Selling Bold Ideas in the Boardroom
Have you ever wondered how to sell a bold idea in the boardroom? Not just an idea different from what your organisation usually tends to do, but a really bold one that breaks ground in your industry? What does it take? What do you need?
In this podcast, Dr Sabine Dembkowski, Founder and Managing Partner of Better Boards) discusses selling bold ideas in the boardroom with Dr Andy Palmer CMG, former COO at Nissan and President & Group CEO of Aston Martin. Known as “the Godfather of EVs”, Andy has led transformational change at two of the world’s most recognisable businesses in the auto industry. He led the first EV development and mass production in the world when he launched the LEAF at Nissan and helped ensure the long-term financial future of Aston Martin. Today, he is a turnaround specialist stepping in as Interim CEO / Executive Chair at Optare/Switch Ltd, PodPoint plc and Brill Power Ltd in recent years. He is also involved with a number of innovative and high-growth businesses operating in the clean transportation space in a non-executive / entrepreneurial capacity. Outside of business, Andy is the Founder of the Palmer Foundation, a charity that supports young disadvantaged people in pursuing an apprenticeship in the auto industry.
“The bosses want the company to be successful so they can get their salaries, and the staff want the company to be successful so that they can get paid”
Andy attributes his rise from apprentice to C-suite and CEO of some of the world’s most iconic car companies to a combination of hard work, burning desire, and a little bit of luck. His journey began at 14, when his father handed him an old A-series engine, which he had spent countless hours dismantling and reassembling, igniting a lifelong passion for engineering. By 16, he had begun a technical apprenticeship at Automotive Products, a manufacturer of clutches and brakes. Over the next four years, he developed foundational engineering skills, earning a Higher National Certificate and joining the workforce in advanced engineering by 1979. The industrial environment of constant strikes and labour unrest in the UK at the time left an indelible impression on Andy, and he recognised that management and unions shared a fundamental goal: the success of the company. He started an ambitious plan to become the CEO of a car company. He pursued a degree in Industrial Management while working, which led to a role at Austin Rover as a fast-track candidate, where he earned a master’s degree in engineering while advancing to the role of Chief Engineer for Transmissions. During this time, he also served as an interface in the partnership between Rover and Honda, further expanding his expertise.
After reading The Machine That Changed the World, a book from MIT about lean manufacturing principles, Andy was inspired to move to Nissan, where he stayed for 23 years, including 10 years in the UK leading engineering for Nissan Europe, and a move to Japan as part of the Renault-Nissan Alliance. There, he led key functions such as light commercial vehicles and corporate planning while earning a PhD in engineering and an MBA from London Business School. His reputation grew with his leadership of the Zero Emission Business Unit at Nissan, which pioneered the Nissan LEAF – the world’s first mass-market electric vehicle.
“More than anything else, if you want to get on, then you got to work hard”
Andy acknowledges the advantages that come with a strong education but firmly believes that success ultimately depends on individual effort, and he credits hard work as the defining factor in his rise to leadership. For Andy, the road to becoming a CEO requires sacrifices, particularly when it comes to work-life balance. While his dedication provided his family with a good education and comfortable living, it came at a cost. “My kids benefited from my hard work but also sacrificed because they didn’t see me as much while I was climbing the career ladder.” He doesn’t downplay the roles of natural talent or education but insists that perseverance is the ultimate driver of success.
“What do I need to understand that would allow me to solve that problem?”
Andy attributes his success across a diverse range of organisations to his love for interdisciplinary experiences, combined with exposure to different segments of the transport industry – cars, vans, trucks, and buses. He recounts how the development of the Nissan LEAF influenced his current work. The challenge of coordinating industries such as steel production, charging infrastructure, and telecommunications was insurmountable at the time, so instead, Nissan focused on eliminating tailpipe emissions, successfully creating the first mass-market zero-emission vehicle. When Andy left Aston Martin in 2020, he entered a new phase of his career, exploring the zero-emission challenge from multiple angles. He began chairing companies in the battery space, emphasising the importance of chemistry, control, and cooling – the “three Cs” critical to battery technology. He founded Switch Mobility to address zero emissions in buses and trucks, High Low to explore micro-mobility, and Palmer Automotive and Palmer Energy to tackle energy storage and grid evolution. He also served as CEO of Pod Point, deepening his understanding of clean energy infrastructure in collaboration with EDF. Examining net zero from diverse perspectives gave him unique insights into the challenges of moving an entire industry toward sustainability.
“When the whole company is essentially against you, how important air cover is!”
Andy admits that selling the idea of the Nissan LEAF to the board was no easy task. At the time, he was responsible for sales, including Nissan’s Japanese network, which the company owned outright, and the sales executives in Japan were vocal about their struggles, particularly as Toyota’s Prius dominated the market. However, as an engineer and a planner, Andy saw a different opportunity for him; hybrids didn’t make sense, so he proposed a bold leapfrog strategy to skip hybrids entirely and go straight to battery-electric vehicles. This was not a popular idea, and Andy recalls how critical it was to have the support and ‘air cover’ of then-CEO Carlos Ghosn, enabling him to push forward with the concept of the LEAF. Sales teams could either stick with internal combustion engines or commit fully to battery-electric technology – there would be no compromise with hybrids. The risk paid off, and when competitors like Honda opted to follow Toyota with hybrid models like the Honda Insight, their products failed to gain traction in the market. Meanwhile, the Nissan LEAF became a groundbreaking success as the world’s first mass-market electric vehicle, helping to pioneer the transition to battery-electric technology well before Tesla entered the scene.
“Being a CEO should be about leadership, but there’s so much about corporate governance that sort of forces you to be safe”
Andy reflects on the challenges of bold leadership in today’s corporate environment, noting that many CEOs and executives hesitate to stick their necks out. Corporate governance, while necessary, can inadvertently stifle innovation by encouraging CEOs to play it safe. He stresses that non-executive directors have a critical role in supporting CEOs who are willing to take bold steps. Non-executives should empower leadership to take calculated risks and pursue innovation within a framework of accountability.
For Andy, leadership must balance the guardrails of governance with the courage to innovate and respond to market shifts. Failing to do so risks the future of the business and the livelihoods of its people.
“I’ve always been very happy to be the lowest IQ in the room”
When cultivating the skills needed for bold, innovative leadership, Andy emphasises the importance of surrounding oneself with the right people, building a multidisciplinary, multicultural, and multigender team, and providing diverse perspectives that enrich decision-making. One standout example from Andy’s career was the creation of a Market Intelligence Group at Nissan, which was comprised mainly of philosophy students, primarily women and predominantly Japanese. This group brought unique insights into cultural and generational trends so Andy’s team could foresee declining interest in traditional cars and the growing importance of green technologies. Andy also highlights the critical role of support within the organisation and effective communication across disciplines, particularly when it comes to risk-taking. Finally, Andy stresses the value of empathy in leadership. Even those who don’t fully agree with your vision must be given enough confidence to remain neutral and allow you the opportunity to succeed.
The three top takeaways for effective boards from our conversation are:
- Try to find something in your career that you love and that you can be passionate about.
- Education is more than just studying a particular subject – academia is about personal growth. So you’ve got to know a particular discipline very well and build your skill sets in other areas, like finance and communication.
- Ultimately, we all work with people, and your ability to build empathy and sell something rather than tell something is important.
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