Milestone Amps Up with New Sales Director and Managers

Milestone Systems has recently hired more strong players for managing sales in North America, Austria, Germany and Switzerland and the UK. A new Finance Manager has also come on board in the US and the fast-growing Bulgarian office has a new HR Manager. The Danish headquarters has hired a Product Manager and Marketing Manager, too.

Mike Taylor is now the Director of Sales, North America, for Milestone Systems. Since July, he has been responsible for driving new business, tasked with expanding the local, regional and national integrator base and building out the consulting and Architects & Engineers (A&E) Program. He is also enlarging the field sales team who support our partner relationships. Taylor has been in the security industry for over 18 years in key roles that include Brivo Systems Senior Director of Sales and AMAG Technology Vice President of Sales, having started his career with ADT Security Systems. 

Gavin Archery is the new A&E Program Manager at Milestone Systems, based out of a London office. His background as a security industry specialist brings many years of experience from Philips Security Systems, Bewator (acquired by Siemens), and independent design and implementation of security systems. Through different roles, Archery has worked the entire security value chain from manufacturer to System Integrator to security consultant. As a member of the Security Institute and the Association of Security Consultants, he is well connected to the specifier (A&E) community, which will help to further develop Milestone's A&E Program.

Peter Grubauer is Milestone Country Manager DACH (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) since May. He has extensive experience in selling and managing sales teams, from previous positions with Novell, Polycom, Tandberg, Cisco Systems, and Vidyo. He works with a motivational management style from a proven history of building, guiding and retaining high-performance teams to develop and implement strategies for accelerated growth. 

Chris Whitting is Milestone Country Manager UK & Ireland since June, and says: "I have been active in the security industry for over 15 years, bringing IP to market with CNL, Bosch and Sony. Milestone has the market-leading VMS product suite serviced through a well-defined channel, and with initiatives such as the Milestone Husky NVR launch and the encoder license program, I look forward to working with the UK team and Milestone partner community to continue our growth in the UK."

Ava Parissay joined Milestone Systems at the Danish headquarters in June as Senior Products Manager in the Professional Business Unit. With a B.A.Sc. Computer Engineering and M.B.A. from Simon Fraser University, she has worked more than ten years in the high-tech industry, most recently as Product Manager at Avigilon in Canada where she was responsible for the device portfolio and integration program. Prior to this, she was a Product Manager and Head of User Interface Design at Macdonald Dettwiler and Associates.

"Ava will support our team in a number of activities across R&D, Sales and Marketing. She will take ownership of the strategic three-year roadmap for the Professional Business Unit," says Janne Jacobsen, VP Professional Products, Milestone Systems. 

As of July, Anja Erntgaard has filled the new position of Milestone Marketing Project Manager in the Danish corporate office. Applying her background with Copenhagen Capacity (the Danish capital's official organization for investment, promotion and business development), as well as Canon Denmark, she speaks Danish, English, German and Spanish, with broad experience in project management, design and layout, content management and email marketing, as well as video editing, and print production.  

Mark Pauley is the new Finance Manager, Americas, for Milestone Systems, Inc. in Beaverton, Oregon. He comes to Milestone from six years at Colgate-Palmolive where he was Senior Auditor, Financial Controller and Finance Manager. He has also worked for Navigant Consulting, Deloitte & Touche and Ernst & Young.  Pauley served in the US Army including deployments to Bosnia-Herzegovina and Saudi Arabia. He has a B.S. in Business Administration from Oregon State University, a minor in Pre Law and a CPA license.

Yana Valchanova fills a new position as HR Manager, Bulgaria, one of the fastest growing Milestone offices with an employee count now over 50 after just three years. Valchanova holds a Masters in Social Psychology from South West University and a degree in Human Resource Management from the University of National and World Economy. She began as a Psychologist in Human Resources at Overgas Holding, handling recruitment and psychological testing, training and staff development, before moving on to Human Resource Manager at Bravo Ltd. and Senior HR Advisor at Skrill Holdings, where she developed company-wide HR strategies, policies and procedures. 

"Yana is an important new member in our global HR team. Her experience makes her a valuable business partner for Bulgaria's organic and leadership growth, as well as for our objective of being a high-performing organization," says Claudia Lillebjerg, VP HR at Milestone Systems. "Our Sofia office is a burdgeoning location for product development of mobile and web solutions, test automation for our open platform VMS, device support for our camera partners, technical support staff and channel partner management. This is all part of Milestone's strategic global expansions."