Robert Trunz

Swiss-born Robert Trunz grew up in the canton of Lucerne, learning the salesman trade and tinkering with sound engineering in his spare time. He got into the Hi-Fi business, joined the local branch of the B&W loudspeaker company, and in 1981 moved to England to head their international marketing division. After the death of company founder John Bowers in 1987, Mr. Trunz took over the company and lead it to new directions - even launching the B&W Music label in 1988 and spearheading the design of the legendary "Nautilus" and "pod" range of speakers. In 1996 he sold his shares in B&W; the Blue Room speaker company (with the Blue Room Released label) became fully-independent, and he launched the M.E.L.T. 2000 label. A very skilful organiser of people, musicians and events, Mr. Trunz is crazy about indigenous (jazz, world, African) music and relocated his base of operations to South Africa in 2002, relaunching M.E.L.T. 2000 there before returning to Switzerland in 2009 to launch the Vivid Audio range of speakers. In 2016 he again relocated to South Africa to concentrate on a non-profit organisation in Durban.