Brother strengthens senior sales team with industry veterans

Printer manufacturer Brother UK has expanded its sales leadership team with the appointments of two senior managers, with a combined 42 years' experience in the printing industry. The appointments demonstrate the company's commitment to growing high life-time value customers for its sales channels. 

Cathy Ellis joins from Dell, where she was the UK head of its printer business for three years. She will take up the newly created position of head of sales, on-line partners, developing Brother's online partner network, and reporting to Andy Forsyth who joined Brother in October from HP. Cathy has 24 years' experience in IT channel sales, including time with Lexmark.

Rick Wallis, a former sales director at NEC IT Platform Solutions, has a wealth of experience in IT sales management. He has assumed responsibility as head of sales for Brother's VAR and SI customers and will report to Terry Caulfield.

Following the appointments, Nick Gosden will also be taking up a new role to take responsibility for looking at new opportunities in the solutions sector, in order to help Brother capitalise and maximise on future product ranges such as managed print services.

Phil Jones, sales and marketing director for Brother UK, said: "The expansion of our sales team and the creation of the new job roles means that we can continue to exploit profitable areas of the print market by targeting key customer groups taken from our industry insight and expertise. We're interested in customers with a requirement for volume printed pages, not achieving the lowest transactional cost for a printer to a customer who prints infrequently or at low volumes.

"Cathy and Rick have impressive track records in the industry, and their ability to spot and act upon market trends will enable us to grow the business and in turn find ways to help resellers deliver lifetime value for their customers."

Cathy Ellis said: "Brother has a great reputation when it comes to robust long-term channel strategies. Securing strong relationships with its online partners will be crucial to the company's growth strategy going forward as the internet continues to grow and become a crucial customer acquisition tool."  

Rick Wallis said: "Brother is committed to supporting further expansion into VAR and SI customers and I look forward to working with the team to create long-term solution-led growth strategies to help them gain traction in new vertical markets."