Melbourne's Rui Zhu centre has beaten more than 400 fellow trainees from around Australia to win the Excelior's Trainee of the Year award for 2009.

Rui, who moved to Australia from China in 2004, completed Bachelor and Masters degrees in Engineering before being accepted onto Excelior's trainee program and assigned to Telstra, where he has "combined his outstanding qualifications, work ethic and intelligence to carve a very significant role for himself". Rui was also selected as the Victorian Trainee of the Year.

Excelior CEO John Watkinson described Rui's achievements as "incredible". "Rui has shown the real benefit of the Trainee system," Watkinson said. "He has been able to use it to migrate into the workforce and demonstrate what he is capable of. I'm very sure he will find his skills are very much in demand going forward." Excelior regularly offers traineeships as either nine-month or two-year "earn as you learn" positions in the Australian telecommunications industry.