What is your new position, and what does it entail?
I am the national sales manager at Renkus-Heinz. The role oversees the North American and Canadian markets, and the position’s day-to-day duties include all things sales: rolling out sales initiatives, developing demo and event opportunities, and ensuring we see growth across the region. That said, the Renkus-Heinz sales team aims to be collaborative in the success of our customers. Thus, this role also includes a lot of outreach to our representatives, work with end users who rely on our solutions, and product development input to ensure we bring the right solutions to market. We want to do everything we can to ensure that our customers are happy.
How has your background prepared you for your new role?
I’ve been with Renkus-Heinz for three years, overseeing the western territory of the United States and Canada, and I have come to feel very much at home here. Renkus-Heinz is a family-run company, and that approach fosters commitment to the work we do. In my time here, I have worked directly on projects with our various partners—our reps, consultants, dealers, integrators and end users. That has included working on system design, custom product manufacturing, commissioning and support.
The asset that I leverage most often is my 40 years of experience providing a professional audio solution to someone else. I’ve worked in sales management, as a rep, as a salesperson in a music store and, of course, as a musician. Also, I have worked with some extraordinarily talented and prolific people through my journey in this industry, and I use what I’ve learned from others all the time to be successful today.
What new initiatives are we likely to see from the company?
Renkus-Heinz has continued to engineer new products over the past year. We recently announced the latest products in our C Series line and our S Series line, and we expanded the range of the new Iconyx Compact Series. We were very strategic with our supply chain last year, which meant chip and component shortages did not impact our ability to develop, manufacture or ship new solutions.
That same momentum can be expected for the year ahead. We will continue to bring new solutions to market as planned. We still have the ability to custom-fabricate solutions with custom paint and weatherization at our manufacturing facility in California. My moving into the national sales manager role is a strategic change that will allow us to work more closely with those who use our solutions. We recently hired Karan Kathuria to the position of director operating across Asia, Oceania and SAARC, giving us an increased presence in the region. We plan to continue to innovate, ship product and hire for positions that will support our partners.
[ Innovations: Renkus-Heinz ICLive X Series, by Ralph Heinz ]
What are your short- and long-term goals?
There are two key objectives in play here. The first is to maintain the current sales as we bob and weave through a not-so-normal time. The second is to be prepared and ready for a return to normal. Renkus-Heinz expects 2021 will see a normalization as vaccine rollouts continue, and we will be prepared to transition into a faster growth mentality.
What is the greatest challenge you face?
I know many will expect me to talk about the pandemic, but I have always said that the most significant challenge today is tomorrow. How do we predict it? How do we prepare for it? How do we march into it? A company must be agile. What we do today is plan, but we always must recognize that tomorrow may change.
[ Harro Heinz, Renkus-Heinz Co-Founder, Looks Ahead at 90 ]
I believe Renkus-Heinz is incredibly agile. We’ve been strategic, we’re poised for growth, and we are responsive. We are focused on delivering the right product and solution, and we do it by ensuring we work collaboratively with our partners for their long-term success.
Renkus-Heinz • www.renkus-heinz.com