AKG Names New President
Andy Trott, president of Harman’s mixer brand Soundcraft Studer, has also been made responsible for AKG, headquartered in Vienna.
Andy Trott, president of Harman’s mixer brand Soundcraft Studer, has also been made responsible for AKG, headquartered in Vienna.
Stefan Gubi, who has headed up AKG for the past five years, is leaving the company at the end of this month and returning to a senior post in the telecom industry, where he worked before joining AKG.
Trott, whom the company credits with the digitalization of Soundcraft Studer’s business since he joined in 2003, expressed his excitement over the prospect of leading AKG in a statement: “Having a background as a digital engineer and a recording musician, I am absolutely thrilled at the prospect of leading another legendary name in the audio industry. AKG has always been a brand I have revered and having now met with many of the team in Austria, I can see many synergies with the new product development programs we have been pursuing in Soundcraft Studer.
“Harman’s strategy is to develop centers of excellence and by bringing our microphone and headphone business closer together with our mixer brands, we will be able to capitalize on engineering innovations currently under way in both camps–for example, we have several digital programs in place that can benefit from sharing one another’s creativity,” Trott continued in a statement.
Regarding organizational changes, Trott added, “We will obviously look for efficiencies and make sensible changes, but AKG is running well, much to the credit of Stefan’s work over the past four years. Nigel Beaumont, our VP of operations, has been running our manufacturing operations across all three brands for almost a year now and the marketing teams, in line with all Harman Professional brands, work together on a daily basis, so the businesses are comfortable working together.”
In his statement, Trott also pointed out that his strategy is to spearhead the growth of the company. “Like Studer, AKG has over 60 years of proud history valued by staff, distributors, and customers alike, and this is something we want to protect as we pioneer new technologies–no other brands can offer such an integrated set of possibilities for future products as we can,” he said.
