Knowles appoints Polacek president of Intelligent Audio
Itasca-based Knowles Corp. has appointed Mike Polacek as its president of Intelligent Audio.
Reporting direct to the president and CEO, Polacek will be responsible for executing the Intelligent Audio business strategy to develop and deliver complete audio solutions to customers that leverage Knowles' software, signal processing, and smart microphone technologies. Mike will succeed Paul Dickinson in this role, who is retiring at the end of March.
Polacek comes to Knowles with significant technology industry experience including demonstrated success in strategic planning, corporate development and leading both established and emerging businesses to high- revenue growth. In addition to working at Philips Semiconductor (now NXP), he spent nearly 20 years at National Semiconductor where he held executive-level leadership roles for a variety of business units including system, software, analog and digital technologies. Mike's most recent responsibility at National was to manage high-growth businesses, lead business incubation efforts, and manage mergers and acquisitions. Mike left National after Texas Instruments acquired the company in 2011. He then served as a strategic adviser for KKR Private Equity, and most recently was a partner with investment management firm Eachwin Capital. Mike graduated from the University of Illinois in Champaign with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering, and later received his Master of Business Administration degree from Santa Clara University.
"This is an exciting time for voice interfaces, and the capabilities enabled by microphones and local processing can improve human interaction in almost any electronic device," said Mike Polacek, president of Intelligent Audio. "There is tremendous interest from all types of customers in the mobile, ear and IoT space, and, Knowles is well positioned to help these customers, as they desire a partner with recognized leadership in these markets and audio input applications."