Chairman and CEO
Rockwell Automation | Milwaukee
Blake Moret leads Rockwell Automation, a Milwaukee-based manufacturer of industrial automation and digital transformation products. He became CEO of Rockwell in 2016 and chairman of the board in 2018. An advocate of workforce development, Moret is vice chair for the National Association of Manufacturers’ board of directors and is a member of the Wisconsin Governor’s Council on Workforce Investment. He is also co-chair of the World Economic Forum’s Advanced Manufacturing Community of CEOs and is a member of the Business Roundtable, among other board service.
Education: Bachelor’s, Georgia Institute of Technology
Advice for first-time leaders: “Don’t be in too much of a hurry. A lot of people sacrifice their 20s on the altar of professional success, and it’s not necessary. Work hard, but not to the exclusion of other interests. It will help you keep things at work in perspective, and you will be more interesting to be around.”
Your sport if you could be an Olympian: “Rowing.”
Highlights from the past 12 months: “It was a tough year for the automation industry, after several years of post-pandemic recovery, but we grew our annual recurring revenue of software and high-value services to more than 10% of total sales, in a year when we did not make major new software acquisitions.”
Favorite Wisconsin destination: “My wife and I really enjoy Kohler. We like the American Club, and the nearby River Wildlife nature preserve.”
2022 Wisconsin 275 Profile
Manufacturing
Chairman and CEO
Rockwell Automation | Milwaukee
Blake Moret leads Rockwell Automation, one of the largest manufacturers based in Wisconsin, with about 25,000 employees. Since assuming his role in 2016, Moret has led Rockwell’s “connected enterprise” vision, a term used to describe the combination of traditional automation equipment and software with connected devices and the ability to analyze data to improve business operations. He sits on the National Association of Manufacturers’ board of directors and is a member of the national Business Roundtable.
Education: Bachelor’s, Georgia Institute of Technology
What was your first job and what did you learn from it?
“A summer intern at Rockwell’s Missile Systems Division, working in a quality team assigned to new defense systems. It was very detailed work, and success was based on the accumulated years of many experts working on difficult problems. It was a great demonstration of the power of combined subject matter expertise and technical innovation.”
What’s the toughest business challenge you’ve ever had to overcome?
“The pandemic presented our company and our customers with some of the biggest challenges to date, and the personal resiliency and responsiveness of our employees got us through, emerging even stronger than before. Early in the crisis, our technology and expertise played a key role in the production of essential goods like packaged food, personal protective equipment, and medicine. It would have been impossible for our customers to change course and make these products in necessary quantities without our products and solutions. Beyond technology, salespeople worked tirelessly to expedite critically needed products, development engineers continued to innovate despite serious impediments to following their normal processes, service engineers helped keep lines running, and our own manufacturing associates dealt with new safety processes to keep products coming.”
What advice would you give to a young professional?
“Be relentless. Nothing important is easy. Success takes persistence and a willingness to try different approaches (and sometimes fail) to achieve your goals. Also, don’t ever take a job just because you think you need to in order to get the next one. It will show. You need to have passion for what you spend so much time doing.”
What has been your/your company’s most significant success over the last 12 months?
“About a year ago, Rockwell acquired Plex Systems, the leading cloud-native smart manufacturing platform. This was our largest acquisition to date and significantly accelerated our strategy to bring the Connected Enterprise to life. The pandemic and supply chain constraints have required customers to urgently increase resilience, agility, and sustainability in their operations, and taking a leadership role in providing cloud-native solutions for related industrial applications showed that we could go on offense even during such trying times.
What would people be surprise to learn about you (fun fact)?
“I recently spent four days kayaking off of Vancouver Island in British Columbia with friends and my 21-year-old son.”
Is there a nonprofit cause that has special meaning to you?
“In 2017 Rockwell launched the Academy of Advanced Manufacturing, in conjunction with ManpowerGroup, for returning service men and women. This program includes 12 weeks of hands-on, outcome-based training to complement the instruction these people already received in the military, giving them the skills needed for technician jobs at manufacturing companies. Since we kicked off the program, AAM has placed more than 250 military veterans in highly paid, highly skilled jobs at more than 70 manufacturers. After completion of the 12-week training session, these veterans are now earning salaries of at least $60,000 – $75,000 annually. It’s a huge source of personal satisfaction to me that we stood up this program and have sustained it through the past few years.”
What piece of advice has had the most significant impact on your career?
“When I started this job, a mentor told me that managing my energy was even more important than managing my time. He was right – you never know when you will have to be at the top of your game to deal with a crisis.”
