AV News Awards 2019 AV News Awards 2019: winners and runners-up


At 8.30 am on the Tuesday of ISE week, the great and the good of the industry gathered at the Amsterdam RAI to hear the results of the an- nual AV News Awards competition, enjoy a Keynote Address by Sahara MD and to take refreshment in the form of a full English fry-up. Here are details of the category winners and the runners-up.


The AV News Awards have a special place within Europe’s au- dio-visual industry, being focused on the people and community that make the business work. The Awards recognise the contri- bution made by the individuals in the labs and R&D centres, the sales and marketing teams and those involved in training and sup- port for the technologies and services that comprise AV solutions. The Awards also recognise excellence in AV technologies and in the channel that delivers them to market. AV News is delighted that the Awards again attracted a record number of nominees and would like to extend its thanks to all those who undertook the task of filling in the forms, and to the Award sponsors who again made the whole thing possible.


Individual awards


AV Technologist of the year Winner


Jon Underkoffler, Oblong Industries


John Un- derkoffler is founder and CEO of Oblong Industries. Ob- long’s propri- etary technol- ogy builds on fifteen years of foundational work at the MIT Media Lab, where John was responsible for innovations in real-time com- puter graphics systems, opti- cal and elec- tronic hologra-


phy and large-scale visualisation techniques. John serves on the National Advisory Council of Cranbrook Academy in Bloomfield Hills, MI, and on the Board of Directors of the E14 Fund in Cam- bridge, MA and of the Sequoyah School in Pasadena, CA. He is the recipient of the 2015 Cooper Hewitt National Design Award and holds a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. John was the keynote speaker at the ‘Connect – age of collabora- tion’ event in London last year, where he raised some fundamen- tal issues impacting on the human-machine interface. “I'd been feeling itchy about the state of user interface since 1994 when it seemed to me that the Macintosh UI, which is still the sole and dominant GUI, had a good run,” he said. Remember, this was 1994. "It had a good run, what's the next one going to be? Let's build the next one. Surely now that the machines are way better, we deserve a way better UI and something that's more human." Underkoffler began working on that problem, and by the end of his dissertation in 1999, he had several viable technology demos that people grew excited about—including the I/O Bulb and Lumi- nous Room systems.


AV Sales Professional of the year Winner


Dan Clarke, Exertis


“I have grasped the integration of Medium and Exertis back in 2016 and flourished ever since. Having won this award back in 2016, a lot has happened, and I have improved even more as an AV Sales Professional. With Exertis being the huge company it is, I had to go through a transition period where things didn't run smoothly straight away. I had to protect the key AV integrators from the teething issues we were having and continue to grow their spend with us at the same time, without compromising the service


they have become accustomed to with me. I have coped so well with the hurdles we had to jump that I have been promoted within the business to Account Director , where my re- sponsibility is looking after the Major ac- counts within the AV pillar for Exertis Medium. This is a job that comes with all of its own stresses and challenges and again, something I protect my


customers from, increasing their overall spend with joint entity and taking them to the next level.”


AV Support Professional of the year Winner


Ann Pickard, Visavvi


Success can be measured in many ways – financial profit, repeat business, expanding client portfolio, perhaps even managing to succeed where others have failed. Any one of these would be ac- ceptable for many businesses but for Ann Pickard and her CARE team, the mission is to achieve all of them. With over 1000 active service contracts, many with clients that have been supported for over ten years, plus a net profit of £1.5 million and a footprint that covers Europe for some of the biggest brands on the planet, the team deliver consistent quality combined with exceptional ef- ficiency and customer support. Ann is a true career profession- al who thrives on the challenge of delivering excep- tional customer support. This pas- sion has resulted in an extremely loyal client base which continues to expand year- on-year. She has the respect of her peers and is of- ten quoted as the perfect example of CX focussed business leader. Through her de- termination, cre- ativity and skill, she has created


the most highly-trained, trusted and dedicated team in the in- dustry. Her professionalism and success is charted by the radical growth of the AV service function, rising from a cost centre of £60,000 to delivering over £1.5 million net profit to the Saville Group business. Ann is an innovator. When she sees a problem, she immediately sets out to find the solution. She personally drove the develop- ment of the bespoke mobile app which completely revolutionised the way of working for the dispersed service engineering teams, increasing productivity on a huge scale and similarly improving client relations through efficiency and inclusion. Her authentic personality and unrivalled industry experience allow her to build


deep and trusted relationships with a diverse range of extremely loyal clients, who appreciate her unswerving work ethic and high standards. This unique attribute means clients continue to renew contracts year on year as well as trusting the support of their ex- tensive international AV estates to the Visavvi team as is the case with clients such as eBay and PayPal. Ann is the ultimate Team player. She invests substantial time and effort to ensure her team are fully trained and are all aligned and focussed on delivering the best experience and support for clients possible.


AV Marketing Professional of the year Winner


Gillian Rhodes, Promethean


Gillian Rhodes has headed up the international marketing team at Promethean for 12 years and grown a strong team. Gillian has established local marketing teams in strategic countries which have been instrumental to the company’s global success. She has taken the global marketing strat- egy and worked closely


with


teams on a local basis


around


the world to im- plement it. Gillian has pio- neered a series of


toolkits have


marketing which been


rolled out glob- ally to support regions with the delivery of dif- ferent ing


market- campaigns


and initiatives. Piloted and spearheaded by Gillian, Promethean has grown a Sustainable Education Partnership with a rural school in Fiji. Promethean has donated a series of ActivPanels to the school and is working closely with the school and community to support their development. This programme is due to be rolled out globally.


Gillian has also played a crucial role in the development of the Promethean Partner Accreditation Programme which encourag- es resellers to upskill on Promethean expertise and follow brand guidelines. The programme has been a phenomenal success and this year the team has launched ‘Atlas’, the new partner portal to support the Accreditation Programme and help strengthen com- munications with partners. Phase 1 was an overwhelming success and Promethean is now investing further in the portal. Gillian’s efforts have propelled Promethean to gain major tender deals in countries throughout the world, including: •Saudi Arabia – implementation of over 1,000 ActivPanels. •Vietnam – over 2120 units shipped of Promethean solutions in 2017, and 3554 to be shipped by the end of 2018. •Malta – Promethean emerged as the preferred supplier for over 700 ActivPanels owing to the robustness of the product and the level of warranty available through its ActivCare programme. •Egypt – over 7,500 ActivPanels in a contract worth over $6,000,000 has been secured and will ship towards the end of 2018.


•Moscow – over 7,600 bespoke IRBIS panels delivered to the city by the end of 2017, with a further 14,000 IRBIS panels con- firmed in January 2018.


P10 AV News March 2019


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