FACTORY AUTOMATION

When Krach graduated from Harvard Business School, he presented his research on robotics to GM’s board of directors and suggested the auto giant enter a joint venture with Japanese robotics company Fujitsu FANUC. An incredibly bold leap for a 20-something aspiring leader.

When Krach presented his robotics ideas to GM’s board, he suggested that the company needed to do a joint venture to get access to a full product line. The board asked Keith’s recommendation on what company to partner with. He recommended Fujitsu FANUC. Most of these board members were WWII veterans who were taken aback at partnering with a Japanese company, but Krach’s recommendation held, and the company has grown to become the world’s largest supplier of industrial robots.

Krach credits his early mentor and manager at GMF Robotics with an amazing willingness to take him under his wing and trust him with a tremendous amount of responsibility. “One of my first bosses at GM and one of my greatest mentors, Phil Monnin, taught me that too many young people, with their intelligence, energy and enthusiasm, get stuck in menial jobs, ‘learning the ropes,’ when instead, they should be challenged to jump in with both feet, get a taste of real responsibility and start taking on big challenges.” It was Phil’s faith in Keith that gave General Motors the courage to make him their youngest-ever vice president.

As a college student, Krach had an internship as a production foreman at one of GM’s oldest and biggest auto plants in the world, the Cadillac Assembly plant on Clark Street. He saw dozens of cars coming off the line for repairs due to poor quality. His boss showed Keith how the story changed each time it moved up a level in the organization. “We have a serious problem!” gradually morphed into “We have no competition!” when the story made it to the board level. An important lesson: if you want to know what’s really going on, go to the shop floor, where the action is.