Renaat De Wilde has joined entertainment lighting manufacturer High End Systems as Vice President of Worldwide Sales.
Based at High End’s Austin, Texas headquarters, Renaat will be responsible for the management and continuing development of the company’s sales effort, with focus on our markets outside of North America.
CEO Bill Morris comments, “We’re very excited to have Renaat join High End Systems. He has proven sales leadership experience, specifically outside of North America and that will be his focus this year. Renaat actually sold the largest installation of digital lighting to date, so he understands our technology and understands the industry. With his proven track record in sales leadership, and experience in the international marketplace, we are really glad to welcome him to HES.”
Prior to joining High end, De Wilde worked for several technologies companies and worked for Barco from 2005 – 2011. He held sales management roles in the Air Traffic Control solutions division and spent time in Beijing, China as the Strategic Development Director for the company’s healthcare division.
He also held the position of General Manager of the Scandinavian and Eastern European operations. In 2012, he worked in the Washington D.C. area as Vice President for a US-based technology company before being recruited by High End Systems.
According to De Wilde, he will focus on two initiatives – to the reinforcement of the company’s internal sales force and further strategic distribution agreements with HES global partners.
“Chris Ferrante is moving to the US to lead the Product Management team, so we need to find a replacement for Chris in Europe. We’ll also be forming strategic agreements with partners that can represent us as distributors, and are looking at many regions including Western Europe and Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, India and South America.
“We want to ramp up business in Australia, and are also looking at major improvements in India and South Africa, as well as a more efficient approach to the South American market.”
In closing De Wilde commented, “We’re benefitting from the tremendously successful launch of the Hog 4 family, so we need to align all these plans with getting this console line out to market, with shorter lead times to meet the market demand. Ultimately we want High End Systems to become the number one brand in the industry for professional lighting and control solutions.”
Part of the Barco group, High End Systems is an industry leading manufacturer of entertainment lighting and control products.