Jan-Philipp Gehrmann

"I currently lead the Automotive Sales & Marketing office of NXP in the Silicon Valley. The importance of the Silicon Valley for the automotive industry has significantly increased during the past few years. The trends of electric vehicles and driver assistant systems towards self-driving cars have fuelled growth of many small and large companies located in the Bay Area. It’s hard to find a global car maker or automotive supplier, who does not have an office or engineering center in the Silicon Valley.

The disruptive nature of the Bay Area and the sometimes “unconventional” approach of local companies offer great opportunities. We, as the local team, want to establish NXP as the partner of choice for these players and support them to create winning solutions and successfully tackle the unique challenges in the automotive industry. Our responsibilities go across Sales, Business Development and 1^st line technical support.

Furthermore, we try to assist our R&D organization during the product definition phase with our insights on product and solution requirements. Altogether it’s a very fast-pace, highly interesting role with a very broad set of responsibilities."

"I was unfortunately not blessed with the clarity some people have from early on as to what they want to become. So I had a find out for myself. I tested what I liked and tried to discover my strengths and weaknesses. I networked and interviewed a lot of people from all sorts of industries and professions to find out what their job is like. It did take time, but it helped provide the clarity I needed."

"It is tough to answer this question in just a few sentences. Let me start with my expectations on the MBA. I applied for the IE Global-MBA in 2012 (I started in Nov 2013). By that time, I was already in a product marketing position for a few years and was getting a little impatient on how things were working out. Quite honestly, I did not exactly have a career plan and had difficulties to define my next steps.

I thought the MBA at IE might help me with this. I expected two things: the opportunity to broaden my scope with deep knowledge on other industries, as well as professions, and to develop a clear view on my career plan and personal aspirations.

IE helped me to achieve both goals and more. I understood areas where I am strong, areas that needed improvement, and also importantly, what I do not want to do.

How did IE do this for me? Hard to say, as it was not this one key experience, but rather the total journey with support from excellent professors, the IE Talent & Careers team, and fantastic fellow students who became close friends over 18 months."