Ken Johnsen Appointed to Lead International Sales Training for The AVC Group

Adding strength to its international sales support programs, The AVC Group today announced the promotion of Niles® Western Regional Sales Manager Kenneth Johnsen to the newly created position of International Training Manager. Effective immediately, Johnsen assumes responsibility for the development and implementation of all distributor and dealer training programs and training teams for the ELAN®, Niles®, Xantech®, Sunfire®, and ATON® product lines outside of North America. In this new position he reports directly to Mark Terry, President of The AVC Group.

“In his 12-year career at Niles, Ken has held a number of key positions in sales and product training,” Terry said today. “He is a natural educator who understands how to train distributors and dealers to completely and accurately present the full capabilities of our brands’ product lines. On top of this, he is a leader who can identify and motivate a global team of product specialists who will take our training courses deeper into every geographic region around the world.”

Johnsen joined Niles in 1999 as a Regional Product Specialist and was responsible for coordinating, developing and conducting all Niles product and sales trainings for internal staff and Niles sales representatives, as well as dealers and end-users in both domestic and international markets. In 2003 he was promoted to the position of Training Manager and was responsible for development and execution of all of Niles, IntelliControl ICS and JobSite training strategies. He hired, coordinated and managed training staff, while creating and developing the Niles in-house training facility while introducing new frontiers of training and field communication with the “Train the Trainer” and Web-based training sessions.

After a brief stint as Eastern Regional Sales Manager, Johnsen returned to his roots when he was appointed Niles Product Manager in 2006 where he served as liaison between Niles Engineering, Sales and Marketing, and Niles customers to design and develop new products while being “the voice of the customer”. He worked on the product development teams responsible for bringing to market IntelliControl ICS products such as the iRemoteTS and DMS4 Digital Music Server and Niles branded products such as the VS-6 Component Video Switcher, the iC2 Home Theater and Control System, RFG Radio Frequency Gateway, HT-MSU Home Theater Main System Unit, HDMI Baluns and next-generation 20 series Infrared Repeater products. For the last year, he served as Western Regional Sales Manager and was responsible for managing 10 Niles territories in the United States and Canada.

Prior to his career at Niles, Johnsen was with Audio Concepts of Long Beach and San Gabriel, California, from 1989 to 1999. Previous to this, he held sales management positions at World of Sound and The Good Guys. He was awarded a Bachelor of Computer Science degree from San Francisco State University and an Associate of Science degree from Monterey Peninsula Jr. College. He resides in Oceanside, California.