NEC Australia ups body count

Hires new channel manager.

NEC Australia has bolstered its executive ranks with three key appointments including a new channel manager.

Andy Hurt joins the Japanese tech giant as executive GM of Australian channels focused on display solutions and unified communications.

Steve Blunt takes the role of executive general manager of UC, while D'Wayne Mitchell takes the title of executive general manager of shared services infrastructure.

Hurt comes to NEC Australia after a quarter century in the local IT industry, during which he occupied roles with companies including Honeywell and 3Com. Most recently he was director of operations with Avaya, a company he served for over 8 years in various roles including director of channels.

Now at NEC, he will manage the company’s partner strategy and operations across Australia with a view to bolstering existing channel relationships and bringing on new partners to help grow NEC’s presence in Australia.

General manager for UC, Blunt, most recently held the high-level position of managing director global strategy and operations with Cisco’s $7 billion services business. Prior to this Blunt held numerous channel roles overseeing IBM’s Lotus software business. He is now expected to play a key role in the development and promotion of NEC’s emerging UC business in Australia.

Head of shared services infrastructure, Mitchell, brings to NEC a wealth of IT project experience, most recently in his capacity as a member of outsourcing giant CSC Australia’s leadership team. Many years ago one of Mitchell’s first jobs in IT was in Australia with mining giant Rio Tinto.

But his CV also reflects extensive experience abroad, including stints in New York and London getting his hands dirty with IT projects spanning service desk and outsourcing operations, as well as critical service management functions. He has also worked on projects for offshore centre management.

One of the key responsibilities Mitchell picks up upon joining the NEC payroll is heading the company's research and development team in Melbourne, its only R&D facility operating outside of Japan.

Evidently not a big enough challenge on its own, Mitchell will also lead NEC's national operations centre, technical assistance centres and NECare field service organisation.

Remarking on the new appointments, NEC Australia’s director of communications solutions, Ross Magee described the new recruits as ‘experts” within key business areas for NEC.

“These appointments will greatly strengthen our commitment to the ICT industry and channel community and will further build on NEC’s reputation in the market to become a leading ICT services and solutions company,” he said.

The appointments come just one month after the finalisation of NEC’s $227.5 million acquisition of local company CSG’s technology solutions division, spawning the newly created entity NEC IT Solutions, for which a number of senior IT professionals from CSG now work.

At the time NEC said the acquisition would play a major role in helping it to become a more formidable systems integrator and solutions provider servicing Australian organisations.