We as a company have been always fast adopter of technology and we use adopt.

AI naturally. Where we have seen most impact is more productivity.

Transformational will occur if we redraw our work right, in which we can use

agents as part of our workflow, and that requires us to reimagine the work by

itself. I'm Francine Lacqua and this is leaders,

the podcast that explores what drives the world's most influential people.

Be sure to follow and subscribe now so you never miss an episode.

This week I'm speaking to Vimal Kapur, the chair and chief executive of the

newly formed automation company Honeywell Technologies.

Until recently, Kapur was a group chair and CEO of Honeywell International, the

tech and manufacturing conglomerate that made everything from thermostats to

aircraft engines. Now, Kapur's road to the C-suite is

particularly interesting to me. He started and spent much of his career

in India, his birthplace, joining in his 20s.

He then rose to running its automation business in India, a satellite site of

Honeywell. But it wasn't until later that he moved

to corporate Honeywell in the U.S.. And eventually secured the top job.

However, shortly after assuming the role of group CEO.

Kapoor made the bold decision to break up the company, a move that actually

coincided with the arrival of an activist investor on the scene.

And with 2026 marking the culmination of Honeywell split.

I wanted to catch up with Kapur as he prepared for his new role

Vimal Kapur,

Thank you so much for joining us on leaders.

Appreciate, uh, you're having me here today.

So talk to me about how you started out. So I started in joint venture of

Honeywell in India. So Honeywell, before that you had three

jobs in three years, right. So you made fast decisions.

Yeah. Of what you didn't want to do.

So my first job was a government owned company.

Didn't like the speed at which they were not my place.

So I found a job in one of the smaller company, which was, uh, you know, much

more traditional way of working, very centralized.

And didn't like that either. And then, uh, Honeywell started a joint

venture with the Tata Group in 1988, and I joined in 89, and it was actually a

start up. And one benefit there was that you don't

have a defined job. Job depends upon what's going on.

And you have to take different roles, which makes you learn more by default,

your less compartmentalization, so that early learning through that cycle was

very, very helpful to, you know, be in commercial function to be in project

management, you know, and that gives you a much more accelerated pace of

learning. So there's a school of thought that

says, look, if you don't work in a headquarters, it's actually very, very

difficult to rise to the top. That wasn't your case.

One thing I always believe is there is no one definitive path for you to get to

the top of any role in a company. So I did practically all my life into

the roles which were customer facing or business and never worked in corporate

ever. So it's kind of, uh, good to be called

corporate now. And being CEO of the company, it's a

different. But I certainly benefit from my years of

experience in different segments of the company.

I mean, that's really different from other CEOs.

Yeah, it maybe it is. I guess, uh, the benefit of having

worked in different parts of the company certainly gives you more clarity on the

customer needs and how employees thing and how the business really works.

I think it's easier to learn the corporate side of it.

I think the new things I had to learn as a CEO was more around building

relationship, an investor that's relatively new, but the business side is

very, very similar. So what did you learn about leading a

team outside headquarters as opposed to, you know, within headquarters?

I think leading a team outside headquarters.

You want people want more decision powers.

They want to move with speed, and they want to be clear on what they can do and

what they cannot do. Once they know that, they they feel more

empowered. So that, to me is fundamental difference

that you come with a mindset of how to make things easier, because big

companies can make things more complicated.

So concretely, how do you do it? Do you remind people also on the ground,

or do you remind headquarters to listen to people on the ground?

So simply saying reduce bureaucracy, uh, you can end up creating work, which is

more than the previous work, which will not lead to any outcome.

But if you want to get more work to the front end, you have to make structural

changes on how you're organized. Maybe the decision rights have to move

from center to the front end, and that requires time.

But but that's some of the things, uh, you know, we have been doing.

Is it difficult to get noticed again when you were sitting in India, was it

difficult to speak up if everything felt so far away?

