Rob Haak (President)

Rob Haak (president, SPIKIX) is a digital printing visionary committed to integrating the concept of single-pass inkjet printing into in-line production and manufacturing lines. He has over 16 years' experience in the digital printing industry, working for a "Who's Who" of leading-edge companies that includes Barco Graphics, dotrix and Agfa.

After early experience with leading IT companies such as Sperry and Amdahl, he became general manager of Stratus Benelux before joining DISC in 1989, at the same time as the company was acquired by Barco. As vice-president of sales and marketing, he expanded the international worldwide sales of Barco Graphics, resulting in impressive growth year-on-year. In 1997 he became manager of Barco's digital and special printing division, and was closely involved in developing the PrintStreamer digital front end which drove colour electro-photography print engines from Xeikon, IBM and Xerox.

In 1997 he initiated the development of the first single-pass implementation of drop-on-demand inkjet printing, the.factory. Since then, multiple implementations of this technology have led to it being widely regarded as the most advanced single-pass solution to date.

In 2001 he initiated a management buyout of the digital and special printing division from Barco to become dotrix, the pioneer in single-pass industrial inkjet printing.

In February 2004 he was also the focal point in the takeover of dotrix by Agfa, subsequently becoming managing director of Agfa-dotrix.

Due to his in-depth knowledge of single-pass inkjet Rob Haak is highly regarded in the industrial inkjet printing industry. He has spoken at international conferences sponsored by the Information Management Institute (IMI), the Society for Imaging and Technology (IS&T), the Institute for International Research (IIR) and photokina's World of Imaging. In his role as Barco's international sales president, he was a keynote speaker at the sales team effectiveness conference in Brussels (1992), the sales management day in Antwerp (1997) and the sales excellence event in Brussels (1998).