C2000 shuffles marketing team

Andy Dow has popped up as C2000's new marketing director

Computer 2000 (C2000) has added to its executive might by appointing former Dell and Westcoast veteran Andy Dow as its new marketing head.

Dow left C2000 10 years ago, but has rejoined to help shape the distributor's strategy around its specialist divisions. He left Westcoast earlier this year and had set up his own channel consultancy IT Channel Works.

He is the second high profile channel veteran to join C2000's ranks recently, with former Bell European prsident Ian French taking over Azlan earlier this year.

In a statement, Dow said: “I am delighted to be joining C2000 at this stage of its evolution and excited by the opportunities opening up for the business. As UK’s largest IT distributor, the scope of impact that C2000 can achieve is unrivalled, both in terms of the range of products it makes available to resellers and the access to multiple customer segments it offers to vendor partners.

"The pace of change in distribution is increasing and marketing will play a key role in shaping the future success of channel programmes and helping resellers make the most of their opportunities," he added. "C2000 will continue to deliver new and exciting campaigns to ensure our partners can maximise their potential and drive their growth and profitability.”

Commenting on Dow's appointment, Andy Gass, UK managing director of C2000, said: “We are delighted to welcome Andy back into our UK management team. He brings with him, not only vast experience within major distribution and vendor organisations and in-depth knowledge of both volume and value models, but also a good understanding of our organisation and tremendous creativity, energy and enthusiasm. Andy will play a key role in helping us to continue the development of our collection of specialist businesses and in driving acceleration of business growth for our partners.”

Dow's appointment means that existing UK marketing director Alice Smitheman will move to a newly-created role of Azlan marketing director.

Gass said: "Alice brings tremendous experience and knowledge to this new and vitally important role and adds further considerable strength to Azlan’s UK management team. Azlan is ideally-placed to lead the way in driving channel growth in the area of converged infrastructure around the data centre, high-speed networking and unified communications, all of which we see as being major areas of growth for our business.

"We have clearly stated our intention to become the major force in the enterprise distribution sector and have made a number of important vendor signings and invested to bring in experienced individuals into key roles. Alice’s appointment is yet another demonstration of our total commitment and determination to succeed," he added.

Smitheman said: “The Azlan division is an exciting place to be with new leadership, a new and different breed of salesperson, a new level of technical expertise and a brand new marketing strategy. How we take products and services to market in the value space requires a very different approach and needs a much deeper specialist touch spanning the whole sales cycle.

"This evolution in the needs of marketing for our company has been fascinating to develop and I am really excited about the new range of services and value propositions that Azlan is now bringing to market. My new role will be less about classic distributor marcoms and more about end-to-end channel engagement programmes that educate, enable and activate reseller partners in emerging technology segments," she said.