- This event has passed.
International Business Webinar Series: Murata: Tiny Parts, Huge Impact on Global Supply Chains
April 24, 2025 at 11:00 am – 12:00 pm
When things are going right, the small things are easy to ignore. Not so when supply chains are stressed — the essential becomes magnified, no matter how tiny.
That’s what happened with Murata, who in 1973 became one of the earliest Japanese investors in Georgia, setting up a plant to make capacitors in car radios. The Kyoto-based company, now with global annual revenues of approximately $1.7 Trillion yen, holds about 40 percent of the world’s market share for capacitors, small ceramic parts produced by the trillions each year to store and release power within electronic devices.
When a tsunami hit Japan’s northeast coast in 2011 and an earthquake shook the country, electronics supply chains were scrambled. Everything, from cell phones and digital cameras to appliances and EVs, relies in some way on Murata’s parts — more than 1,000 go into a typical smartphone and potentially 30,000+ slated for a fully autonomous electric vehicle.
Murata had already been diversifying its sourcing around the world, including in Southeast Asia, to be closer to end customers. It also deepened research spending to ensure it could serve advanced industries, like increasingly computerized cars, with innovative solutions. That blend of diversification and R&D continues today. Murata Electronics North America, meanwhile, has a new headquarters in Atlanta, Ga., and maintains a distribution center in Rockmart, Ga.
Today, an uncertain global trade landscape threatens to inflict another shock to supply chains around the world. Join GSU-CIBER and Global Atlanta to hear from Murata Electronics North America’s CEO, David Kirk, on how the company is dealing with increasing volatility in high-value industries where the smallest parts can make the biggest impact.
David Kirk, VP, Murata Manufacturing Co Ltd.
President & CEO, Murata Electronics North America
David is responsible for various functions within the Americas including Sales/Marketing, Operations and Corporate Technology, and Innovation. The Americas is a critical region for design-in activity that results in Global Sales within the Electronics industry. Murata has made multiple acquisitions and integrations on a global basis including Peregrine Semiconductor (pSemi), Vios Medical, Eta Wireless, Resonant, and RF Monolithics (RFM).
He started his career as a Product Engineer with Murata and moved into the Director of Marketing role. He then became President and CEO of RFM, which was a public company from 1999 to 2011. Upon coming back to Murata in 2012, he was instrumental in RFM’s acquisition by the parent company in Japan.
David is the first non-Japanese person to lead Murata in the Americas and become an officer of the parent company Murata Manufacturing Company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan.
He came to the United States in the late 1970s on a track scholarship and graduated from Clemson University in South Carolina with a degree in Electrical Engineering.
David and his wife, Tammi, have four grown children and live in McKinney, TX (in the Dallas area). His hobbies include golfing, hiking, cycling (gravel), fishing, and their seven grandchildren.
David enjoys the challenge of globalizing Murata and specifically mentoring the next generation of leaders in following the company’s philosophy of contributing to the advancement of society.
Key takeaways:
- How Murata has diversified its manufacturing locations around the world in partnership with customers and what that has meant for the company’s U.S. operations
- Murata’s approach to continuous improvement in research and development, its moves up the value chain over the last 50 years, and efforts to showcase innovation in relatable ways like robots and other consumer-facing items
- The company’s approach to trade uncertainty and supply chain volatility and how the company balances its Japanese sensibilities, including long-term strategy, with a nimble approach in global markets
