Making Magic, Lemonade and Milestones: “What Drives Her…” Meet Olabisi Boyle of Hyundai
Teia Collier
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The air crackles around her with life, energy, and creativity as she discusses the current project of the day.
Meet Olabisi Boyle, VP of Product and Mobility at Hyundai Motors, who has made it her mission to connect the dots, create a legacy of inspiration and innovation, and enjoy her world along the way.
Getting to Know Bisi
I prepared for my interview Olabisi Boyle, Bisi for short, by checking her LinkedIn profile and skimming the good-old world wide web for stories with her included. I wanted to see what drove her, what made her tick and what made her heart sing. I could see some of that from Google and the internet, but I was looking forward to chatting with her.
It is easy to see how her professional background in product innovation at VISA, engineering planning at Stellantis (formerly known as FCA), strategy at Ford, and engineering at IBM shaped her work trajectory. It flows from one experience to the next with ease. I learned that her life is lived in the now—she’s powerful, mobile, and flexible like mercury, and many of the connected mobility and commerce systems that she helps to create draw from her personality. Boyle is an active participant in her life rather than simply letting life happen to her. She takes every experience that comes her way head-on, strategically, with an eye on the future, and she learns what she can what she can from it before moving forward.
After a few minutes, I could see that she is a master work in progress, a by-product of courage, joyful grace and a powerful imagination with the technical know-how to make “it” happen. Pair that with an inspirational work ethic and an intangible it-factor, Bisi has created loyal teams at companies known only by their first names with buy-in worthy of the Genghis Khans of the world.
Memories and a Path
Olympian Simone Biles and Olabisi Boyle at VISA
After being shot when she was 14 years old while working at her neighborhood shoe store, Bisi had the presence of mind to stay present, even in the midst of chaos. As her body healed, she took that experience as a signal to move forward and thrive. Boyle knew from a young age that her path would lead her out of Harlem and further into a world where she could make a difference. Captivated by the way things work, the movement of things, and how they could function better, science and math were a natural vehicle for her. She was never in doubt that she would follow her dreams and inspire others — it was just a matter of how.
We sat down on a call a few months into her new role as Vice President of Product and Mobility at Hyundai Motor Company. She spoke of her mother’s divorce, an improbable journey from Nigeria to New York, and how that shaped her path. It led her along a road that made her hungry, driven and excited to create a ‘legacy {for herself and her family} that she could be proud of’.
To Make a Legacy
Interview with Astronaut Leland Melvin
Along the creative, winding road of fate with a brilliant work ethic, Boyle set to making lemonade and found her way to Columbia and Fordham to earn degrees in Industrial and Mechanical Engineering. A firm believer in the fact that “while we may not can control our circumstances, we can control our actions [and reactions],” she gained training that would lay the groundwork for her future career path. From her experiences as a student, in the lab and professionally as a natural solution finder, Bisi has carefully and joyfully embarked upon a path of leading by example as a hands-on leader with the ability to pull innovative magic out of people. It is no surprise that she is thriving at Hyundai. Her mindset flows in alignment with the current direction of Hyundai Motor Company under the leadership of José Munoz – which is to set ambitious, almost ostentatious, goals like enabling a hydrogen-based economy, making impactful contributions to the community at large, supporting and encouraging diversity on a large scale and becoming one of the best, smart mobility providers on the planet.
Olabisi Boyle, Vice President, Product Planning and Mobility Strategy, Hyundai Motor North America. Photo: Hyundai
Making Lemonade
The challenge could have been daunting, but instead Bisi views these directives as opportunities to create and make this world a better, more joyful place. With a mindset like that, it is short shift from dreams and goals to a future crystalized from the realms of imagination and opened up into a functional reality. To reach that end, Boyle takes an active role in the outreach and mentorship of the next generation of STEM leaders, particularly in under-served populations. Oft recommended and frequently sought by other trailblazers in their field, she continues to remind girls and women to enter the STEM fields, to come do the work and to know that there is a place for them there.
In her current role at Hyundai, Boyle is “responsible for guiding the strategic direction of Hyundai’s U.S. vehicle lineup, leading long- and short-range planning, and overseeing market research.” But upon research, it’s more than that. It is about inspiring and collaborating with others to see what does not quite exist and inspiring them to work together as an efficient team to create that vision and birth it into reality That’s very similar to the way that Boyle’s mom saw a different vision for her family that did not exist yet and then went to go create it. It is nothing short of magic, in action, in everyday life.
Driving Tomorrow
Charming, unassuming and with a magnetism that money can’t buy, Obalisi Boyle is bringing a new voice and a vibrant energy to Hyundai. Recently named one of the Top 100 Women in Automotive by Automotive News, she is a brilliant addition to a team that is working to shape a mobile and connected tomorrow.
To learn more about Bisi and her current projects at Hyundai, visit here.