Trustmarque targets talent
27th April 2010
Two appointments bolster Trustmarque Solution's Management Team As They Strengthen VAR Position
Trustmarque Solutions is delighted to announce two new appointments as the company looks to consolidate its position as a leading IT Services provider. Simon Rutt joins as Director of Marketing and Partner Alliance whilst Mark Penny takes on the role of Strategic Sales Director.
Simon Rutt comes to Trustmarque Solutions with over 15 years experience in the IT Channel, most of this time having been spent in senior roles with responsibility for Sales, Marketing and Partner relationships including; VP Marketing EMEA at Insight, European Director of advertising and Partner Alliance at Microwarehouse, UK Sales Director at CPA plc and UK Sales Director at Microwarehouse.
More recently Simon has focused on developing Nimbus technology systems Ltd, a cloud infrastructure and hosted services business which he co founded in response to the rise in demand for cloud computing services in the SMB/SME market.
This combination of senior channel experience coupled with a valuable insight into the commercial and technical mechanics of providing cloud based services to businesses is a perfect fit for Trustmarque Solutions and is in step with Trustmarque's evolution to a Software and infrastructure services VAR.
Simon Rutt - "Trustmarque's vision of where the market is going is right on target. Organisations need more from a reseller than just a broad assortment of product and basic services. Being able to offer top quality licensing expertise as well as expert advice and assistance with technology deployment is what CIOs expect from a credible VAR.
I'm delighted to be joining the senior team at Trustmarque and am confident that I can help accelerate their strategic plans. I'm particularly excited about Trustmarque's goals to further develop their infrastructure services to include an appreciation, and capability, to support customers looking at both on-premise and cloud based IT infrastructure services."
Trustmarque's Group Sales and Marketing Director, Angelo Di Ventura, echoed this sentiment and added;
"Simon is a great addition to the Trustmarque team and brings with him an enviable track record of achievement across a wide spectrum of business disciplines. His recent knowledge and understanding of delivering cloud infrastructure services will add a lot of depth to our own strategic plans. Simon's experience and approach with partners will add a great deal of value to our key vendor relationships and I'm confident that his leadership and strategic input in marketing the Trustmarque proposition will both accelerate sales and raise our profile in the market. I'm very happy to be able to announce this latest addition. I'm sure Simon will be a huge asset to Trustmarque and the businesses will benefit greatly from his expertise, energy, ideas and wisdom."
Mark Penny joins Trustmarque
Additionally, Mark Penny joins Trustmarque as Strategic Sales Director. Since entering the IT Channel in 1998, Mark has held senior management roles with Microwarehouse, Insight and more recently Equanet, the B2B IT reseller arm of DSGi plc., most notably driving growth of specialist IT solutions from £24m to £30m (FY08 vs FY09). With a sales pedigree and consistent record of overachievement within both the public and commercial sectors, Mark will be seeking to replicate this success in his custodianship of the organisation's strategic customer base, currently accounting for 40% of Trustmarque revenues.
As Angelo Di Ventura explains, "Mark's recent work in specialist IT services sales management sits perfectly with our TESG offering and his knowledge of enterprise and Central Government customers will undoubtedly assist our growth in these areas. Having recently been awarded a place on the CITHS framework, we wanted to strengthen our management for this sector to ensure that we are able to achieve our projected growth objectives, and Mark's sales leadership expertise will undoubtedly enable us to do this. His appointment is another triumph for us and showcases that we are investing in our people in order to bring our customers the best service on the market."
Mark Penny comments: "It is becoming increasingly challenging to arrest the decline in transactional product margins as customers understandably continue to demand more for less. In launching TESG last year, Trustmarque has responded to the market with an expanded proposition of value-added services together with a consultative licensing service designed to help customers' IT budgets stretch further. Within the first week of my tenure alone, Trustmarque helped a number of our enterprise customers drive combined savings of over £½m out of their annual licensing spend. I am extremely excited to be part of the new-look pedigree senior management team and assisting Trustmarque with consolidating their position as the UK's leading value-added reseller of software and associated services."
