Education


AV News Awards


PERSONAL AWARDS Category: AV Sales Professional of the Year Winner:


Chalene Chandrasiri. Sales Manager UK Pro Division, erless-AV


86” stretch kiosk solutions for wayfinding and the award-winning Xtreme High Bright Outdoor Display (in the players’ cloakroom). 4. Chalene is very proud of her industry relationships, spanning OEMs, resellers, integrators, consultants and distributors. As a bracket manufacturer, she can be friends with everyone, but this also brings its fair share of political situations. Her work hard, play hard attitude is loved by all for its integrity and honesty in an industry that thrives on networking and trusted connections. 5. Chalene is a great all-rounder. A commercially intelligent, me- ticulously organised AV Professional that thrives in both one-to- one situations and on global conference calls. She owns the pro- cess of supply and fulfilment for all her accounts and does so with a smile on her face. She is a great role model for the team with so much passion and knowledge to share. Not only does she mentor new sales starters to Peerless-AV, but she also mentors’ new start- ers at our vendor and channel partners, with insight into mutually shared vendor accounts and suggestions of opportunities where Peerless-AV and that Reseller/Vendor can work together as a part- nership to propose a complete solution


Chalene Chandrasiri receives her AV News Award from Bryan De- nyer, Editor of AV News, as the 2020 Sales Professional of the Year.


With her 16 years in the Professional AV industry, there are very few who have not had the pleasure of meeting Chalene. Larger than life, with a personality that shines out in any room, she first started out as a customer service manager at BBG Distribution, a UK distributor of consumer and professional AV products with its roots in the car audio business. ‘Cha’ was there from BBG’s humble beginnings, helping to grow the business and getting hands on to transport goods from the office to the customer in her car, along with the team. When the time came to move to larger premises in Watford, and when BBG became Peerless-AV, Cha was always willing to get her hands dirty and ‘muck in’. Cha will do anything for her team, personally seeing projects from start to finish, whether out on the road, at tradeshows and events, when training customers, running prod- uct demonstrations, and even. when support is needed, during busy periods in customer support or the warehouse, Cha person- ifies Peerless-AV and the team ethos. Professional career highlights 1. Winning the ‘Vendor of the Year Award’ for FY 2013/14 from Medium, before the distributor became Exertis, was a ma- jor personal and professional milestone. Cha was voted by the employees within the business for the role she played as their distribution account manager, for her unfaltering enthusiasm, her unique approach to spending time with all individuals on the sales floor during visits and her quick response times at all hours of the day.


2. Midwich is one of Cha’s biggest success stories, and rightly so. Peerless-AV launched with Midwich when the distribution giant did not have a real business case for taking on another mount brand. By banging the Peerless-AV drum on every week- ly visit (sometimes an eight-hour round trip from her home), Cha built her company brand from number eight mount in the Midwich mount portfolio to number one position, for three con- secutive years. To uphold such a status, to grow year on year so consistently, is no mean feat. From the beginning, Cha had a challenging au- dience to win around – the vigorous team on the Midwich sales floor already had seven other bracket vendors to sell. She had a big educational role to play, opening the eyes of the sales floor to the USPs of the Peerless-AV products and high margins to be re- alised from bracket attachment selling - the classic McDonalds’ “would you like some fries with that?” technique. Cha’s investment in hard work during these visits - never one to sit at the vendor desk, but rather, she roamed the floor and made her presence known. Lasting relationships were forged and the bar raised for other vendors to aspire to. Every week, Cha would have a theme to promote or new product to launch. The Ibiza Passport Incentive was one of the most anticipated and talked about internal promotions for two years running. Flexible day- to-day stock management and three months’ worth of purchase orders on top selling lines put the process in place for others to follow.


3. The new Tottenham Hotspurs stadium is a hugely prestigious and profitable project that Cha has been involved in right from the beginning. Cha managed the account and established rela- tionships with all other major parties, including AVI-SPL and LG during regular site visits; specifying product, adapting to project changes, making sure last-minute orders were processed and air freight was organised in order to meet tight deadlines. Over 800 Peerless-AV mounts, from standard wall mounts to premium vid- eo wall mounts, are installed throughout the stadium, plus some


P12 AV News November 2019 P10 AV News March 2020


She is as technically strong as her job demands her to be. She can quite quickly and easily install a video wall or build a trolley, but what she is best at is astutely using the resources around her. She knows her limitations and how and when to bring in the appropriate resource to achieve the best outcome, whether mar- keting, product management or technical support.


Category AV Support Professional of the Year Winner:


Graham Kirkpatrick Technical Solutions Architect NEC Dis- play Solutions


cesses enabling him to specify the solutions that perfectly fit the need.


