Kiwi promoted to run Westcon Australia

Major distributor Westcon has promoted Dave Rosenberg to the position of managing director for Australia and New Zealand.

A company spokesperson told CRN that Wendy O’Keeffe, vice president of APAC, had been "overseeing the Australian MD position for the past year".

Rosenberg, who has been Westcon's New Zealand managing director since March 2012, will begin in his new role Friday.

"Yes, I am a Kiwi but don’t hold that against me," Rosenberg told CRN. "Starting Friday, I'll be based in Australia but will still call New Zealand home."

The channel veteran said that he would commute to Australia for four days a week and spend the remaining weekday working from home in Auckland. "My family is still in New Zealand."

Rosenberg said that while the New Zealand and Australian arms would continue to operate separately day-to-day for now, in March the distributor will "have a review of the ANZ structure".

When asked about the vision and strategies he might bring to the ANZ MD role, Rosenberg told CRN that it is too premature to be making declarations.

"I'm negative four days into the new job! I don't want to pre-determine anything before starting. I want to spend at least the first month meeting staff, vendors, and customers," he said.

"I know that we already have great people working in Australia – we have an excellent platform to build on," Rosenberg told CRN. "The only goal I can say now is that I want to add value."

The new ANZ MD said that he has had a lot of past exposure to the Australian market through project work, liaising with vendors and partners headquartered in the country, and from his duties as a member of Westcon's Asia-Pacific leadership team.

Westcon Australia is headquartered in St Leonards in northern Sydney. The distie is owned by the South African multinational Datatec, which also has integrator Logicalis in its corporate family.