UK man appointed Europe, Middle East, Asia-Pacific business head by Xplore

Xplore Technologies, the rugged tablet PC maker, has appointed Leeds, UK-born Steve Priestley Vice President of International Sales.

Steve, 55, is responsible for building the business, growing the team and developing major client relationships in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) and APAC (Asia-Pacific) regions and will split his time between bases in the key markets and geographies.

"Xplore is the market leader for the simple reason it started producing rugged tablet PCs 14 years before tablets were launched in 2010 to the consumer. Rugged saves time, money and lives. And while rugged skins and cases are available to protect consumer-based tablets, ruggedness runs far more than skin deep with genuine rugged devices such as those produced by Xplore initially for the military and utilities since 1996, but now deployed in a vast array of sectors," said Steve, who will report into Xplore's Austin, Texas, HQ.

Steve Priestley has a strong background in the wireless, IT and M2M/IOT hardware and services markets, with a 20-year sales leadership track record with technology leaders such as Cisco, Enfora (now part of Novatel), Wyeless, Symbol Technologies and – most recently – Westbase.

He has an Honours Degree in electronic and electrical engineering from Coventry.