Background and related experience:
Bert Munnikhuis has more than 30 years of experience in high tech electronics, and has held senior technical, marketing, business development and program/account management positions in this exciting industry. Mr. Munnikhuis began his career as a Support and Design Engineer when the Hard Disk Drive (HDD) business was in its infancy, and progressed through successively senior positions within manufacturing such as Product Assurance, Engineering, and Operations, with the Burroughs Corporation.
Following his work at Burroughs, Bert accepted a position in the capital equipment segment of the data storage industry. His initial assignments included direct responsibility for the conceptual definition, design and manufacturing of specialized test and process equipment for the manufacture of disk drives and their components. Mr. Munnikhuis’ career progressed through increasingly important roles that included Director of Application Engineering, and Vice President of Sales and Marketing for several pioneering firms in this highly specialized field. From 1982 till 1994, Bert was Vice President Sales and Marketing for Cambrian Systems Inc, and held the same position with Phase Metrics Inc from 1994 till December 1999 after Phase Metrics acquired the assets and intellectual property of Cambrian. Both firms distinguished themselves as leading edge technology providers, providing products that included media certifiers, servo track writers, specialized R&D spin stands, dynamic and static head testers, flying height testers, and back end disk drive test equipment. He was a key team member of Phase Metrics’ aggressive acquisition programs during the 1990s that led that company to acquisitions of automation capabilities and advanced servo technologies. His responsibilities included the complete assimilation of these products and technologies into Phase Metrics’ product offerings and subsequent development plans. Bert’s success led directly to his assignment as Vice President of Business Development, tasked with prospecting and closing on strategic alliances, acquisitions and licensing of proprietary properties.
After 17 combined years with Cambrian and Phase Metrics, Bert joined Magnetic Data Technologies, LLC, a global provider of post-sales services to the communications, computer and electronic storage markets. He joined this company in January 2000 to develop their presence of reverse logistics and repair services in the disk drive industry, as their Sr. VP of Sales and Marketing. He was the lead executive involved with the acquisition of the Customer Service Organization of Western Digital Corporation in
In addition, Mr. Munnikhuis engineered the acquisition of a diversified repair organization in
Bert was a lead member of the MDT team that has successfully structured the sale of MDT to Solectron, representing MDT’s and its investor’s interests.
Later in 2002 Bert joined Teleplan International (a Dutch based independent provider of Reverse Supply Chain Management services) as its EVP of Business Development for the Americas Region, reporting to the CCO in The Netherlands. During his service he led the customer relations disciplines and was instrumental in the acquisition of A-Novo Broadband by Teleplan. This division became a leading supplier of repair services to the cable settop box industry. In addition Bert led the efforts to start a new maquiladora manufacturing facility in
He joined Solectron Global Services (SGS) in 2005 as its Vice President of Program Management. SGS was the largest global provider of Reverse and Service Parts Logistics Services to tier one electronics companies. SGS serviced consumer electronics, mobile phones, computing and complex communication products. He built an organization of seasoned professionals managing a portfolio of contracts with a combined revenue stream well above $600M/Yr. His focus has been on customer satisfaction and profitable performance from the 20 global facilities. A main issue in achieving key metrics at SGS was a troublesome performance with new project deployments. Bert took on the task to remedy this issue by starting a dedicated global NPI team and executed a very successful tollgate process governing the entire process of business acquisition through final operational implementation. It yielded predictable financial results from the onset and delivered timely performance to the customer. Recently Solectron was acquired by Flextronics affording Bert the opportunity to offer his experience to both service providers and companies in need of this outsourced capability.
Personal:
Bert was educated in The Netherlands, holding a BSEE / BSCS from HTS,