Uh, you know, in a company like Honeywell, there's a benefit of having a

global structure in which you get to participate in different decision

making. But obviously, as I moved into different

roles, your visual, your visibility changes because your decision rates are

changing, right? You are doing different roles.

I never felt I was not heard. Part of it is also in your own mindset.

Uh, you know how much you think you can bring up something.

And that's why the quality of courage is very important.

Uh, how do you say what's, you know, working well and are not working well

with facts? You don't offer opinion.

You don't kind of pass the generic statement.

Oh, this doesn't work, you know. Tell me more.

What's your solution? Because it's easier to criticize, but

hard to fix it. So you if you kind of come with that

mindset to say, I observe this, I think this is a better way to do it.

That's going to be appreciated more than just being

generally critical of, uh, everything you, you know, generally speaking, in

the organization, sugarcoating it or not sugarcoating it.

I think you want to be respectful. Facts should be stated in a manner which

are which are facts. And then you don't want to criticize

anything. Which doesn't mean you have to sugarcoat

it, but you don't be critical. You state fact to say this is less

effective because here's the facts and here's an alternative way to do it.

So what was the moment where you thought you were being considered for a CEO or

bigger job? So for Honeywell, I would say there's no

one moment. First thing I did was never said no to

any role, because I always believed that all jobs are good.

And when you say no to a role or if you're offered it, usually they have to

say yes. Yeah.

But sometimes if you are too choosy and too debating, I think you are starting

with a negative mindset. I always say that if a role exists in a

company, it is important because large companies will eliminate a role if

that's not important for them. Right.

So, uh, I think each role you when you perform and you outperform, that makes a

case that you're ready for your next move.

And I think there was no one job, which, uh, I did which made such a big

transformational gain. It's like this job, you performed well,

next job you performed well. And it was, I would say, 2 or 3 times

when I outperformed. It kind of makes the case that, okay,

you're a strong candidate. So when do you get the call to go to

head office? What was that like?

So I was, uh, a segment leader in, uh, 2022 when my previous, uh, CEO of

Honeywell, he mentioned that he would like to, you know, considering, you

know, retirement. And he mentioned to me that that's a

plan and I'll have to go to the formal interview process with the board.

You know, I'm the candidate, but I'm not.

The selection then process is quite interesting because you have to put

forward a vision of the company to the board, and you have nobody supporting

you at all. You're off all by yourself because

nobody knows the process is going on. So you have no health.

You have to build your own materials, you have to research all by yourself,

and you have to do that while you're doing your job because it's supposed to

be all confidential, which was fun. Fun or terrifying?

It was fun. I treat, uh, treat that anything

learning should be treated that fun when you hard work becomes stressful.

It just is terrifying at that point of time.

So I went through that process and, uh, board selected me as a candidate and

then, uh, 2023 June, I assume the role it was announced a couple of months

earlier. Okay.

So so you get this, like, call, I don't know, it's a secret.

Is it a secret call? And you have to come up with the secret

plan, right? To convince the board that you're the

right person for the job. Right?

Do you tell your family? Yeah.

Of course. I told my wife and my daughter that, uh,

the only two people I have to share, you have to share her excitement.

Somebody. Yeah.

And what was what were their reactions? They obviously were, I would say bit

shocked because they. Nobody expected me to get this far less,

uh, you know, they always felt that I do.

Well, I take my job very seriously, but I don't take myself very seriously.

That's kind of been my mantra. Yeah.

You know, you don't always think of yourself.

I started as an entry level engineer at Honeywell, so they seen me grown over so

many roles. I think they did not expect I'll reach

that far. So I think that the that's a kind of a

surprise. In 2024, not long after Vimal Kapur assumed the role of group CEO.

A well known activist investor, Elliott Investment Management amassed a $5

billion stake in Honeywell and called for the conglomerate to split.

Now, Kapur was already in the process of slimming down the portfolio, having

announced one month earlier the spin off of Honeywell's advanced material

business as a standalone company. But Elliott's move also shone a

spotlight on the company's performance and strategic direction.

