Yeah.

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 14:28

Next event coming up is Apex. Anything new and exciting that we should be aware of? I think um I spoke to Lorena as a Mexico pavilion again this year, which I thought was great.

John Mitchell, President & CEO, Global Electronics Association 14:37

And you're gonna see a central portion on the floor where we're gonna be rotating a lot of different types of information. Uh so you'll see an advanced electronics packaging uh uh forum that that goes on there. You'll see other uh aspects uh pulling in as well. I don't have a list of here, but but there's a whole now it's it we're putting that central on the floor, so it's just kind of a rotating thing. Yeah. So it pulls people through the exhibits as well so they can see what's happening. But it's yeah uh again just highlighting how diverse this industry is.

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 15:09

Yeah, and it's better, I'm it's a it's a really nice flagship event. Maybe in the US it brings everybody together once a year. So uh and the uh leadership day that you open up with on one of the I think people find very, very valuable. So are you gonna be speaking again at that evening? I think I am you're speaking one of the lunch times.

John Mitchell, President & CEO, Global Electronics Association 15:27

Yeah, I'm doing the lunchtime and then the business meeting on it. So I've got a couple of lunches, so people can, if they're bored with my talking, they can keep eating.

Philip Stoten, Journalist and Podcast Host 15:34

Yeah, yeah, there you go. That's the way it should be. Job, never boring, always a pleasure. Thanks so much for your time. Thanks, Phil.