An Eventful Decade of Change and Growth for Molex
In the decade since its acquisition by Koch Industries, the Illinois company’s expansion has occurred in tandem with momentous technological changes impacting every market in the electronics industry. Molex CEO Joe Nelligan reflects on this period of transformation and shares his insights on what the future holds.
Molex’s rich history dates back to the 1930s, and its connectivity products have helped drive innovations in the transportation, data communications, industrial, medical, and consumer industries. However, the decade since the company was acquired by Koch Industries has been especially consequential: Since 2013, Molex has doubled in size and made over a dozen acquisitions. Today, the company has 42,000 employees, 72 plants located in 18 countries, and a robust portfolio of more than 100,000 products.
Molex Chief Executive Officer Joe Nelligan assumed his role in 2018 after many years with the company. He began as an intern in 1984, then joined as a product development engineer in 1986, moving into several roles with progressive responsibility in engineering, product management, and sales and marketing before being named president of the Global Commercial Products division in 2012, then chief operating officer in 2016. In a conversation with Bishop & Associates, Nelligan reflected on the company’s evolution.
Molex CEO Joe Nelligan
Bishop: Koch Industries has owned Molex for a decade. How was the transition from a public to a private company?
Nelligan: Being part of Koch gives Molex access to additional capabilities that have helped us better serve our customers around the world. Our ability to grow organically and through strategic acquisitions has strengthened considerably. We have access to companies and capabilities across Koch, especially across the industrial sector, which enable us to knowledge-share on new technologies and accelerate learning and innovation. We appreciate Koch’s long-term focus, which aligns with our goal of enabling technology that improves people’s lives by making the world a better, more connected place.
Bishop: How is Molex currently structured? Are you organized around market sectors, geographies, product types, or technologies?
Nelligan: Molex is organized around a global market structure with four operating divisions: transportation, consumer and commercial, data communications, and medical. We believe this structure best positions us to support our customers.
As our customers face increased challenges with power, speed, and density, we are seeing technology convergence across our divisions and end markets. Interestingly, increased opportunities for cross-divisional collaboration facilitate new levels of customer engagement during times of unprecedented transformation across our target markets. For instance, many of Molex’s microminiature products typically found in mobile devices and sold by our consumer and commercial division are finding their way into automotive and data applications. Our consumer, automotive and data communications teams increasingly share learnings to leverage their collective expertise to drive compelling innovation for our customers.
Bishop: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is all about bandwidth and speed. This creates significant demand for high-speed copper and fiber optic interconnects. Do you believe your current product offering is up to the challenge of AI?
Nelligan: Molex is well positioned to meet escalating demand with our broad line of high-speed copper connectors and cables, along with active optical transceivers and passive optical connectivity solutions. Meeting the need for faster transmission speeds — between and inside next-generation data centers — requires improved signal integrity, reduced electromagnetic interference (EMI), and more efficient thermal management.
A great example of innovation in this area is Molex’s 224G product portfolio, which includes a broad range of next-gen backplane connectors and cables, board-to-board connectors, near-ASIC connector-to-cable solutions, and high-speed I/O connectors and cables. We are aggressively investing in R&D, our people, and new capacity for both industry-standard and custom product designs for this rapidly emerging category.
Bishop: Molex is highly focused on automotive and vehicle connectivity. How are this market’s needs playing a role in the future of Molex?
Nelligan: We have always believed it is important to have a significant position in what is arguably the largest market in the connector industry — and represents the largest market for Molex. We have a leading portfolio of core automotive connector and cable products, and we continue to innovate to best serve our automotive customers in times of tremendous disruption.
Our commitment to creating a broad and compelling product portfolio across the entire automotive ecosystem has resulted in solutions for automotive high-speed networking, vehicle antenna systems, electrification, advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), and vehicle-to-everything communications (V2X). In addition to our internal R&D efforts, some of these solutions came through acquisitions, including the 2018 acquisition of Laird Connected Vehicle Solutions. This enabled us to deliver connected mobility and antenna offerings to the market.
Molex Percept Road Noise Cancellation (RNC) sensors deliver real-time monitoring capabilities that enable the vehicle to dynamically adapt to changing conditions for optimal noise reduction.
We also delivered Molex’s Percept Road Noise Cancellation (RNC) sensors, which use accelerometers and microphones to capture and cancel unwanted road noise to enhance driver comfort and safety.
In May of this year, we announced Molex’s MX-DaSH family of data-signal hybrid connectors that unify power, signal, and high-speed data connectivity in a single connector system. These innovative wire-to-wire and wire-to-board connectors support the transition to zonal architectures and address the full range of emerging applications requiring reliable data transmission, including autonomous driving modules, camera systems, GPS and infotainment devices, lidar, and more.
The MX-DaSH (Molex Data-Signal Hybrid) Connector System combines high-speed data, signal and power into one connector that can replace multiple traditional connectors in vehicle applications.
We recognize there is an ongoing opportunity to embrace disruptive technologies that are altering the automotive landscape. To address the need, we will continue to grow capability and add capacity to offer advanced engineering, supply chain flexibility, and large-scale production to our customers. In addition to product innovations, we recently increased our production capacity in late 2022 by opening a second state-of-the-art automotive connector manufacturing facility in Guadalajara, Mexico.
Bishop: The purchase of Phillips-Medisize makes Molex one of the largest manufacturers of insulin pens. How do you envision growing and expanding the healthcare business within Molex?
Nelligan: Molex has supplied innovative connectors and cabling solutions to the healthcare industry for many years. In collaboration with our customers, we have expanded the design and development of innovative drug-delivery devices to include insulin pens, auto injectors, insulin pump technology, and non-invasive continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) platforms in collaboration with customers.
Molex increased its manufacturing capacity last November with the opening of a new campus in Katowice, Poland, to support our European medical customers. This plant will also allow us to produce electric vehicle and electrification solutions for Molex’s automotive customers
As with our other businesses, cross-functional collaboration will be leveraged wherever possible. For MedTech devices, this could mean tapping into our consumer device expertise to support the ongoing miniaturization of electronic components in wearables. It could also manifest in leveraging our data communications capability to support wireless connectivity in next-gen medical devices. Phillips-Medisize has an exciting pipeline of new projects across drug delivery, diagnostics, and MedTech applications, and we plan to continue to build capability organically or through acquisitions.
Bishop: Describe Molex in 10 years. What kind of company do you foresee?
Nelligan: There will be so many exciting changes taking place over the next 10 years as more and more electronics become embedded into products that improve how we live, work, and play. We see significant transformation and convergence occurring across every industry we serve, and we are working hard to ensure our customers continue to choose Molex as their preferred partner.
An expanded version of this article first appeared in the Bishop Report. This content is available to subscribers of Connector Supplier through a special partnership with Bishop & Associates. No part of this article may be used without the permission of Bishop & Associates Inc. The Bishop Report publishes monthly updates about the performance of the connector industry and key industry topics. Subscribe to the Bishop Report here. Contact us at [email protected] or 630.443.2702.
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