Projectiondesign Taps New President for North America
Projectiondesign announced the appointment of Karl Hantho as president of its Americas subsidiary.
Karl Hantho
Projectiondesign announced the appointment of Karl Hantho as president of its Americas subsidiary. Hantho’s arrival follows the recent announcement of the company’s acquisition of Projectiondesign LLC, which had been its exclusive distributor in North America since 2004.
“The Americas market is the single largest market for high-performance projection systems and, just as significantly, it is where some of the most innovative and pioneering uses of our systems are first embraced,” said smund O. Fodstad, Projectiondesign’s executive vice president, in a statement. “I am very pleased to welcome Mr. Hantho to the projectiondesign team and to his leadership of the Americas business through our next rapid growth phase. The appointment also reflects our ability to attract industry heavyweights of such high caliber like Mr Hantho. His collaborative style and extensive experience in building successful sales teams and developing channels to market will be leveraged to help us strengthen customer relationships and further align ourselves with market leading innovators and establish Projectiondesign as the preferred supplier of high performance projection solutions and services.
In speaking about his appointment, Hantho said in a statement, “I am very excited to be joining the Projectiondesign team at this stage of their evolutionary growth. Over the past seven years Projectiondesign has developed a strong reputation for high-quality projection solutions and customer service. Looking ahead, it will be critical that we build on this solid foundation with increased focus on supporting and growing our partner community and expanding into new markets and new applications.”
Hantho joins Projectiondesign from LTI DataComm and Nova Power Solutions, where he held the roles of CEO and president since 2007. From 2004 to 2006 he served as both CEO and COO of BlueTree Wireless Data.
Earlier in his career, Hantho was a member of the original 1994 joint-venture leadership team that established and grew BT Visual Images in North America. This company became the U.S. acquisition that launched Tandberg, now a part of Cisco, in the North American market in 1997. Between 1997 and 2003 Hantho held several leadership positions in Tandberg, including senior vice president of channel sales, president of Tandberg Canada, and president of Tandberg in North America. During that period he also served on the board of the Interactive Multimedia and Collaborative Communications Alliance (IMCCA).
