New US President for Ronstan

by Media Services on 10 Aug 2005 Ronstan International has made two key moves to continue its growth and position the company for future expansion in North America.

The company has appointed Scot West as its new President of US operations. He moves to Ronstan after recently vacating the position of Executive Director of Sail America, the trade association for sailing in the US. West brings over 12 years of marine sales, marketing and management experience to the post at Ronstan.

‘I can’t describe how excited I am about this position,’ said West. ‘Given the strength of the brand, the outstanding sales team that is in place, and the potential for growth in several of our key product groups – I know we will make great things happen at Ronstan.’

In addition to hiring West, the company will be relocating its US headquarters office from St Petersburg, Florida to Portsmouth, Rhode Island.

This move is a tactical shift to better position the company closer to more of their sailing industry clients. The new office in Portsmouth will feature a Customer Service call-centre, showroom and full warehouse. It will begin operation in September and run in tandem with the current St Petersburg office until the warehouse operation moves north in December 2005.

Op to 10 people will be employed in Rhode Island, in addition to its five person sales force, and the company will maintain sales offices in Alameda, California and St Petersburg.

Current CEO of Ronstan USA, Peter Dowdney, stated: ‘Basing the business in Rhode Island is a perfect move for us; it puts us in the heart of our core markets. We are looking forward to hiring some great people and getting established in the north east.’

Summarising these exciting announcements, Managing Director, Alistair Murray commented, ‘the US is a critical part of our worldwide company strategy; sales have been increasing in the past several years and with our move to RI and hiring of Scot, I expect to see even more significant gains for Ronstan in the US.

Ronstan International is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of hardware for sailing, as well as architectural and industrial applications. The company is based in Melbourne, Australia, with distribution offices in the USA, Denmark, New Zealand and the UK.