Brent Robinson
Brent started working life as a radio and electronics apprentice, with Pye electronics in Waihi.
He finished his apprenticeship with Rakon Industries after joining the family company in 1979. Brent then completed several MIT diplomas in industrial electronics, digital electronics, microprocessor control and robotics. Working as an engineer, he developed various key product and production technologies and in 1986, was appointed managing director.
Under Brent's leadership Rakon has grown from a family business with annual revenue of NZ$1 million, <15 staff and shipments of 24,000 units, to a public company with revenue of NZ$189 million, 2,300 staff and 72 million units shipped in 2011. Rakon is also now a multinational organisation with facilities in New Zealand, the UK, France, India and China. It has leading market positions in GPS, telecommunications, network timing/synchronisation and aerospace.
Brent has consistently driven Rakon to operate as an international player. Back in the early 1990s he was quoted as saying that he knew the company had to "export or die", recognising that to succeed the company had to establish itself in the international market.
As well as CEO, Brent acts as chief technology officer and has been behind many of Rakon's technological advancements. This has included many world-first developments, such as the world's smallest 1 ppm TCXO in 1990 and the first mass production volume 0.5 ppm TCXO in 2003. Both developments were years ahead of competitive solutions. Brent also developed the unique manufacturing technology that has given Rakon its core competitive advantage and is still without peer in the world.
Brent has always recognised the value of understanding customers and markets. Recognising, for example, that for GPS to evolve into a high-volume consumer market, its performance had to significantly improve. He also understood the TCXO, Rakon's core technology, could play a critical role in this. This understanding led to the publication of an influential white paper in 2003 and the development of the 0.5 ppm TCXO, which was up to five times better than the competitive performance at the time. Despite some initial doubts from the market the technology was adopted and in particular the 0.5 ppm TCXO allowed cellphone manufacturers to incorporate effective GPS into cellular phones for very little cost. Cellular phone GPS may never have happened when it did, without Rakon's contribution. The 0.5 ppm TCXO remains the GPS standard today.
Brent has always been a firm believer in supporting and growing New Zealand's engineering talent. Rakon has a scholarship programme for university students studying electronics, and mechanical and electrical engineering. The company also brings recent university graduates into the company and mentors them through the different divisions:
"New Zealand and high tech-companies like Rakon can never have enough skilled engineers and it is pleasing to see the exceptionally high calibre of students coming through."
As well as Executive Director of Rakon Limited, Brent also serves as Director of Centum Rakon India Private Limited, Timemaker Crystal Technology Co. Limited and Rakon Crystal (Chengdu) Co. Limited.
Brent and his wife Lisa have two sons, both of whom work at Rakon and are continuing the family's connection. Together the family has witnessed and felt the highs and lows of running an export business. Ask any Robinson at any time of the day what the US dollar exchange rate is and they can tell you!
The wider family has supported Brent in his leadership and is proud of Rakon's global recognition in its field and the level of success attained. Brent's father Warren is the founder of Rakon and his brother Darren is marketing director.
Brent is excited about the future opportunities Rakon will be involved in and feels that many other New Zealand companies have similar opportunities to be on the global platform as world leaders in their respective fields. He believes Rakon's success story need not be a one off:
"I think there is a model for technology businesses to identify opportunities that are niche, that have the potential to grow and that have problems that need solving."
"I think New Zealanders are good at problem solving. That is what we did, we solved a lot of problems that other manufacturers had not."
Outside of Rakon, Brent enjoys hunting, fly and game fishing and has one of the best smokers around - designed and made from his own engineering handy work.
