Henio Arcangeli, M.Eng. ’87, has 30 years experience as a consumer and manufacturing executive in the automotive and electronics industries, and was previously the senior vice president of American Honda Motor Company’s Automobile Division. The Sibley School alum currently serves as a board member of both Ouster and Virgin Galactic.
Q&A with Henio Arcangeli, M.Eng. ’87
Where did you grow up?
I was born in Los Angeles, California, to two amazing parents from Argentina who came to the U.S. looking for better opportunity, and a chance to live the American dream. They soon became American citizens, and proudly loved their new country.
Growing up, my parents put a focus on education. For my younger brother and me, they had a simple rule – “Do good in school, play sports, and we’ll take care of the rest.” It was a formula that worked well for us, as I eventually earned three college degrees and became a business executive for several companies, and my younger brother became a medical doctor and a highly respected urologist.
Were you always interested in engineering?
Yes. At an early age, I developed a strong passion for automobiles and auto racing – especially Formula One and Indy car – which are heavily influenced by engineering. As a child, I would regularly build model cars, design new cars with pencil and paper, and dreamed about working in the automotive industry.
Another strong influence was my father, who was a brilliant man that could build and fix virtually any electro-mechanical device. He often encouraged me to take apart products and figure out how they worked. He also owned a highly successful commercial refrigeration business in Los Angeles, and in the summer, I would go to work with him and watch how he and his employees fixed equipment.
When you were looking at getting a master’s degree, what made you interested in doing it at Cornell?
Towards the beginning of my senior year, I was still eager to learn more about mechanical engineering, especially in the areas of product design and manufacturing. I also wanted to differentiate myself from other engineers by having a graduate degree once I started my professional career.
As I researched graduate engineering programs, Cornell stood out on the list due to its top 10 ranking, its Ivy League affiliation, and the fact that it was in the eastern part of the U.S., an area that was new to me.
Cornell, the faculty, and the M.Eng. program did not disappoint. When I arrived, I found a beautiful campus and an excellent and committed faculty focused on teaching engineers through coursework and research opportunities.
What was your career trajectory into your current position?
From an early age, I was goal oriented. As my father was an entrepreneur and owned his own company, I wanted to either start my own company, or lead a large, highly successful company or business unit.
From Cornell, I wanted to start my professional career with a world-class company where I could continue to learn and develop as an engineer. As Cornell students, we were fortunate as there were many top companies that came to interview on campus. I chose to go with General Electric (GE), as GE was considered at the time one of the most admired and well-run companies in the U.S. I entered their two-year Manufacturing Management Program designed to develop manufacturing leaders within GE. It was a terrific program that allowed me to take on meaningful projects and work with very talented people.
Upon conclusion of the program, I was ready to take the next step in my development and decided to pursue an MBA at Stanford University. My thinking was that an MBA would make it easier to pivot from engineering to higher-level business roles and more professional opportunities.
Upon completing the MBA, I returned to GE and the GE Major Appliance Business Group and became a manager responsible for cooking products. This was a terrific role as I oversaw all aspects of the product – design, engineering, manufacturing, marketing, sales and service – and allowed me to leverage both my technical and new business skills from the MBA.
After three productive years in this role, a pattern developed where I was often recruited by other companies to take on more senior roles with more responsibilities. This led to special roles as a CEO of How2TV, an internet-based company during the dot-com period, president for the Motorsports Group Company at Yamaha Motor Corp., USA, overseeing the motorcycle, ATV, snowmobile, and outdoor power equipment businesses, and later head of American Honda’s Automobile Division, which included Honda and Acura. In this last role, I was responsible for annual sales revenue of over $40 billion, and selling 1.6 million vehicles per year.
Since my role at American Honda, I have transitioned from executive roles to board of director roles with corporate companies. One company I am particularly excited to be working with is Virgin Galactic, which is helping make space travel accessible to people around the world. What Virgin Galactic is striving to do is truly special and unique.
How did your Cornell M.Eng. help prepare you for the jobs that came after?
Completing the program gave me a very good engineering foundation, and the capability to tackle difficult technical problems. This ability served me well in my career.
The program also re-enforced my belief in the value of discipline and hard work to be successful in what you’re trying to achieve.
In addition to this, Cornell’s reputation certainly helped open doors to professional opportunities. I’m proud to be associated with a university and program that is globally recognized for excellence. I am also happy to see that the current leaders are eager to see Cornell stay at this high level.