Gillings joined Nimans five years ago as Head of PR but her role has increasingly developed to encompass operational issues, working closely with Chairman and Chief Executive, Julian Niman. Over the past 18 months she and Niman have been working to overhaul the distributor’s structure to further enhance its responsiveness to dealers and new business opportunities.
“We’ve streamlined the board to ensure we can react faster and more decisively,” explained Julian Niman. “The distance between heads of departments and directors has been significantly shortened and the whole reporting structure is much more responsive. This will ensure we can better support dealers and react more quickly to opportunities as they arise.”
He added: “Paula and I work well as a team. She offers both superb organisational and people management skills, as well as a deep understanding of what makes Nimans and its customers tick.”
The new structure sees a board comprising Niman, Gillings and Logistics Director John Cunningham augmented by independent corporate financial consultant Peter Cookson. A new senior management tier reports directly into the board and incorporates three newly created roles, Head of Purchasing, Head of Business Development and Head of Marketing.
Jeff Bee, a highly experienced buying and merchandising specialist has been recruited as Head of Purchasing. Mr. Bee’s extensive career includes senior purchasing roles with a number of leading retailers including JJB Sports, Matalan and Littlewoods.
The Head of Business Development position has been taken by another new recruit, Dannie McDonald. Ms. McDonald had already been providing consultancy services to the company, drawing upon her extensive business development skills secured at some of the UK’s biggest brands, such as Habitat, Selfridges and Ikea. In her new role she will oversee all the company’s sales divisions. Nimans is set to announce its new Head of Marketing within the next few weeks.
Completing the senior management team are Paul Walker, IT, and Andy Fagan who in addition to Returns & Facilities takes responsibility for Technical Support. Fagan will be familiar to many dealers as he has been Nimans’ Service Manager for the past ten years.
Among other key internal promotions are the elevation of Headset Business Manager, Philippa Parrish, to Dealer Sales Manager and of Avaya Business Manager Phil Adams to the new post of Phone Systems Sales Manager.
Finalisation of the corporate structure comes as Nimans continues to enjoy buoyant trading with the company seeing sales currently significantly ahead against 2005 with systems showing an increase of over 18 per cent ahead. Whilst sales are up across the board, systems have performed particularly strongly and the headset team under Parrish has secured significant strategic gains and volume growth. “Despite going through a fairly fundamental shake-up of the business we have continued to make excellent gains,” commented Ms. Gillings. “That is testament to support from suppliers and the patience, dedication and expertise of our staff, who have seen us not just through growing pains but ensured we have continued to secure solid, profitable expansion. That is in itself a tremendous achievement.
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