Steljes restructures management

Audiovisual (AV) distributor Steljes has axed seven management-level staff following a restructure.

The firm has dissolved the management positions of its five separate business units. Steljes split off the units two years ago – a transition many in the channel cited as a bold move (CRN, 1 August 2005).

The casualties of the reshuffle are: Julian Klein, managing director of Steljes Trade; Russell Blackburn, commercial director at Steljes Trade; Marc Taverner, managing director of Steljes Software; Judith White, managing director of Steljes Training; Clive Hailstone, sales director at Steljes Trade; David Topping, group marketing director; and Gary Cove, business development director.

Meanwhile, Mark Bird, former managing director of Steljes Managed Services, has been appointed to the newly created role of group sales and business development director, while Ian Goodhind, previously Steljes Group finance director, has taken on the new role of group product marketing director.

Martin Large, Steljes Group chief executive, told CRN: “We will still maintain the separate businesses for the foreseeable future, but the management has now been streamlined. What happened in the past was that Steljes Trade would speak to the same customers as Steljes Managed Services and everyone was falling over each other. This meant we became harder for resellers to do business with.”

Large claimed that the re-organisation will give VARs the clarity they need. He also said that he wanted to revisit the Steljes Reseller Accreditation Programme and provide more training to VARs.

Darren Lewitt, divisional director at rival distributor Midwich, said: “Steljes is an average size company so to have five managing directors in a company of that size was crazy. It has obviously realised its mistake. It will be interesting to see what Steljes does going forward because it used to be our biggest competitor, but we rarely come up against it these days.”

Darren Sainsbury, newly appointed head of AV at Computer 2000 (C2000), worked at Steljes for three months before taking up his new post at C2000. He told CRN: “It is a great little company, but there were too many chiefs. It needs to go back to being one business and I think this is probably Martin’s plan.”

Steljes splits as part of corporate restructure