We tend not to think of engineers as extroverts, as the kinds of professionals who are client-facing—ready to make steady eye contact and personally engage to overcome a customer challenge. But that’s exactly the type of engineer Benedict Nortey is. “I have a background in engineering, of course,” says Nortey, “but also in consulting. So I’m used to being in front of the client and acting as the interface between the customer, the sales team, and the design and applications engineers. It’s a job combination I really enjoy.”
That’s good news, because as Phoenix Mecano’s new Engineering Manager, this unique professional combination will be much of Nortey’s life. Phoenix Mecano is, after all, a engineering and manufacturing firm first and foremost. So the benefit of having someone at the helm of engineering who can personally translate highly complex customer questions into straightforward company answers can’t be overestimated.
On the purely engineering side of things, Nortey brings to Phoenix Mecano an impressive resume of academic and professional achievements. Nortey is a native of Ghana, West Africa. He started out there as a petroleum engineer in drilling applications, and also worked on offshore oil rigs. From such a hands-on environment he next went into management, becoming the general manager for Kariba Engineering and the senior business operations manager for BakerHughes. It was around that time he earned his first master’s degree in engineering and management, at Coventry University in the U.K. When he came to the U.S. he earned his second master’s degree, this time in manufacturing engineering.
In Detroit, Michigan, Nortey served as a consultant and an engineering project manager for the auto industry. He’d always known the importance of customer interface, but it was the consulting job that allowed him to really develop this all-important skillset and learn exactly how to apply it. Nortey: “I’ve been here at Phoenix Mecano for two weeks, but I’ve already told my team, you have to understand the needs of the customer above all else. This will be inculcated into the team’s DNA. Although, frankly, it’s already there. This engineering team knows what it’s doing in terms of understanding the customer. I’m lucky to be leading it, and I’ll do my part to keep that spirit of customer engagement alive.”
Metrics will be a big part of that. Phoenix Mecano already applies metrics to customer inquiries—how well the company responds to customers, how fast it responds, etc.— but Nortey hopes to take such customer-focused data even further. “I already like Phoenix Mecano’s processes,” says Nortey. “They have automated tools for tracking metrics. Dashboards that give you lots of information at a glance. Awesome stuff. One of the things I love about Phoenix Mecano is the wide age range of employees. There are Boomers, Gen-Xers, Millenials, and Gen-Zs. So you have all these generations sharing ideas. Older and younger. Experience and ingenuity. It all adds up to the change-mindset I like so much.”
