For over 50 years, Crestron hasn't just been building technology — we've been building a legacy. A legacy of innovation, partnership, and unwavering commitment to our shared success. We've powered millions of seamless experiences, driving our industry forward, and we've done it by putting our customers and partners at the heart of everything we do. That philosophy has a name: It’s called the True Blue Way.

The True Blue Way is a reflection of our belief in the power of technology to transform experiences. That power is driven by the ingenuity and dedication of the people at Crestron — and we’d like to introduce you to a few of those people, starting with Ekin Binal.

What’s your title here at Crestron? How long have you been here?

Ekin Binal: I’m Senior Director of Product Management, Core Technology and Strategic Partnerships. On September 11, I’ll have been here eight years.

Can you describe your role? Is it the same role you started with?

EB: I play an integral role in helping define, explore, and drive innovation and new technology for all our products. My team works with both technology and platform partners (such as Analog Devices, Intel, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Zoom, and countless others) to develop our roadmap. This is a new group within the product management team, and it was designed to help drive more innovation and consistency across our product portfolio. It’s a great fit for me because I entered Crestron to help lead and innovate our audio product portfolio, which is what most of my career had focused on, and which relied on bringing new technologies in order to help lead new product developments like DM NAX Audio-over-IP. On my way to my latest role, I also served as the director of our entire AV product catalog.

What do you tell your friends or family when they ask you, “What’s Crestron?”

EB: I like to say that Crestron is the company that brings all your technology together seamlessly. Whether that’s in a sophisticated conference room of a Fortune 500 company or a state-of-the-art home theater, we build technology and solutions that orchestrate the experience.

What do you like most about your job here?

EB: I love technology and using it to solve problems. Our company develops products for vital global applications, and I really enjoy driving the core technologies that enable world-class solutions.

Why do you feel your work is important? What is it about working on technology that interests or excites you?

EB: I’m fortunate to engage with our customers on a regular basis, visiting the world’s top enterprises, the world’s largest superyachts, the best universities, most critical government agencies, and more — this provides a lot of insight into the problems we are solving and the experiences that we enable. There is no other company in the world that has the breadth of products we have, and knowing that I’m helping drive innovation in this organization excites me — our work, every one of us here, has real meaning in the world out there. It’s great to see our products out in the wild and to hear that our customers and end users love using them. The beauty of my job is that I get to investigate cutting-edge new technologies, and because of our partnerships, we are able to bring these technologies into the fold and actually help build new products that solve real problems.

Is there a specific technology that you’re really interested in more than others? Why?

EB: It’s hard not to be excited about AI and everything that it brings. It’s the first revolutionary technology in years that has the ability to impact everything we do — not since the dawn of the Internet have we seen something this transformative. I think we will be able to not only improve the performance of our products but also help speed up and simplify the deployment of our products in complicated solutions. Beyond AI, I’m passionate about building more sustainable products, and I’m pursuing ways we can leverage new technologies to help reduce our power consumption and our global carbon footprint.