Rakon CEO Brent Robinson has been awarded the Tait Radio Communications Flying Kiwi Award from the Hi-Tech Trust, it was announced yesterday.
Robinson is both CEO and Chief Technology Officer of the company, which the Hi-Tech Trust says has a revenue of $189 million, employs 2300 staff and shipped 72 million units in 2011. In May, Rakon received the Hi-Tech Company of the Decade Award.
Robinson joined the family business in 1979 when it had an annual revenue of $1 million. He was appointed managing director in 1986 and speerheaded Rakon’s move into international markets. The company now has facilities in New Zealand, UK, France, India and China, and has market positions in GPS, telecommunications, network timing/synchronisation and aerospace, the Hi-Tech statement says.
In July, Robinson opened a US$35 million facility in Chengdu, China, that produces crystals and temperature-compensated crystal oscillators for smartphones and other consumer devices.
“Brent has made, and will continue to make, an exceptional contribution to New Zealand’s hi-tech industry,” says NZ Hi-Tech Trust chairman Wayne Norrie. “Rakon is undoubtedly one of our most successful companies and a great deal of that success has been attributed to Brent’s leadership. He is an inspiration to those that work with him and for those in the industry he is blazing a new path of possibility for New Zealand-based hi-tech manufacturers.”
Other recipients of the award are the late Sir Angus Tait, Neville Jordan, Woolf Fisher and Maurice Paykel, Peter Maire, Bill Gallagher, Trevor Eagle, Ian Taylor, Dennis Chapman, Gil Simpson, Selwyn Pellett, Rod Drury and Paul Hargreaves.