Vicki Poponi is the former Vice President and 1^st Chief Customer Experience Officer for American Honda where she was responsible for Honda’s digital transformation and customer experience strategy across all product lines and functions for this $50B ⁺ subsidiary of Honda Motor. Prior to her role as CXO, Poponi was the vice president of auto sales operations overseeing Honda and Acura’s multibillion dollar marketing operations. 

A Wharton MBA and Chemical Engineer, Poponi has extensive automotive and manufacturing experience. During her 15 years with Honda, Poponi held multiple senior executive roles responsible for: Central America, the Caribbean and global regional sales profit and loss; overseeing market quality, serviceability and recall operations; automotive product planning where Poponi was responsible for over 25 vehicle developments and market launches, including two generations of the award-winning Honda Accord, Honda Civic and Honda CR-V. 

Prior to joining Honda in 2005, Poponi was an executive with AlliedSignal/Honeywell’s Garrett Turbocharging business where she held general management and global manufacturing operations leadership roles. Additionally, Poponi spent 13 years in the paper industry in production/operations management positions for Scott Paper (1985-1995) and Kimberly Clark / Schweitzer-Mauduit (1995-1998). 

Poponi serves as a trustee for The Committee of Economic Development, co-chairing the infrastructure and China trade subcommittees, and is on the advisory board for Drexel University’s College of Computing and Infomatics. Poponi has also served as a board advisor for Modal, an e-commerce start up, on Northwestern Mutual’s Policyowners Examining Committee and as a trustee of the Peninsula Education Foundation. 

Poponi has been recognized as a 100 Leading Women in the North American Automotive Industry and with a national STEP Ahead Award, which recognizes women in science, engineering and production careers who exemplify leadership within their companies.