So in February 2025, shortly after Elliott's intervention, Kapur confirmed

that the remainder of Honeywell would break up.

I wanted to know how Kapur handle the pressure, how it impacted his decision

making and how he thinks other CEOs facing activist investors can focus on

driving results while cancelling out the noise.

You announced that Honeywell will be split up.

What was wrong with the Honeywell before?

Honeywell did extremely well in the last 20 years period from 2005 to, you know,

2022, 2023 timeframe, it created a massive shareholder value.

We are a company which did a great job of running businesses efficiently,

globalizing ourselves. So it was clear to me that our next 50

years, the earnings growth will come from top line growth, and top line

growth is hard to accomplish if you are a complex structure with addressing

multiple segments. Uh, that was my incoming pieces when I

started. But two things happening simultaneously.

When I started as a CEO. The first was aerospace industry started

growing. And at the same time ChatGPT came in and

AI started becoming an important conversation.

I always felt that we need to simplify. Aerospace has a huge growth potential in

front of it. Automation business have a huge growth

potential in front of it with AI. And when we did the work, we found that

each company can stand at its own feet with these growth vectors, which

to many went toward this decision. But it must be hard to take the stuff

that you've all you know, you've always worked there almost to decide to split

it up in three completely different entities.

Yeah, I think it's it's hard. Yeah.

But if you do it thoughtfully, are you preparing each company for its success

for the next 50 to 100 years? And that's a belief we are really in,

that each segment we have created is capable of its own future, but a very

compelling proposition. You also had an activist investor on

your tail. Elliott.

Yes. Did that focus the mind?

Was that a catalyst for splitting? Was the you know, Elliott, uh, came into

ours, uh, Honeywell's stock in, uh, late 24.

And, uh, we were far along the way towards this journey.

And I would say that given what they wanted versus where we were going

strategically, we're quite aligned. So there was no disagreement.

It was not what it is. How I want to go from A to B, go by

train or go by plane. That's opinion.

But you can always align on that. So I would say uh it's been very

collaborative approach. When did you find out you had an

activist investor speaking to CEOs. A lot of them say, look, this is a

nightmare because you're trying to do your strategy.

Yeah. And suddenly you have someone that that

just wants in. Yeah.

So I mean, I learned the same day like everybody else learned because it was a

public letter. Uh, so I did not.

So you don't get a call before? Uh, not really.

I mean, uh, you know, uh, I think they're they did it.

They were very clear on their expectation with their research, which

was made public. And, uh, given that we already had done

work in the same lines. So there was a convergence on what was

we had not publicly announced our intention.

Uh, but we were far along the way on that decision.

So I know a lot of CEOs will be watching this, and a lot of them will want to know

I mean, did you call, you know, Elliot, when you found out, do you feel like

with them right away. Straight straight away.

And then it was an exchange of ideas of what they wanted before you told them

your plans or was it consensus? No.

Their letter was public on what they wanted.

And so we understood their plan, and we shared our point of view on what we want

to do and why. And there was a consensus on that's the

right thing to do. So what's your best piece of advice to

the chief executive that will be getting a call maybe today from an activist?

If you have a conviction on your strategy, that's what you need to, uh,

you know, really think about and worry about.

If that's clear, then it's less about what they believe in.

It's more about what you believe in. And if you believe in something and

you're able to articulate it with a lot of passion, the probability is that you

will be listened. But if you are all over the place, then

then the opposition can win because you lack clarity.

So be prepared at all time in your strategy.

I think you be clear on the longer term view of your business, and specifically

when the business is not performing well or stock is not performing well.

You need to be clear on what are the underlying drivers and what are you

going to do about that. If you are clear on it, whether it's

your current shareholder, they are asking the same question.

It is not an activist have to show up. We all have shareholders and they are

obviously going to ask the question, what's the pathway to break this?

