A great honor for a great leader
by Michael Hay on Jul 26, 2011
Today I want to draw attention to the the 2012 IEEE(*1) Reynold B. Johnson Information Storage Systems Award, which was granted to Dr. Naoya Takahashi. The Hitachi press release details several of of Dr. Takahashi’s achievements, and I want key off this statement in the release:
“The achievements which this award recognizes could not have been realized without the long-term cooperation between users worldwide who shared invaluable comments and feedback, and the engineers and service representatives who listened and worked to incorporate those ideas into new products. The Hitachi Group is committed to continue developing technologies and products in order to contribute to the expansion of the world’s storage industry.” — Naoya Takahashi
Dr. Takahashi’s nurturing style helped to develop what was many years ago a nascent business into a very successful global storage and IT company, HDS. Further, his leadership was and continues to be very real and very personal to many of the colleagues I work with on a daily basis. In fact there are many stories illustrating his leadership and courage as a global innovator.
There are some I cannot share, but there are aspects of one that epitomize his leadership. This past March, Dr. Takahashi came to RSD just before his transition to a new role within the Hitachi Group, President & CEO of HES. During this speech he encouraged RSD to continue aggressively pursuing the global storage business, and at the end of the discussion we all walked with him out the door signaling the closure of one chapter of his career at Hitachi and the beginning of a new one. This scene really tugged at my heart as it showed how deeply respected and thought of Dr. Takahashi is within Hitachi and especially at RSD and HDS.
So congratulations Dr. Takahashi on the IEEE award and such a distinguished career (so far, and I’m sure there’s more to come). And rest assured that the culture and spirit of global innovation that you fostered so long ago at RSD and HDS is accelerating, preparing us for the years and decades to come.