3. Graham always looks to deliver against ‘AV best practice’ and is becoming ever more invaluable in his position and across the company. This deep respect has led him to be positioned as the Lead Solutions Specialist for the NEC Display Solutions Pan-Eu- ropean AGILE Team, focusing on Conferencing, Collaboration and Meeting Rooms. This multi-skilled task force is designed to en- sure NEC’s go-to-market strategy is clearly aligned against end user need. 4. Trusted partnerships are vital to NEC’s business and Graham is at the forefront of developing relationships with its Solutions Providers including Hoylu, Quicklaunch and DisplayNote which are a pivotal part of our collaborative solutions offering. Graham has been instrumental in NEC gaining Zoom certification for In- finityBoard and NEC large format displays.


5. Graham is passionate about NEC and is an avid ambassador for the brand. His wholehearted belief in NEC’s credentials shines through in all that he does, advocating quality and reliability. Gra- ham’s drive to consistently improve, to continually develop his knowledge and skill set and to find ways to provide even better support for his customers and colleagues is to be admired; he is a much-valued asset to NEC and to our customers.


Category: AV Marketing Professional of the Year Winner:


EMEA Marketing Team Vivitek


At ISE 2009, no-one would have been able to foresee what the future held for Vivitek, a new brand making its debut at the show with a modest booth in a well-established AV industry. Ten years on, Vivitek’s presence at ISE 2019, symbolised its success in cre- ating a solid brand presence and a recognized player in the AV market. Central to this, has been Vivitek’s skilled marketing team comprising Jolanda Medendorp and Dominika Waliszeswka, who jointly lead and motivate the external marketing team at Osom Studio in Poland and the PR and content generation team at NSPR in the UK. The team:


1. Jolanda has 20 years of AV industry experience in marketing. Before her 10 years at Vivitek – where she is responsible for activ- ities ranging from marketing communications, PR/media to social media activity – Jolanda held positions at InFocus, Planar-Runco and Optelecom. Next to Jolanda, already working together for 10 years as a team, is Dominika Waliszewska, who brings 15 years of experience from Wolters Kluwer and a variety of technology com- panies. Dominika is responsible for all channel marketing, product database, web strategy and much more.


2. Anna Soldatova and Shannen Liu joined recently to reinforce the team with event support and market solutions management, respectively. Combined, they form a formidable team that has been


Graham Kirkpatrick, Technical Solutions Architect at NEC Display Solutions, wins the Award for Support Professional of the Year.


Graham Kirkpatrick joined NEC in 2015 as Corporate Account Manager before moving into his current role as Technical Solu- tions Architect. Graham began his career in the AV industry 20 years ago when he joined Go Audio Visual, then in 2003 he joined Reflex AV where his technical competence really started to take shape, gaining many industry certifications. In 2007 Graham joined Pacific as Sales Manager, then briefly returned to Reflex in 2013.


Directly responsible for the growth of NEC’s interactive touch solutions, including InfinityBoard, and for software solutions in- cluding Hiperwall and Mosaic, Graham also supports NEC’s LED sales, demonstrating the breadth and depth of his knowledge. Expertise


1. Graham has become a trusted advisor not only to NEC’s cus- tomers but to NEC’s own sales staff.


His belief in teamwork is


evident as he consistently finds time and methods to support both his customers and colleagues. Taking a mentoring approach, Gra- ham understands the need to help others to help themselves, em- powering them to develop their own skills and knowledge whilst offering his support and guidance. 2. With a diverse skill set and vast experience within the AV in- dustry, Graham is able to provide appropriate support and advice across NEC’s broad ecosystem, from end users to consultants and systems engineers, from channel partners to solutions partners. Graham talks their language and understands their thought pro-


Members of Vivitek’s EMEA Marketing Team - including (from left) Gino Mainolfi of NSPR, Dominika Waliszewska and Jolanda Meden- dorp – receive their Award from Bryan Denyer. Vivitek General Man- ager Holger Graeff celebrates his EMEA marketing team’s success at the AV News Awards.


key to accelerating awareness of Vivitek since its first attendance at ISE in 2009


3. Osom Studio has been a Vivitek partner for five years, and it is responsible for almost all visual creation at Vivitek, from print to web, video and social media. Established over nine years ago, dig- ital marketing agency Osom Studio has created a number of high impact campaigns for clients ranging from IKEA and Eurobank to Kodak Alaris. “Working with Vivitek, we observed a huge change the company marketing and product range has undergone over the last five years of our cooperation. At first it was support for the necessary bro- chures for the Qumi projectors, and this year on top of other mar- keting activities, we are rolling out a comprehensive campaign for


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20