Executive Management

Rowan Gilmore – Chief Executive Officer

Rowan Gilmore joined EM Solutions as a Director in 2007 and became Managing Director and CEO in October 2011. His role is to lead EM Solutions to achieve its vision to become a world-leading company recognised for offering technologically superior microwave modules and systems for next generation broadband communications.

Rowan will be known to thousands in the microwave engineering community who have attended his short courses on microwave circuit design and RF wireless systems offered by Besser Associates and CEI Europe since 1990. His previous experience includes Vice President, Engineering at Compact Software, where he introduced the world’s first harmonic balance nonlinear circuit simulator, and as Vice President, Network Services Europe for SITA-Equant, the global airline IT company, now part of France Telecom’s Orange network. Most recently he was CEO of the Australian Institute for Commercialisation, where he helped numerous start-up companies and worked to accelerate technology transfer between research institutions and industry.

Rowan obtained his D.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Washington University in St Louis. He is an adjunct professor of both Business and Electrical Engineering at the University of Queensland, and was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Technological Scientists and Engineers in 2009.

John Ness – Chief Technology Officer

John Ness helped found EM Solutions in 1998, and currently leads the Corporate Technology Group. His responsibility is to help solve the most difficult technical challenges that are presented to EM Solutions, and to ensure the company’s corporate knowledge is developed and retained.

John has a B.E. (Electrical), PhD and a BA from the University of Queensland and has been involved in the telecommunications industry since the 1970’s. At EM Solutions his specialist expertise is in electromagnetic analysis applied to products such as high power amplifiers, antennas, filters and feed networks. John helped set up Mitec as a public company in 1987 which became the basis for the RF/microwave industry in Queensland.

Prior to that John had worked in Sydney on the Interscan microwave landing system for the aviation industry which brought together the expertise of CSIRO, the government and industry to create new technology and eventually companies. From Interscan through to EM Solutions he has developed products for radar, telecommunications and radioastronomy satellites, ground station equipment for miniature to large scale earth stations, remote sensing equipment and microwave links. John has taken out patents in antennas and microwave heating applications.

John was awarded the prestigious Clunies Ross Award by the Academy of Technological Scientists and Engineers in 2010 for excellence in innovation.

Peter Bradley – Chief Engineer

Peter Bradley helped to found EM Solutions in 1998, and is currently Chief Engineer. His role is to manage the development of new products for EM Solutions, and to ensure the company remains a leading innovator of components and subsystems for broadband communications. He is a specialist in the design of solid state power amplifiers and other active components at microwave frequencies. Under Peter, the company has become a global leader in the development of low phase noise synthesised microwave oscillators, low noise block down-converters operating at input frequencies up to Ka-band, and linearised power up-converters for transmitters at power levels up to 100W and frequencies up to Ka-band.

Peter graduated from the University of Queensland and began his engineering career in the UK, returning to complete a Master’s Degree and to work at the Microwave Technology Development Centre at U.Q. Together with John Ness, Peter co-founded EM Solutions’ predecessor, Mitec, in 1987 where he built a multi-disciplinary team which was involved in a wide range of RF, microwave, DSP and systems engineering work. Many of the Satcom products designed and manufactured by Mitec under Peter’s leadership in the early 1990’s are still in use today at companies like Aussat, Optus, and Telstra.

Georgios Makris – Operations Manager

Georgios is responsible for the manufacturing, testing and repair of EM Solutions products for Customers, managing a team of engineers and technicians who carry out complex assembly and testing of equipment to ensure it complies with specifications and standards. Georgios works closely with EM Solutions’ Corporate Technology and Engineering groups to develop prototype systems and to ensure compliance with the company’s manufacturing ISO9001:2008 quality system.

Georgios graduated in Electronic Engineering at Sheffield Hallam University. His career started at Airtech as an R.F. Engineer designing TMA’s and RF Conditioning systems for the cellular market. He then joined ComDev’s New Business Development team establishing new customers in Europe and Far East. Georgios provided technical support and trained new employees within multidisciplinary teams on NPI for various products in high volume manufacturing environment and established a new state of the art facility in China. Georgios was the technical lead for various projects for customers such as Alcatel, Nortel, Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola, Orange, NEC, Huawei, ZTE etc.

Jamie Smith – Director of Marketing and Sales

Jamie joined EM Solutions in September 2011 to lead the Marketing and Sales function. Jamie is responsible for driving new business growth by communicating with EM Solutions customers, partners and re-sellers across the globe regarding their business and technical requirements, gathering market intelligence and competitive positioning and for ensuring product solution proposals are promptly designed and delivered to customers and sales-channel partners. Jamie also provides overall direction regarding EM Solutions’ Product Management function, helping the company draw together product strategies, product development plans and roadmaps.

Jamie is an experienced business executive, consistently delivering successful outcomes by applying commercial acumen in senior leadership, strategic business development and marketing & sales management roles. With an M.B.A. from U.C.Q. and over 30 years of practical business experience, Jamie has worked for large organisations such as Telstra, as well as medium sized Communications & I.T. firms in Head of Commercial & Strategy, Chief Marketing Officer, General Manager, and Management Consultant roles. Jamie’s background and accomplishments include business strategy development and execution, leading sales teams, management of supplier and sales channel partners, financial analysis and modelling, complex voice systems functional, technical and architectural design, and commercial contracts review and negotiation.