Up Close With Ramamoorthy Ganapathy Iyer, Director of Micron Memory Malaysia Sdn Bhd
Ramamoorthy Ganapathy Iyer (Ramu Iyer) comes with 29 years of experience spanning across the EMS, Storage, Optical and Semiconductor Wafer Fabrication industries covering leadership roles in General Management, Operations, Supply Chain, Quality, Engineering and New Products Development roles.
His most recent EMS role was as a Vice President & General Manager of Sanmina-SCI Malaysia since 2014. He previously served as the VP & GM of another EMS company, Flextronics International, as the Global Operations and Supply Chain Leader responsible for Austin (Texas), Zhuhai and Penang sites from 2007.
His semiconductor leadership roles included a wafer fab substrate start-up for the LED and RFIC industry for Rubicon Technology, a metal fabrication & assembly component technology start-up for Recording Heads Organization (RHO) at Seagate Minnesota and as a General Manager & NPI Leader for the Optical Transceivers industry at Finisar Ipoh. Ramu graduated with a Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington, Texas in 1990.
1. How would you describe your management style?
A Leader who likes to be hands-on, factual, caring and down to earth with all levels within the organization.
2. What inspires you the most and why? How have you incorporated that into your daily life?
My father, Mr. K.R.G. Iyer, a selfless, strict disciplinarian who evolved from a rags to riches (middle class) level by toiling 7 days a week for 40+ years as an educator and a priest in Ipoh trying to build a future for our family and ensuring all of his children earned a university degree.
I incorporate this into my daily life by being very disciplined with no vices, tenacious, taking new work challenges to continue to test my abilities in unknown terrains while ensuring family stays protected always.
3. How do you see your organization changing in two years, and how do you see yourself creating/being a part of that change?
We will be scaling up our technology and people capabilities quickly to be “Best-in-Class” such that we can embrace the new opportunities with a growth mindset by continuing to nurture and grow the eco-system in Malaysia enabling stable employment. In addition, we will continue our CSR efforts within the community to create “ amazing memory” within Malaysia.
4. Tell me about an accomplishment or a memorable incident that shaped your career.
Taking an international Leadership Role as a Vice-President & General Manager of Global Manufacturing & Supply Chain for a business revenue of USD 2.4 Billion across 3 countries responsible for 6600 Associates. Within 2 tenacious years in 2009, we won two major customer awards from Cisco Systems for the Best Manufacturing Partner Award and B2B Supply Chain Award.
5. What would we be surprised to learn about you?
I love to teach and bring out the best in our talent pipeline to be innovative, fearless and successful in the near future.
6. What book are you reading or podcast you most recommend?
I would recommend the book titled the “The Leadership Challenge” that was given to me by my first company’s Managing Director, Mr. Ganesan, written by James M. Kouzes & Barry Posner. It is about how leaders get extraordinary things done in organizations. Mr. Ganesan invested a lot of time in training all of us to be knowledgeable and successful.
7. What do you do for fun?
Spending time with my wife, Rani, and our dogs as much as I can as available time is a constraint today.
