Maverick boss called in to assist development

Distributor enlists channel heavy-hitter in a consultancy capacity to bolster business growth

Audiovisual (AV) distributor Maverick has brought channel veteran and major shareholder John Weatherhead over to the UK to help with business development.

Weatherhead, who currently lives in Canada, was one of the founding fathers of distributor Frontline Distribution, the forerunner to Computer 2000. CRN understands he owns about a 57 per cent share of Maverick, together with joint Frontline founder Nick Harding.

Jon Sidwick, managing director of Maverick, told CRN that Weatherhead would assist Maverick from an executive consultation perspective.

“John has rented a house over here and will be here for some time, at least one to two years,” he said. “John is getting more involved with the business and will add his experience to what were are trying to develop in the AV sector over the next few months.”

Sidwick declined to divulge exactly how Maverick would be developing over the coming months.

However, a source that asked to remain anonymous told CRN that Maverick was going through a tough time after the recent problems at the firm’s ProInstall installation arm.

“Lower than expected order levels from Becta have probably affected ProInstall,” the source claimed.

ProInstall was created in September 2004, with an investment of £3m from Maverick, to assist VARs that were unable to install complicated AV offerings, mainly in the education space. However, in March it made several redundancies following a restructure of the division (CRN, 13 March).

“Maverick may have brought John onboard to help it realign the whole company and he obviously has a vested interest in it,” the source added. “ProInstall has cost Maverick a lot of money.”

Ian Vickerage, managing director of AV distributor Imago, said: “John has come over several times to consult Maverick in the past few years, but this is the first time I’ve heard him come over for such an extended period of time.”

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