BREAKING NEWS: A major shakeup at Belkin Australia has seen former Netgear CEO Ian Mclean installed as Country Manager, Mclean a seasoned veteran quit Netgear to take on a senior role at Seagate four years ago.
Credited with building the Netgear brand in Australia Mclean is set to take on his old outfit with new Belkin Wireless and energy management gear.
McLean told ChannelNews that he is currently conducting a total review of Belkin’s operations with a view to expanding their product range. Among the new products will be new iPad and Samsung Galaxy phone and tablet accessories.
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Joining Mclean in the role of Marketing Director is former Samsung 3D TV product marketing manager Brendan Sparks.
“I see a lot of opportunity for Belkin across several categories. We need to lift the brand profile of the Company because the products they have across several categories including Apple accessories, networking and wireless and energy management are excellent” he said.
In the networking market an independent report recently released by the Tolly Group found that Belkin’s N150, N300, and N600 DB together averaged a 68 percent performance improvement across all tested products, while the Company’s flagship N750 DB tested concurrent Wi-Fi and WAN speeds of up to 900Mbps.
A retail analyst said “Belkin has been lost for a while in Australia, they have dabbled in several markets including bags and accessories and people are confused as to what they do.
Cisco, Netgear and D Link are clearly networking Companies but despite Belkin being in this market they are not seen as a mainstream network Company despite having good products and reasonable market share. One of their big assets is their relationship with Harvey Norman”.
In his previous role at Seagate, he was responsible for driving the storage business in ANZ. Prior to his role at Seagate, Ian spent 10 years at Netgear as VP of Asia Pacific Sales and 10 years at Netcomm as Head of Sales and Marketing.
Brendan Sparks joins Belkin from Samsung Electronics where he was Product Marketing Manager for Plasma and 3D TV. With over 12 years’ experience, he has a very strong background and knowledge of the Consumer Electronics space. Through strategic and tactical market development, Brendan was pivotal in Samsung’s growth and success in the TV market. Brendan has a track record of aggressive growth in sales, revenue and market share. Prior to Samsung, Brendan was with Fuji Xerox Printers as APAC Regional Marketing Manager and at Canon Australia heading up software marketing.
“I am really pleased that we have been able to attract such high quality candidates to join the Belkin team in ANZ. There is no doubt in my mind that the addition of Ian and Brendan will take the already successful business we have in ANZ to a new level,” comments Alan Sparks, VP of Asia for Belkin. “We are looking to grow our business by way of creating profitable growth for our Business Partners and adding complimentary categories to the portfolio of products we have today. This will enable us to further strengthen the Belkin brand in ANZ where it is already a household name.”
