In This Podcast:

Bill Gray, president of Uponor North America, discusses the creation of Uponor Innovations, the company’s newest launch.

Q: How did you end up as president at Uponor North America?

A: I’ve been in the industry about 20 years. I started at a small pump rep firm and moved up to different roles with a national manufacturer, and ended as director of Canadian sales and marketing. I was recruited to run Uponor Canada, and one of my first jobs was to relocate our head office to Mississauga. Three years after that, I came to the U.S. as vice president of sales. Our president at the time left and, after some recruiting and interviewing, I emerged as the successful candidate.

Q: The company recently launched Uponor Innovations, a wholly owned subsidiary and corporate enterprise designed to identify emerging markets and create game-changing products. How did this idea come about?

A: This has been something that has been brewing in the background for the last three-to-five years. As a leading manufacturer, we get a lot of unsolicited ideas from contractors on job sites, from distributors, and we never really had a good, formal process to vet those ideas — to make sure they got the focus or attention they needed. So, in trying to figure out how to formulate that process, we started an internal campaign to attract a push-and-pull from our technology and manufacturing minds to determine how we can identify and utilize the best ideas from within the organization. And, regarding the external portion of that process, this is the fruition of those strategic discussions.

Bill Gray
President, Uponor North America
Posted: Nov. 1, 2013

Publication date: 12/2/2013 

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