You know, a lack of shareholder return. Your board is going to ask you that

question. So I don't think the question really

changes it. Just the narrative of activist just gets

more visibility. Did they, you know, shorten the timeline

of what the transformation of the company happened?

No, not really. I mean, I think we did.

Did they accelerate anything? No, we are we we said that we're going

to, uh, complete the aerospace spin, uh, by end of 2026, but we are able

to procedurally do it faster. I don't think anybody can sit in end of

'24 and forecast it will take how much time.

But once you make an announcement, it's in everybody's interest to do it faster.

Honeywell's break up into three separate companies was finalized in June 2026.

There's a speciality materials company, the aerospace and aviation company, and

Honeywell Technologies, the automation company that Kapur is running now.

With the changing brief, I was keen to ask them for what it's like to be a

chief executive operating in the current political climate and where he sees the

greatest opportunity for AI. Do you think the US economy is going

through a transformational change? And this is because of automation.

It's because of aero defense. It's because of demands on, you know,

from the Trump administration. And how different will that look like?

Aerospace is benefiting from growth in demand of consumer travel business

business jet travel and defense growth. And for automation business, we have

been controlling building infrastructure, airports, refineries,

warehouses for many years. But the data we collected was only used

for control. And that's the question we are asking

ourselves, how the data becomes more useful for the more operational

excellence of an asset. So that's an opportunity for us.

But given we're talking about leadership, how difficult is it to be,

you know, a US based chief executive with unpredictable policies coming from

the White House? I mean, I would say the businesses like

predictability and clearly the predictability is less or things are

changing more faster and you have to adapt to it.

I mean, you know, this is a reality. And, uh, whether it is, you know, tariff

based thing which occurred now that's become a new normal.

We fully understand what the administration expectation is.

The job of CEOs have become much more dynamic since Covid.

So to me, it's in the series of that constant high amount of change, and we

are getting more and more used to it to deal with the change all the time.

But is it having thicker skin? I mean, sometimes you see also President

Trump attacking companies. So how do you manage again reputational

damage. Well it's also do the right thing as a

company. I mean as a company we believe you

should do what's right for our shareholders, right?

Right for our customers. And as long as you focus on the

foundational things, I do not wake up in the morning to worry about external

factors beyond my control, even if that means policy change or being directly

attacked, a policy change, I mean, the policy change, or to respond to policy

change at, uh, at any point of time? Absolutely.

Who do you rely on for advice on? My entire staff, on my entire team and

and to board in certain in nature. I by default believes in collective

decision making. I do not absol the fact I have to make a

decision in the end. I have to take a call.

But you want to have everybody's opinion and input, and then that way you're able

to make more superior decision. Was is, you know, you just want to

impose your will. What about external advice?

So I imagine the biggest and hardest decision you've had to make was to split

Honeywell. Did you get external bankers advising

you or consultancy firms you knew you'd use the bankers or consultant just to

validate your thinking. You are not going to rely on third party

for such a big decision. But if you want to cement that decision

to say, let's check the tertiary factors and make sure that we are not making any

error. That is where you want to use, you know,

external help. And we do.

And we like to work with, you know, external bankers and consultants.

Are there any books or management frameworks that have helped you along

the way? I never studied MBA, so I was always

conscious of that. So I always used to read a lot of books

on something which I'm experiencing. I mean, early days.

I was a big fan of Lean Six Sigma. You know, many years back to reach book

books on theater production system. How exactly it works.

Right. So you go with the page turner.

Yeah. So, uh, you always are using a good

quality framework all the time. Nowadays you kind of watch a lot.

And, you know, YouTube, it's kind of a new way to go.

How do you learn about IW and what it means versus large language model was

agent versus generative? You need to know it all.

But how important is eye to the work you do at Honeywell?

We as a company have been always fast adopter of technology.

So to me, uh, part of it is how it drives productivity in our own

operations. The advantage we have is because we are

digitally native. For many years we invested in a lot of

foundational systems. Right.

