New Charlotte manufacturing company chooses a female CEO in male-dominated industry

The first CEO for a new Charlotte manufacturing company is a woman, a rarity in the male-dominated industry. But don’t call her a trailblazer, she says.

In February, the privately-held company, Solve Industrial Motion Group named Lisa Mitchell as its CEO to lead its business of nearly 60 employees.

Mitchell had been the chief operating officer since 2019 for P.T. International in Charlotte, which acquired two companies in two years — LMS Bearings in Denver, Colorado, and IPTCI Bearings in Minneapolis — to create Solve.

The company on Westinghouse Boulevard makes bearings and metric power transmission components used in industries such as food and beverage, and some heavy industrial and textile production. The manufacturing site is 72,000 square feet and does mostly light assembly.

“If you think about any type of machinery or anything that rotates that has a bearing in it, we can supply that part,” Mitchell said in a recent interview.

Women in manufacturing

Despite it being a male-dominated industry, Mitchell doesn’t view herself as a barrier breaker.

“I had so many roles and leadership roles throughout my career, I don’t know that I ever viewed it as what’s the difference between being a woman or a man,” Mitchell said.

But according to the latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the manufacturing industry is nearly 80% male-dominated. And, according to the bureau, women hold only about 30% of manufacturing jobs in the U.S.

Rochelle Savel, chairwoman of the North Carolina Chapter of Women in Manufacturing Association, said thatMitchell being named CEO is a positive step for the manufacturing industry here.

“Promotions like this matter because WiM’s research shows that getting more women into leadership positions leads to more women in the manufacturing workforce,” Savel said in a statement to the Observer.

The local WiM chapter focuses on empowering women to navigate diversity conversations, excel through career planning and grow networks within the Charlotte area, Savel said.

Mitchell, a native of Pennsylvania and Penn State University graduate, has held numerous leadership roles at other companies in nearly 30 years.

She was president of Vallen Distribution in Belmont, and overseeing its merger with another industrial distribution group Hagemeyer North America . She also held management roles at Illinois-based Tenneco, an automotive components manufacturing company.

Mitchell said many plant managers are women but not necessarily the majority of workers.

“You’d probably have more of the workers on the floor that probably wasn’t accustomed to that,” she said of being a female boss in manufacturing.

She said boards of directors and companies are seeing the value in creating more diverse boards and leadership. And, there are better opportunities for women today.

“I think the gender barriers are breaking, but it’s not going to happen overnight,” Mitchell said. “I think sometimes we lose sight of the fact that the pool of us may have been a little bit more limited in previous years. So you’re seeing this emergence.”

‘A nice trend to see’

Women currently hold 31, or 6.2%, of CEO positions at S&P 500 companies, according to the global nonprofit Catalyst that works to advance women into leadership.

Mitchell joins other women who are CEOs of major local companies, including Lynn Good with Duke Energy Corp., Lisa Harper of Belk’s department store and Meg Ham of Salisbury-based Food Lion grocery stores.

And, several large manufacturing companies, like General Motors, Lockheed Martin and Aerojet Rocketdyne, have hired women CEOs in the last decade.

Mitchell credits organizations with seeing the benefits of having different mindsets and diversity within employee and leadership roles.

“We’re starting to see the value of having diverse candidates on boards, which is really a nice trend to see,” she said. “It’s an evolution. It’s not a revolution.”

But the bottom line, Mitchell said, comes down to embracing the role and performance.

“I was one of the first female plant managers at Tenneco Automotive and I ran a company prior to coming to PTI/Solve, so I can’t honestly say that I’ve ever met any resistance or adverse reaction because I was a female,” she said.

Mitchell said as her career advanced, having a supportive husband made a difference.

“I would say where your challenges are is trying to find that right work-life balance to be able to enjoy family and continue to grow your career,” she said. The Mitchells have two sons.

Solve’s future

Mitchell is taking the reins of Solve under historic times during the coronavirus pandemic.

She said being an automated manufacturer has been helpful to adapt to social distancing and other safety protocols. The company has a mix of workers working onsite and remote when possible, and offers paid-time off if an employee was exposed and must quarantine, or needs to be tested.

“Fortunately, we do a lot of light assembly and don’t have heavy manufacturing equipment, so we’ve been able to follow COVID guidelines,” she said. “We’re battling the same thing as other companies.”

The company did not provide details about its revenue.

Mitchell is setting big plans for Solve’s future.

“I would love to double the size of this business in the next two to five years,” she said. She wants to do that through new products and more acquisitions to expand product offerings.

“We are very much a growth-minded organization,” she said. “We’ll always look for acquisitions that make sense.”

This story was originally published April 2, 2021 at 6:30 AM.