One of the photo industry’s elder statesmen, Bruno Turcato, has retired from the role of Epson managing director, with long-standing and well-regarded general manager, Craig Heckenberg, taking on the MD’s role.
Bruno Turcato has been Epson Australia managing director since 2003, the first non-Japanese executive to be appointed to a MD’s role in Epson’s history. He has been with the company for 30 years, starting out as financial controller.
He oversaw Epson Australia’s move from making dot matrix printers and PCs to high resolution inkjet printers and projectors. The company is market leader in multiple market segments. It sells over 70 percent of all projectors in Australia. Its wide-format printers are ubiquitous in photo studios, specialist photo stores and labs, and more recently, with its Surelab ‘drylabs’ Epson is a major player with local distributor iPhoto in providing affordable, low-energy alternatives to the silver halide minilab.
Bruno was also an energetic contributor to the industry as a whole. He was an board member for IDEA and held a range of executive positions with the industry association, particularly during its more active years putting on trade exhibitions and conferences. Under his watch, Epson has been a generous sponsor of professional photography, not least via sponsorship of the AIPP and the state Photographer of the Year Awards.
Bruno leaves at the end of September after completing various projects and customer visits.
Craig Heckenberg, who like Bruno is a well-known, ‘hands-on’ figure within the industry, has been with Epson for 19 years, with a series or marketing and leadership roles in the commercial inkjet printing business unit culminating in his current job as general manager and, come September, managing director.
Epson has enjoyed phenomenal growth under his stewardship. Commercial print revenue has risen by over 450 percent and printer sales by over 170 percent.
He also worked closely with his team to establish Epson Australia as the number one brand in high brightness projectors, successfully launched new businesses including Document Solutions, Industrial Label, Sign and Textile and has created and grown significant new business partnerships for the company.
He will now be responsible for Epson’s entire product portfolio of printers, scanners, projectors, commercial and industrial products for the A/NZ region. He also heads up the leadership team devising and setting the company’s overall strategy, policy, planning and business management goals.
‘I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Bruno on his amazing 30 year career at Epson. His leadership and presence will be sorely missed by the entire Epson family and we wish him all the very best in retirement,’ said Craig.
‘I am humble and extremely grateful to be given such a wonderful opportunity to lead an amazing organisation which has the best people, products and technologies. I love what Epson stands for and its vision to “make the world a better place”, and I am very excited about the company’s future. I am particularly looking forward to creating a new era for Epson in the A/NZ region. My goal is to make Epson an indispensable company for our customers and society by continuing to raise our standards of excellence in all areas of the business.’
Epson is one of the best printers and why not when leaders like Bruno and Craig are commanding and giving their excellent services to increase the quality of the product. Many congratulation to Craig Heckenberg to take charges of Espon.