As factory manager in the 1970s for Pye Unicam, a manufacturer of scientific instruments in Cambridge, my dad, Bill MacKenzie, introduced advanced equipment from around the world. His talents were noticed by Philips when they bought the company in the mid-1970s, and Bill’s international career began.

For 20 years Bill, who has died aged 82, managed and modernised factories for Philips in Turkey, Venezuela, Brazil and Quebec. He was an excellent linguist, and his success and achievements were due in part to communicating with his teams in their own languages. However, he was also a forward thinker, practising corporate social responsibility long before it became commonplace. His genuine desire to improve conditions for people working in those factories earned their admiration and respect.

He was born in Montrose, Angus, son of Isabella (nee Anderson), a seamstress, and David MacKenzie, a driving instructor. When Bill was two, his family moved to Glasgow. He was five when the second world war began and he recalled watching the blazing fires of the Clydebank blitz from his bedroom.

Despite the trials of war, he had a happy childhood, and when he was 11 the family returned to Montrose. Bill never settled at Montrose academy and, to his maths teacher’s regret, left school at 16 to begin his engineering career with a five-year indentured apprenticeship at Matrix in Brechin. This was the beginning of 11 years of night classes and further education, during which the studious youngster excelled.

During his national service, he was based in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, continuing his engineering training and working on aircraft instruments. In 1955 Bill married Lorna Duncan, a nurse, whom he had met when they were both 17. My brother, Billy, was born in 1957 and I followed in 1959. By then our family had returned to Scotland, where Bill worked at Glaxo in Montrose, then Ferranti in Dundee. In 1967, he joined Pye Unicam in Cambridge.

After Bill’s retirement from Philips in 1996, he and Lorna spent 20 years creating a beautiful home and garden near Montrose, where they celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary last December. What was most important to Bill was his love for his family and theirs for him. His greatest sadness was the death of his son in 2002.

This talented, creative and caring man instilled in his family a respect for other countries and cultures and his lifelong desire for learning.

He is survived by my mother and me, four grandchildren, Hayley, Alex, Kirsty and Gordon, and a great-granddaughter, Isla.