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AMX CEO Rashid Skaf Resigns

amxceofeat_0729This hasn’t been announced formally yet, but rAVe has learned that Rashid Skaf, the CEO and president of AMX, which was acquired by Harman a year ago, announced he will leave his role as of August 28, 2015. Rashid has been with AMX since 2001 and has led AMX as CEO and president since 2005.

Harman sent us an email yesterday saying, “During his [Skaf’s] tenure, AMX introduced hundreds of innovative industry leading products, completed nine global acquisitions, significantly grew the company, and made AMX a highly respected industry leading global brand.”

The email from Harman VP of Global Marketing Erik Tarkiainen went on to explain: “For the past six months, Rashid has been part of the Harman management team developing a more customer-centric organization that will create new synergies between the many well-known and respected HARMAN brands, allowing our customers to see complete solutions in a variety of settings within HARMAN. While Rashid determined the leadership roles in this new structure were not a match for his personal goals and aspirations, he believes this is the best path for success and is excited about the future for AMX and HARMAN. He was also honored by the gracious and understanding way the entire Harman management team including Dinesh Paliwal, John Stacey and Blake Augsburger took his decision. All of us at HARMAN thank Rashid for his many contributions and leadership to AMX and HARMAN International.

Skaf leaves AMX in good hands. Virtually the entire AMX sales and marketing teams, as well as engineering, are still in tact. And, now with the acquisition of SVSi, you can expect to see them integrate video into more of the Harman portfolio of product.”

logo.amx_rAVe has also learned that part of the new structure inside Harman is synergy between product groups for sales and support in the field. For example, an AMX sales account manager can leverage all the Harman brands for product specification to customers as well as use other Harman brand sales and systems designers to try and sell the entire Harman family of products into as many systems as possible. This will be an interesting plan to watch as Harman has brands like JBL, Crown, AKG, Soundcraft and BSS. All the HarmanPro brands can be found here.

AMX is here.

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