This award recognises an engineer, engineering technologist, or a team engaged in engineering activities who, through entrepreneurship, has created or developed a new business opportunity.

Ian Graham

As an academic at the University of Waikato, Ian Graham developed a method of accurately measuring how dif-ferent kinds of digital traffic such as voice, information or video data would perform on the internet. Through Ian’s entrepreneurial leadership, the Endace Platform developed from his research has become a commercial success. The Endace company is a market-leading computer network security company specialising in real-time data management. The Endace Platform’s underlying high-speed monitoring and recording architecture enables customers to run whatever applications they need on common, scalable, open and flexible information technology architecture.

The company has grown rapidly, and now employs approximately 150 staff, mostly in New Zealand, along with sales staff in Europe, Asia and the United States. Exports account for more than 98 per cent of Endace’s revenue. Its customers include many large and well-established global companies and banks. The Endace share price has increased rapidly, reflecting the business’s strong combination of technology, market and business leadership.

Ian has been a constant driver throughout the life of the company. He found the investors and development partners that enabled Endace to be created. He was Chairman of the company at its admission to the London Stock Exchange’s Alternative Investment Market in 2005 and has since served the company in turn as Chief Technology Officer and Chief Scientist before taking up the position of Chairman again in March 2009. The Endace story is also very much the story of Ian as an influential engineering entrepreneur who has transformed world-leading innovation into a successful and thriving export business.

<< Back