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Staff Changes at Martin Audio
Martin Audio has confirmed the appointment of Simon Bull as the company's new director of sales.
The long-serving employee, who steps up from his role as UK sales manager, will report to Martin Audio managing director, Anthony Taylor. "I have received incredible support, both internally and from our customer base," he states. "I know I am inheriting a strong team and a powerful pedigree."
Two years ago he moved into the international marketplace servicing emerging markets in India and the Middle East - an experience, he says, which will serve him well in his new position.
Bull is very much the fulcrum of Martin Audio's next generation management team, headed by Anthony Taylor, and including newly-appointed director of engineering, Jason Baird.
He takes up his role on the back of the ISE Show in Amsterdam, where Martin Audio picked up a prestigious InAvate Technology Inavation Award for the second consecutive year. "This is the result of our highly-talented R&D and engineering team, who are one of the best in the business," he believes.
With 25 years' experience in the business (12 of them at Martin Audio) Bull has been highly influential as part of a sales team that has helped increase Martin Audio's market share dramatically since the start of the new millennium.
"We are fortunate to have great operations in North America and China/Hong Kong, run respectively by Rob Hofkamp and Patrick Lau, and you cannot put a value on the vast experience that Martin Kelly brings in handling Greater Europe, and now parts of the Southern Hemisphere.
Simon Bull concludes that the continuing belief shown in the Martin Audio brand value remains the most gratifying. Thanks to all the work put in over the years by our dealers and distributors, there is an underlying confidence in Martin Audio products which allows us to enter discussions from a position of strength. With the introduction of exciting new technologies, either developed within the group or as a result of collaboration with our business partners, we are entering a new and exciting era for the brand.
"With that degree of confidence, and the team I have behind me, I couldn't be more positive."
Martin Audio's joint managing director Anthony Taylor, has now been appointed sole managing director.
With previous CEO and managing director, David Bissett-Powell, moving to a part-time consultancy role within the company, the promotion of Taylor to the top position had been widely anticipated.
A qualified Chartered Accountant, Anthony Taylor (42), who is married with three daughters, joined Martin Audio in February 1994 having spent his early years in accountancy at Deloitte & Touche. At Martin Audio he was quick to put his training in corporate finance to good use, helping to steer the company through the most prosperous period in its history, before becoming one of the successful managing team who led the MBO from parent company TC Electronic, in 2003.
Taylor says: "I am delighted with this appointment. I am passionate about the brand and am relishing the opportunity to drive the company forward."
His skill-set will be vital in steering the company through the present global credit crisis. A great believer in teamwork, one of his main attributes is the ability to lead by example, and galvanise his new management team.
"The culture in the company is excellent, and the recent promotions reflect the passion, dedication and loyalty which has been shown.
"With the pedigree of our engineering team, and the innovative products that Martin Audio is in the process of developing, we are perfectly positioned to build on the successes of the past."
Representing the product development wing of Martin Audio's new management strike force, Jason Baird, who stepped up to the position of R&D Director last autumn, is relishing the opportunity to make use of the LOUD Group's extensive electronics design resource.
"As we continue to evolve from being a loudspeaker manufacturer into a complete systems provider, having access to group technologies will become a great enabling factor for us."
Baird's design team already has a groundbreaking product under development - and firmly under wraps - which is set for release before the end of 2009. This will become the latest in a long line of achievements during the engineer's 11-year career with Martin Audio.
Gaining a degree in electronics from Leeds University, Jason Baird moved directly into the loudspeaker industry, becoming senior engineer at Wharfedale before working at another company in the north of England, Fane Acoustics.
He joined Martin Audio to help instigate one of the most vigorous development programmes in the company's history, making his mark immediately by designing the immensely-popular LE12J floor monitor. From there he went on to develop the Blackline series before embarking on the line array mission, moving up to become first R&D Manager, and later Director of Engineering, before moving up to the position of R&D Director.
Jason also came up with the concept for Display (Martin Audio's 3D predictive mapping software), which has helped system technicians around the world to optimise the power of Martin Audio's Line Array systems.
But it is the transparent support he offers customers at the summit of Martin Audio's core sectors - whether helping to design signature dance stacks for the world's leading dance brand, Ministry of Sound, or supporting FOH sound engineers, such as the Killers' James Gebhard in evolving solutions to fit their requirements.
As such, Jason Baird believes his strengths lie as much out in the field as in the laboratory. "At Leeds University I was part of the Ents committee, so became familiar with crewing gigs and getting involved in production at an early stage," he states. "I also worked as house electrician at Leeds Polytechnic.
"As a result I can appreciate customers' problems and am able to put myself in the position of the user - in other words it's not a cold interface. We have a strong product offering, and the secret to creating the most effective solution is the many ways in which these products can be deployed."
In picture: Simon Bull, Anthony Taylor and Jason Baird.
8th April 2009
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