Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1197000
36 SMT007 MAGAZINE I JANUARY 2020 Feature Interview by Barry Matties I-CONNECT007 Phil Carmichael, IPC president of Asia Pacific, talks with Barry Matties at the HKPCA show about the continued growth and increased engagement by Asian member companies with IPC, with over 320 members in standards com- mittees now working on the development of the next-generation standards. Barry Matties: Can you give a brief update on the status of IPC and the accomplishments in Asia over the last year? Phil Carmichael: Financially, IPC has had a good year, and we continue to grow our member- ship. We've had a very strong year in South- east Asia and Japan. China continues to grow, even though the economy has been a little bit slower this year than in previous years. But overall, we're growing, and we've had a good year. I started almost eight years ago. And when I joined at the beginning of 2013, we had around 300 members; we're going to end the year at about 1,500. Matties: That's substantial growth. Carmichael: And revenue, a sign of industry engagement, has grown even faster than that. Matties: What was the impetus behind your growth? Carmichael: We developed an entire man- agement infrastructure in the AP region. We brought in a finance team and strengthened the sales organization. One of the critical issues was that we were able to make deci- sions to support a member customer in China on the same day without having to go some- where else to get information. That is one of the big reasons that we've been able to sus- tain growth. It's tough to have seven years in a row where you're growing, and that's what we've had. Also, the engagement that we have with our member customers in China has been huge. We're a standards organization, so that's the core of our business; it all starts with the stan- dards. IPC developed standards with commit- tees from the industry. Our interest is to have IPC Asia Continues Solid Growth Phil Carmichael