IFSEC has arrived for another year, will you be going? I will of course with my team so hope to see you there. Talking of IFSEC, were you aware that Gerry Dunphy the Event Director has been promoted to Strategy Director, Security and Fire, Informa Markets EMEA. It means 2019 will be his last IFSEC as the director of the show as Informa, the new owners, have promoted Gerry into a role that will mean he needs to travel a lot. I am meeting the new Event Director and no doubt you will get to meet him at the show as Gerry will be there handing over the reins to him. So well done Gerry.
At DVS, they have Rhys Davies joining them as Head of Operations to oversee day-to-day activities at the distributor. His background has been in the operation type role. Also Ben Winston joins as an Area Sales Manager supporting the East Midlands spanning from Leicester to Teesside; and Carla James has made the move into Internal Channel Sales after supporting customers as a sales coordinator for two years.
Graham Bolton joins CSL as International Director, from RISCO, where he managed the Sales and Marketing operations of the Group’s subsidiaries in the UK, Benelux, France, Spain, Italy and Poland alongside partner markets in the rest of Europe. While there, he increased sales performance across those regions as well as Group profitability overall.
Oprema have appointed Tom Cooke as Financial Director. Having worked at the distributor for three years as Financial Controller, Tom will remain in control of the financial management for the company.
ARC Monitoring has appointed Jo Hastings as Marketing Executive. She’s pictured with Wayne Dietrich, Business Development Manager at Arc.
Darren Cooper (no relation) has become the new account manager for south-central England for Pyronix. He has worked in the security sector for over 24 years in various roles across companies before joining the alarm panel company in November 2016. Darren said: “I’m really pleased to be joining the UK team and I’m really looking forward to this new challenge. I’m already very familiar with the range of products, services and solutions and I can’t wait to get on the road and start building on existing relationships, as well as developing new ones.”
Damian Sutton has been promoted to Head of Strategic Account at Kings Secure Technologies. Damian has worked for Bradford-based Kings for 11 years and has worked his way up from Technical Engineer, to Account Manager. More recently he has held the position of Account Executive. In his new role, Damian will be managing and setting the direction for the relationship with some of Kings’ biggest, and most high-profile, fire safety and security customers.
Axis Communications has been recognised as one of the UK’s best workplaces in 2019, at a ceremony at Tobacco Dock, London on Wednesday, May 8. The company was placed tenth out of 25 in the small business category, along with 131 other UK organisations, achieving an employee Trust Index score of 94 per cent. The independent assessment uses a unique methodology to uncover the UK’s most thriving workplaces. So who said working in Luton was so bad?! Well done guys, am sure management has a lot to do with this mind you.
Sad news
On April 9, 2018 John Baldwin passed away. He started Chroma Vision in 2001 and grew it to what it is today. This came as a massive shock to all that knew him and most people in the industry did know John in some way. In many ways Chroma Vision was John and it was difficult at first to see how the company could continue without him but the ‘family’ pulled together and made sure that Chroma Vision continue to deliver. In February 2019 a new Managing Director, Andrew Stocker was appointed. Andrew’s challenge was/is to take Chroma Vision forward and deliver John’s vision of better service into new markets. Chroma Vision intends to integrate the best solutions from the best providers. One of the first things that Andrew did was to rename the company HQ ‘John Baldwin House’. He told me: ‘I felt that it was important that we make a statement and ensure that John’s name will never be forgotten at Chroma Vision.’ He knows that John would love the fact that his name will now be on every official document and business card that Chroma Vision have.
Charity
Once again this year Gratte Brothers are hosting a Big Curry Lunch with proceeds going to ABF, the Army’s national charity. It’s on Thursday, July 11; cost is £25 per person for a meal with two drinks; contact Sarah-Antonia Butt on [email protected].
