Today we continue our countdown to AV Technology Awards week, 23rd to 25th June, by unveiling the next five positions in the inaugural Pro AV Power 20 list. To recap, the brand new initiative celebrates the most influential individuals in our marketplace who are demonstrating leadership in areas such as innovation, market influence, commercial/business performance, contribution to good causes, education, professional development, diversity and inclusion, and general industry betterment.
Everyone at Installation and Future would like to congratulate all those nominated for this prestigious list, and for all those involved in helping to identify and recognise this marvelous roll call of influential industry leaders.
The Pro AV Power 20 rankings: 15 to 11
15: Kevin McLoughlin, AV manager, Royal Society of Medicine
Kevin McLoughlin has spent 25 years in the AV industry. He is currently working as AV Manager at the Royal Society of Medicine in London, facilitating the delivery of education to medical professionals and supporting corporate events to provide revenue for the charity. He is also well known on social media for positive comments and industry support on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Kevin heads a multi-award winning team with accolades of ‘AV Support Team of the year’ and ‘best technology at an Academic venue’ among them. As an individual Kevin has won awards for ‘AV Professional of the Year’ and ‘Outstanding Contribution to the AV industry’, these were recognition for his passionate volunteer work in the wider AV community beyond his day job.
14: Jon Sidwick, senior vice president, Maverick AV Solutions
Jon started in the industry as a junior retail salesman 30 years ago selling audio and video products and hasn’t managed to escape since. He then went on to run Sharp Pro AV and ultimately took Maverick from a six person UK business to a $1 billion global AV company. During this time he has been an energetic advocate and volunteer at AVIXA over the last 20 years and is now vice chairman.
At Maverick Jon has created multiple businesses including rental (PSCo), system integration (Design Integration), on-line models (Hotlamps) and the Vision Audio Visual brand which allows him to still dabble in developing new products. Jon is married with two children, a dog and is a keen runner and red wine drinker. Jon’s work priority is to build highly engaged teams which demonstrate passion for customer service combined with a massive amount of fun.
Jon announced his departure from Maverick back in May. “In my life post Maverick, I will be exploring some new projects and look forward especially to my role next year as chairman of AVIXA, at a time of huge change and opportunity for our industry,” he said.
13: Brandy Alvarado, Mad Systems, and chair of the AVIXA Women’s Council
Brandy is a business development manager at Mad Systems, an award-winning technology company that provides customised interactive experiences for theme parks, visitor centers and museums. During her career she has helped create and promote many renowned digital signage projects.
In addition to her role at Mad she is the Chair for the AVIXA Women’s Council. Four years ago, Alvarado co-founded the first local AVIXA Women’s Council group in Southern California. Since the inception of the SoCal Group, she has led the march to expand the Women’s Council via a network of local groups, to fulfill a mission of providing more opportunities and support for women in the global AV community.
In her time on the Council she’s helped spearhead 41 Groups around the globe, led the monthly Council leadership meetings, coordinated International Women’s Day campaigns, spoke at the annual InfoComm Women’s Council Breakfast, and spearheaded multiple initiatives to help women grow their careers in the industry. She’s often heard on social media and podcasts promoting the Women’s Council, her work at Mad Systems, and the Women of Digital Signage.
12: Samantha Ventura, vice president education and training, CEDIA
Samantha Ventura currently serves as the vice president of education and training at CEDIA. Samantha directs, manages, and provides global leadership in all instructional and academic systems within CEDIA’s education programmes. While at CEDIA, Samantha has overseen the continuation of the ANSI accreditation process, the move for classes to be updated, offered online, and localized for the EMEA region, the translation of many classes into Spanish, and was instrumental in creating the hybrid version of the popular CEDIA Outreach Instructor class. She also sits on the Professional Development Advisory Council (PDAC), and oversees many working groups at CEDIA. Additionally, Samantha supports the organisation by designing and teaching Leadership Development classes, participating in podcasts, writing blogs, and supporting partner organisations by speaking on topics related to transformational leadership and organisational change.
Prior to CEDIA, Samantha served as the senior director of learning initiatives for the DevOps Library, where she designed and developed curriculum for open source learning. She has worked in many major organisations, and as an adjunct Professor at San Diego State University, and Indiana University. Samantha is a published author in the field of automation for O’Reilly Media, and has spoken at numerous conferences on the topic of ‘leadership in tech’.
11: Dee Reed, MD, Carillion Communications
Dee Reed is managing director and co-owner of Carillion Communications Ltd. Having honed her leadership skills in the film and TV industry, she has now spent over 22 years in AV senior management. She established and then managed the hugely successful Computacenter AV practice before being asked to join Carillion Communications as managing director. In that time the business has grown dramatically, from one building and 12 staff to four buildings, a sales office in Manchester and a staff of 54.
For the last seven years she has driven standards, quality assurance, diversity and continuation training across the entire business. Carillion’s sales, installation and service team now all hold CTS certification and every new joiner, regardless of department, completes AV training and certification. In March 2020, this was recognised with the company being awarded the prestigious AVIXA Apex status, the pinnacle of AV skills recognition, making Carillion one of only five other UK companies to do so.
In 2018 Dee founded a Conservation Trust in South Africa which funds disadvantaged female students through their degree and field internships. At home she also leads the company’s ongoing local charity commitments. This year the business is supporting Maidenhead Foodbank, through a series of monthly fundraising activities with not just financial support but physical assistance from the Carillion team. In 2019 Carillion Communications completed customer projects in over 21 countries around the world.
Countdown to the AV Technology Awards
The rankings are being announced weekly with positions 10 to 6 unveiled on Friday 19th June. The top five positions will be announced during Awards Week: position 5 on Tuesday 22nd June; position 4 on Wednesday 23rd June; with the top three announced on Thursday June 25th. The person ranked number one will receive the Power 20 award for Most Influential Person of the Year.
You can read exclusive interviews with all of the Pro AV Power 20 members in a special ebook which will be released on Thursday 25th June.
