Here we are into February already so happy Valentine’s. Don’t forget lads, that’s ok; you can thank me later.
As I promised last time, I ran up to see Jason Hill up at GJD’s offices in Manchester. I took the train actually, to find out what, and why. You can read all about that on pages 40 and 41 of this mag. But of course Jason leaves behind the team at Lilin which is now headed by Steve Liddiard. Steve is the new CEO, which he told me stands for Chief Envelope Opener! Yep, and I am sure it does, actually you may not know this but Steve and I have worked together for many years and at a few companies. We first came across each other when we were at Rediffusion (do you remember them?). I sold the town centre systems and Steve installed them. OK, there were a few others in the team, weren’t there; Jon Laws? I left and went to MVD and took Steve with me, then we both left and went to Imigix (I know; but it was a good idea at the time). I joined the magazine and Steve came across after a few years as the commercial manager, but Steve being Steve could not stay away from the technical side of things. He liked those cameras and stuff to play with, so went back to Lilin where he was before, in fact he has been there some ten years now which makes a total of 34 years he has been in the industry. He’s still a baby to me, mind you.
Debbie Carter rang me just before Christmas and told me she was going back to work for someone as the self-employed idea was not really for her. Of course being in recruitment she soon found herself a new job but no, not working for another recruiter as you all might have suspected. She has joined Videcon and is the regional business development manager in the Midlands, I’m sure she will do a great job for those guys.
Talking of Videcon, Mike Reddington formerly of Videcon last month become the Chief Executive of the BSIA. Surprised that Mike has gone to the trade association? It makes perfect sense to me; Mike has worked in the security industry for over 25 years, and many years ago was on the BSIA Council, I believe? He began his career in electronic engineering before moving into sales and marketing, rising into senior roles for a variety of blue chips, such as Honeywell and ADI. Not many of you will know that Mike holds an MBA from Leeds University.
OpenView Security Solutions has appointed Richard Stanley as Group Commercial Director. Richard joined the privately owned security company in 2002 in a project management role and has since held key contract and commercial positions. Now he will be responsible for the company’s commercial team and managing all contract activities carried out from the Romford-based head office, including high security clients.
DVS have been at it again, recruiting that is, with three new starters. One in internal sales, Andrew Slater; and two in the tech support team: technical support engineers Russell Lloyd and Mohamed Kamara.
Senstar, those manufacturers of perimeter intrusion detection systems (PIDS) and video management systems (VMS) have made Kristen Cory their new Vice President, Sales, North America as of January 1, and talking of perimeter detection Aaron Plant has joined Davantis as the as Regional Manager for the UK and the Northern Europe. Aaron has been working in the electronic security industry for more than 30 years.
Room to remind you of the first Security TWENTY event of 2019. We are returning to Birmingham (the NEC campus as they call it now) outside Birmingham at the Hilton Metropole Hotel. They have spent £26m doing it up! We have the usual Charity Dinner on the Wednesday night, February 20, in the hotel. This is a great opportunity to do some networking and the guys at IFSEC want to buy you a drink at the bar where all the action used to happen all those years ago! The conference-exhibition runs on Thursday, February 21. It’s a great location, plenty of parking, and good public transport links. You can even fly into there. And it always gets a good turn-out from all sorts of people from all sorts of places. So will you be there? It’s free to attend, we will have nearly 100 exhibitors for you to meet, a great line up of speakers, plus a free breakfast bap and/or a free lunch. You can’t miss it can you?
And finally just a bit of commercial news from us. We have launched our new electronic product update newsletter, this will be sent to our 24,000 plus readers each month via email and will be all about the latest in product information. Be that a new product, an update or an installation or even a pre-view at a show. So if you want to reach the audience or would like to receive this, then just let me know.
