ON THE MOVE
• Steve Durdant- Hollamby has joined Polypipe as managing director of its civils and infrastsucture division. Hollamby has been in the industry for 26 years, most recently as managing director of
AWMS and, prior to that, commercial director of ACO.
• Ideal Bathrooms has appointed Gary Matthews, as sales director with 28 years of experience in the building materials, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom industry.
• Stelrad has
welcomed Richard Fischnaller as business development
manager for the area from Bournemouth to Brighton and up
to Reading.
National Sales Director at Alpha Heating Innovation.
What is your current role and how long have you been doing it?
National sales director for Alpha Heating Innovation, since October 2017.
What does your role entail?
The main duties of the role surround managing and supporting the Alpha field sales team across the UK and providing account support for all our merchant partners’ head offices. Naturally, the position requires liaising with other Alpha business functions such as marketing, finance and after sales - all of which are equally crucial in ensuring success.
How did you get started in this industry? I can’t suggest it was
destiny.The truth was, I was never going to be anywhere good enough to be a professional sports person, so I took a job after University with a flooring manufacturer in an office role and then onto field sales. It’s perhaps revealing how many years ago I started in plumbing and heating that I responded at the time to a local newspaper advert for a role. It was with a heating product manufacturer. I got it and then it went from there.
• Rudridge has appointed Danny Edwards as Area Sales Executive at its Brentford branch. The company has also promoted Tom Porter to the position of Sales Co- ordinator at its Farnham branch from yard foreman.
• Aqualisa ‘s new Director of Innovation, Product and Marketing is Paul Pickford, who was the company’s Technical Director between 1995-2001 and was instrumental
in the development of the Quartz digital shower.
• Software development specialist Ten-25 has promoted George Ritchie to Services Manager. He joined Ten-25 in 2001, having previously been at Alexanders’ Sawmills. Ritchie’s role will encompass key areas of customer management including taking ownership of specific projects.
What roles were you doing before and how did they prepare you for this one? The role I am doing now is undoubtedly a culmination of working across various sales and account managing positions. In the beginning, the jobs were regionalised and progressed reasonably quickly into divisional and then national positions. Those steps meant that I gradually started ‘managing people’ and had to understand how best head office functions could aid in what I was trying to achieve.
What would you like to achieve in the role? I think anyone working in sales is competitive and hopefully has a degree of pride around what results they produce - I’m no different. Specifically for Alpha, I’d like to help facilitate bringing the brand and sales to the best level that we can. The product is great and I’ve inherited and assembled a sales team with whom people will want to deal with. It sounds simple, but those two things will get me there.
What has been the highlight of your career? It would likely be dull to regale hitting specific sales numbers across the years however, the realisation that you’ve gained enough credibility and results to be handed a senior role in any business is always a proud moment. If you’ve
www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net February 2019
completed that progression ethically in your relationships with people (which I have ) then that is something I’m happy to celebrate as being a highlight of my career.
What do you see as the main issues? I would highlight two worrying issues for the industry. Our industry has ‘sleep walked’ over a long-time allowing value perception of heating products and services to fall lower and lower. For example, a heating system swap by a qualified engineer (irrespective of brands) hasn’t followed inflation the way many other goods and services have. That squeezes margins for everyone and leads to the second industry issue – that is ‘people’. Despite good intentions and the occasional ‘good news’ story the unfortunate truth is, investment in existing construction industry staff and enticing new, young quality into the sector is almost at crisis levels.
If you were to go back to the start of your career, what advice would you give yourself?
I’m not sure that (back in day) accepting the ‘pool’ company car that was a temperamental, aging Vauxhall Cavalier was a good call. Stand up for yourself!!!
Football, rugby, cycling, golf or gardening – what keeps you busy at the weekends? I’m a season ticket holder of thirty one years at Liverpool FC so that, as well as struggling to maintain a golf handicap of five, fills most weekends.
If you’re at the bar – what are you drinking? Pint of Guinness and maybe an adjoining Jameson Irish Whiskey if it’s not a ‘school night’.
What’s your favourite book? Favourite film? Am I allowed two each? My favourite book is ‘Mayor of Casterbridge’ by Thomas Hardy or a recent read was the brilliant ‘The thing about December’ by Donal Ryan - neither are ‘laugh a minute’!! My favourite films are generally ‘indie’ not Hollywood glitz. I’ll go for ‘The Guard’ and ‘Sideways’ – both are superbly written, acted and are hilarious.
If you could be a superhero, what super- power would you choose? The super power I’d like to take from superheroes would be developing a six pack that they all seem to have - I guess they probably don’t drink Guinness? BMJ
9
PEOPLE
10 MINUTES WITH: BRENDAN FENERTY
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