Dirk Thomas

Mr. Dirk Thomas is an Advisor at DISCERN Investment Analytics, Inc. He is Co-Chief Executive Officer of Summit View Partners and has received national recognition from the governments of China and Singapore for his contributions to each country’s economic and societal development.
In so doing, he drew upon his many years of experience in business and market development in Asia and the Pacific.
Prior to founding Summit View, he was the President of Greater China Operations for Hitachi Global Storage Technologies, where he boosted annual revenues by more than 50% per year, and more than doubled the company’s employee numbers to create a workforce over 11,000 strong.
His responsibilities included customer service, application development and overseeing manufacturing operations located in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Taipei.
He led the creation and development of Hitachi’s first disk drive manufacturing company in China.
He also developed and implemented the company’s “mega manufacturing” concept, which established leading capabilities in recording technology, supply chain management, and fulfillment services.
In addition, Mr. Thomas served as the company’s lead representative to the Chinese government and acted as the regional Chief Financial Officer.
Over the years, he has held a litany of executive and general management positions with Hitachi and IBM, where he played a critical role in merging the global disk drive businesses of the two companies from the earliest stages to transaction completion.
Throughout his prolific career, he has successfully led teams in technology, sales, finance, manufacturing operations, product and technology development, corporate development, and strategy.
Mr. Thomas holds M.S.
in Manufacturing Systems Management from Stanford University and a B.A.
in Business Administration from Santa Clara University, where he also earned a B.S.
in Mechanical Engineering.