Burt Smith Appointed Executive Vice President For Business Development at NanoLumens

Emphasizing the importance of developing its core business outside of the United States, NanoLumens (www.nanolumens.com), the world’s leading manufacturer and marketer of visualization solutions, today announced the appointment of Burt Smith to the position of Executive Vice President for Business Development, reporting directly to NanoLumens CEO Rick Cope.

“While we continue to build our base of sales in North America, NanoLumens must and will broaden the focus of its business development efforts throughout the UK, Europe, Middle East, and Asia,” Cope said today. “Burt Smith has the global business development experience that we need to help us achieve our sales objectives in all of these critically important target markets.  He has driven sales, marketing, and business development programs in small and large software and hardware companies in developing high tech markets.”

Karen Robinson, who has held the position of Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing since 2010, is moving on to direct the company’s mergers and acquisitions initiatives. “Karen’s talents make her the ideal executive to identify companies and technologies that complement and extend the NanoLumens eco-system of visualization,” Cope said today.  “She has done an outstanding job over the last five years in building out our executive team and I expect she will do the same in her new role with the company.”

Burt Smith has more than 25 years of success in professional sales management, channel sales management, marketing management and operations experience with large and small technology companies. With an electrical engineering degree from Georgia Tech, he has spent his entire career in technology, helping to launch numerous category-defining products. He has strong international channel sales development experience in the UK, EU, Middle East and China and has been directly involved in successful IPOs/acquisitions/exits including the sale to Autodesk of the Constructware SaaS (Software as a Service) collaboration software, the sale of the industry leading content management solution MediaBin to Interwoven (now HP) as well as the international IPO for MediaBin. 

Smith’s industry experience spans many fast growing markets including the AEC (Architecture, Engineering and Construction) market for Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Building Information Modeling (BIM), content management for consumer brand advertising, healthcare/medical SaaS solutions, high-end graphics visualizations systems and most recently big data and predictive analytics. 

As Executive VP for Business Development, Smith and his teams will be focused on expansion of the sales pipeline of business opportunities through targeted sales programs, direct marketing and messaging. Additionally, he and his teams will drive the marketing and evolution of the company to become the industry’s top provider of visualization solutions, utilizing the Visualization as a Service (VaaS) model, through the expansion of whole product solutions that offer increased value, greater repeatable sales, increased margins and substantial revenue growth. 

Core Brands Names Jeff Costello Vice President of Sales

To maximize sales of its home technology solutions through all key sales channels, Core Brands, LLC today announced the appointment of award-winning multi-channel sales leader Jeff Costello to the position of Vice President of Sales. 

“Jeff Costello is a very important hire for us, bringing more than 20 years of sales excellence with innovative companies across the electronics and technology sectors.  He is a ‘customer–first’ leader and a welcome addition to the team,” Core Brands President Joe Roberts said today. “He has already helped transform two of our sales channels, and with Jeff’s previous successes in driving CE, distribution and enterprise channel sales, he’s going to play a major role in helping Core Brands achieve our growth objectives.”

Now leading all aspects of Core Brands worldwide sales, Costello is no newcomer to Core Brands. For the last year he was in a senior consulting role directing major account and channel alignment strategies, as well as leading the new UMAP compliance initiatives for Core Brands and its sister company, Linear (now Nortek Security and Control).  

Previously, Costello served as Vice President of Sales at Smith Micro Software, where he led sales for the consumer, B2B, distribution and strategic accounts channels for this developer of wireless, productivity and graphics software, where he grew annual revenues and earned two ICE Awards (Internet Commerce Excellence) for launch and partnership promotions.

Costello preceded this with a ten year history of success as Vice President of Sales at Broderbund, where he ran North American reseller sales, growing annual software revenues and achieving a #1 position in 11 different categories. 

“This last year working with Joe Roberts and the sales teams at Core Brands has given me a clear understanding of the strengths of the company and what needs to be done to maximize our revenues,” Costello said today.  “I will be working closely with our sales management teams, independent reps and distributors in the United States and around the world to execute the strategies that will deliver a larger share of market for our award-winning brands.  I am excited to join the Core team as we bring to market innovative new smart home control, audio, connectivity and power management solutions to our worldwide customer base.”

Stampede Appoints Elizabeth Clune Vice President of Marketing

Underscoring its commitment to provide its dealer and manufacturer partners with the highest level of Value Added Marketing support, Stampede Presentation Products, Inc. today announced the expansion of its senior executive marketing team with the appointment of industry veteran Elizabeth Clune to the position of Vice President of Marketing. 

According to Stampede President & COO Kevin Kelly, Clune joins an already strong Stampede executive team that is headed up by Senior Vice President of Products and Marketing Jeff Willis and includes Vice President of Products John Marcolini.  “Beth brings to Stampede more than 20 years of experience in helping technology manufacturers and resellers to develop strategic, high ROI-generating go-to-market business development programs,” Kelly said today.  “Her background in telecommunications, consumer electronics, and professional services is going to immediately impact the effectiveness of our business development and marketing programs.  At the same time, she is going to add a new level of depth and leadership to our existing marketing team.”

“The Stampede team is comprised of talented and experienced professionals who are focused 100% on helping manufacturers and dealers achieve their short and long term business goals,” Kelly stated. “This is what separates us from the herd of other distributors and the addition of Beth to our team is going to help make the team more effective for our partners.”

Beth Clune comes to Stampede from the business development and marketing consulting company she founded in 2009.  Before founding her own consultancy, Clune served as Director of Business Development & Marketing for Installs, Inc., where she developed the role of the customer relations executive to manage VIP level and complex clients.  In this position, she established, developed and maintained successful relationships with Fortune 100 clients that include Best Buy, Dell, NEC Unified Solutions, and Sony, among others. 

From 2005 until 2008 Beth Clune served as the Director of Marketing and Sales of AAA of Upstate New York, where she established and built the entire regional membership, sales, and marketing department — coordinating all communications, e-commerce, travel agency, membership, web site, and financial services programs.  Before this, Beth Clune held a number of positions over a 12-year career at Cingular Wireless (now AT&T Wireless) including Director of Sales Operations, Director of National Retail Sales, and Director of Marketing.

“Beth is an entrepreneurial-minded executive with a natural ability to quickly understand complex issues and translate then into programs that achieve short and long-term objectives,” Jeff Willis said today. “She takes best–in-breed technology and data driven marketing techniques and applies them across all aspects of business, exceeding revenue and corporate goals in record time.  I welcome her to our team!”

Commenting on her appointment, Clune noted that, “For more than 20 years I have had the privilege of working with both large and small technology and service providers to help them meet the challenge of change in their respective industries.  Change is the one constant that cuts across all business sectors today, most especially in technology.  I am excited to join the Stampede team that is already very far along in helping their dealers and manufacturers to meet the challenge of change with high value added marketing programs that generate new business from new customers and incremental business from existing customers.  I look forward to putting my talents and experience to work for the entire sales organization.”

Beth Clune earned her Bachelor of Arts in Journalism & Communications and Marketing at Saint Bonaventure University in 1986.