Former Cellnet senior executive Santo Pappalardo has landed at Brisbane-based startup distributor XIT Distribution, joining four of his former IT Wholesale (ITW) colleagues in the process.
Pappalardo -- who quit as chief operating officer at Cellnet (which owns ITW) in April last year due to differences with the board and senior management -- said he had made a 'substantial financial investment' in the fledgling XIT. He is the equal largest shareholder with Jim Watson and Marney Robinson, who are also ex-IT Wholesale.
Other former ITW staff Craig Mortensen and Maria Graham also defected to the startup following its inception in July last year, Pappalardo said.
XIT has since struck distribution agencies with the likes of Acer, Epson, Toshiba, Canon and Samsung and would fill the need for a strong local state-based distributor in Queensland servicing small and regional resellers, Pappalardo said. 'In each state there are strong local state-based distributors -- there's no-one like that in Queensland,' he said.
Pappalardo said he had been charged with 'guiding the company through startup phase' to operate as a successful state-based organisation. He said the company would cater for resellers and consultants who preferred to do business with a specialised local company.
The distributor was operating from the old ITW premises in Windsor, Qld which it owns. He added that the company had strong capital reserves to fund future growth.
He said the business would be 'no different from other good operators' but had plans to attack other non-traditional markets as well. 'All managers [also] have equity therefore [the] care factor is probably higher,' he said.
Pappalardo sold his ITW distribution business to Cellnet in October 2000.
-1.jpg&w=100&c=1&s=0)
.png&w=100&c=1&s=0)