We can adopt it faster. We don't have to do the foundational

work. Uh, but the bigger opportunity for us is

how we use it for our customers. But is this productivity or does it

actually enable you to do something that you can't do now.

Is it transformational? Mostly I would say, uh, where we have

seen most impact is more productivity, specifically in the software development

and software testing. Uh, transformational will occur if we

redraw our work, right, in which we can use agents as part of our workflow.

And that requires us to reimagine the work by itself.

Look at the steps which an agent can perform, and then the rest of the steps

human has to perform. And I truly believe this is another way

to drive productivity. What excites me is the opportunity it

has for our customers because we create a lot of data.

Our customers have one common issue in the sectors we serve.

They are short of skilled people, right? Skilled people are required to operate,

to maintain, to run. They are increasingly becoming lesser as

retirements are coming. So they are they are already forecasting

lesser and lesser people available as a workforce for specific roles.

And the only solution is you automate a portion of work or you make the work

perform a lower skill people. So it means be able to create more tools

so that people are more productive. So a five year experience person can do

a 15 year experience person's role. And that is where the AI physical AI work

comes in, where we are, uh, having leadership that we use, the data we

created, we have in our systems, and we train the data to perform the tasks to

make our customers, people more skilled, make their assets run smarter,

operations done better. I mean, workers must must be anxious

about it. Yes and no.

If you are in a segments, we saw there are shortage of people by default.

Their the role of AI will be more agent systems coming in or what a period of

time. So that's true to every company.

But if I look at our customers world, they don't have enough people to run

their operations, maintain their operations efficiently.

So there's less anxiety about anybody taking away job, the more anxiety is

what will happen, uh, 3 to 5 years from now.

Plus, foundationally, pretty much in the entire world.

The population is not growing. The implication of that is 10 to 15

years from now. Less workforce is coming into work.

So how will work happen? In that case, when you need a touch

labor. So I think displacement will occur where

work can be automated. But does it change the qualities in

leaders that we need? That you're no longer a cheerleader or

someone who inspires or has a vision, but you're more of a programmer.

If you look at the evolution of technology over the last 30 or 40 years.

The more and more work is getting automated and humans are elevated to a

higher level of decision making. It comes in burst and every time a big

burst comes up. When I started working for the first one

year or 18 months, I had not even a computer.

I was given computer, uh, in 89. So I'm from the era with source PC

first. Then there was the internet.

Then there was a mobile phone. Uh, so all these, every time these

occurrences occur, there's a lot of noise.

It's going to take away jobs. But then this is the way technology

inflect itself, and it becomes a new normal.

Yeah, there's always some churn. And I think as humans, we have to

basically remember we have to always raise our skills.

If we are static, then our jobs are always at risk.

Rapid fire. In an era of workers needing to skill

up, what's a new skill you've learnt recently?

Learning more about AI and difference between AI. I didn't even know the

difference between different forms of AI.

So just last Sunday I saw a one hour video between generative AI and Agentic AI.

What's the difference. Career coach? Great investment or pass?

I think it depends on who you are. If you need help to build certain skills

and career coach is a great tool. You must know what help you need.

But if you are looking to generically and find a magic answer, then it's a

pass. Have you had a career coach?

I had good HR partners for many years, I would say, and I treated them as a

career coach to help me become a better leader.

And I gave them always a, you know, the keys to the kingdom to say, you can

criticize me, but you have to let me know what I can do better.

Top tip for pushing back against being micromanaged.

Show the facts how it is causing the harm.

You know, if you simply say a high level statement that, uh, it's not working,

people are going to shrug shoulder or roll up the eyes.

But if you are more specific to, say here, in example, how micromanaging is

causing the damage slowing me down. We are losing the business or losing the

speed. Then there's a higher probability that,

you know the leadership team will listen.

Vimal, thank you so much for your time today.

Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.