2020 Automotive News All-Stars

When Sandra Phillips Rogers joined the legal team at Toyota Motor North America in 2010, it was right in the heart of the automaker’s unintended-acceleration crisis in the U.S. But the challenges of COVID-19 made that existential crisis a decade ago seem like a relative walk in the park.

Phillips Rogers, 54, is group vice president, general counsel and chief legal officer, and chief diversity officer for Toyota Motor North America. In those varying jobs this year, Phillips Rogers and her team ensured that Toyota was complying with myriad federal and local health regulations and ordinances put in place throughout North America.

It was a daunting task, and one made more difficult by the unknowns in the earliest days of the pandemic, and the ever-changing legal landscape brought on by evolving directions from medical experts in U.S., Mexico and Canada. 

Yet Phillips Rogers and her legal team enabled Toyota Motor North America to safely and securely restart its production across North America in early May after an eight-week shutdown. As a result, Toyota dealers were able to restock their lots and take advantage of rebounding consumer demand later in the year.