Rob Shaddock is a technology executive whose career has encompassed CTO and CEO roles in companies ranging from startups to Fortune 500s and from embedded computing to consumer electronics. He currently works as an investor, board director for startups, and adviser on hardware technologies, manufacturing, strategy, and M&A to large and small companies. He is currently based in San Francisco.

Prior to this Rob served as CTO of TE Connectivity until 2017 where he spearheaded innovation in products and manufacturing across a global business producing over 120 billion components per year. TE was recognized as top 100 innovator multiple times during his tenure. TE’s products serve many markets from transportation to medical devices. Before this Rob worked at Motorola Mobile Device as CTO and GM of Product Development where amongst other successes his team commercialized the original RAZR phone.

Following graduation in Engineering Science from Oxford University Rob’s career started in the development of radio and digital signal processing systems, which led him into startups specializing in DSP and embedded computing. He served as CEO and CTO through the merger of several businesses, resulting in him being CEO of a NASDAQ company and successfully selling the business in 2001.

In New Zealand, Rob is a Board Member at Opum Technologies and OSHO as well as an active investor and adviser for WNT Ventures, as well as other leading Venture Capital Funds in the country.

Rob also works with a number of deep-tech start-ups, focusing on hardware and manufacturing, partnership building, and commercialisation of breakthrough technologies.

Join us to hear some of Rob's biggest career learnings. From how to succeed in building a hardware and manufacturing company, to partnership building and to how to approach a global market from inception throughout the tech-development journey.

The session will be facilitated by Maria Jose Alvarez, Investment Manager at WNT Ventures.