If promotions, new hires, and partnerships are any indication of a healthy industry (spoiler: they are), Pro AV is thriving. With ISE 2026 in action to kick off February, you may have missed the flurry of moves that happened across our industry the past couple weeks.
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Don't worry. That's exactly what we are here for. Get caught up with the latest people movers and partnerships in Pro AV.
People on the Move
Advanced Systems Group Appoints Industry Veteran Derek Pezzotti to Lead Sports and Venue Market Growth
Advanced Systems Group (ASG) has appointed Derek Pezzotti as senior account executive. Pezzotti joins ASG’s Production and Innovation team to help expand the company’s presence in the sports and venue segment. In this role, Pezzotti works closely with ASG’s consulting, design, engineering, and integration teams.
Pezzotti arrives at ASG after an almost 20-year career spanning sports team and event operations, broadcast news, broadcast equipment manufacturer, and, most recently, a consulting firm specializing in broadcast technology for stadiums. This varied background has given him a 360-degree perspective of how venues are planned, procured, built, and run in real-world conditions. That background translates into faster project development and solutions that meet both technical and business goals.
Ampetronic | Listen Technologies Promotes Mikey Shaffer to Vice President of North American Sales
Listen Technologies and Ampetronic have promoted Mikey Shaffer to VP of North American sales. In this role, Shaffer is responsible for accelerating revenue growth, expanding market presence, and optimizing channel performance across North America. She leads the North American sales teams and channel partners in selling Listen Technologies and Ampetronic assistive listening systems.
Shaffer joined Listen Technologies in 2016 and has held marketing, vertical markets, and regional sales roles at the organization. Prior to her promotion, Shaffer served as senior director of sales in North America. Under her leadership, the team delivered a period of exceptional growth and operational maturity.
D-Tools Names G Paul Hess as CEO
D-Tools has appointed G Paul Hess to chief executive officer as part of a long-planned leadership succession. After more than a decade as CEO marked by strong, consistent growth, Randy Stearns has chosen to “downshift” from the role while remaining actively involved.
Hess brings decades of experience in the electronic systems industry, beginning his career as an integrator and later holding senior and executive leadership roles across product, sales, and marketing at organizations including Snap One and ADI. Having worked closely with integrators, manufacturers, and channel partners throughout his career, Hess has a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing the electronic systems community and how D-Tools’ platform can unlock greater efficiencies, profitability, and growth.
Visionary Appoints Ryan Nowak as VP of IPTV and Signage Solutions
Visionary appointed Ryan Nowak as VP of IPTV and signage solutions. In this role, Nowak leads system architecture, deployment strategy, and technical alignment for Visionary’s IPTV platform to support customers and partners worldwide.
Nowak brings more than 20 years of experience spanning IPTV systems engineering, global solution deployments and product strategy leadership. He works closely with Visionary’s product management, engineering and support teams to ensure scalable and reliable IPTV and signage deployments across enterprise, education, healthcare, sports and broadcast environments.
Prior to joining Visionary, Nowak held multiple senior leadership roles at VITEC, where he most recently served as strategic growth unit product director for Engage and Connect solutions. Earlier roles included head of product management for platforms and director of deployments, where he led global IPTV and signage deployments across diverse network environments. Earlier in his career, Nowak spent more than a decade with the Green Bay Packers as a technology systems engineer, supporting and maintaining technology systems across Lambeau Field and other managed facilities, including live-event operations and fan-facing technology environments.
Vizrt Welcomes Expanded Enterprise Team
Vizrt expanded its team to ignite a new era of professional-grade production, communication, and connection for enterprises. Under the leadership of Vizrt’s CRO, Ryan Poggi, the expanded enterprise team brings decades of expertise in enterprise technology to deliver broadcast-level engagement, once only available to Sports, Media and Entertainment corporations, to organizations of all sizes.
As the new VP of Enterprise, Andy Baillie brings a wealth of experience across content automation, AI and analytics, and software-as-a-service (SaaS) technologies. Baillie has held growth leadership positions at IBM, DocuSign, and Seismic. With a history of pioneering disruptive technologies that scale, he is uniquely positioned to deliver transformative outcomes for Vizrt customers.
Coming from leadership positions at Microsoft, SoftwareOne, and Pax8, Nikki Meyer leads the global Channel Sales team. She manages a high-performing team to deliver solutions via Vizrt’s international community of trusted partners, expanding the reach of communities that can create content that captivates viewers.
Company News
AES Opens Submissions for 6th International Conference on Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality and Immersive Games
The Audio Engineering Society (AES) has announced details for its 6th International Conference on Audio for Virtual and Augmented Reality and Immersive Games (AVARIG2026), taking place in Europe and including immersive game audio for the first time, June 30 – July 3, 2026, at Sorbonne University/d'Alembert and IRCAM/STMS in Paris, France.
Submissions for peer-reviewed papers, extended summaries, workshops and tutorials are now being accepted through March 24, 2026. Accepted contributions will be included in the AES E-Library and considered for a special Journal of the Audio Engineering Society issue following the conference. Sponsorship opportunities are currently available, with conference registration opening soon. For details on submissions, programming, and how to participate, visit AES.org.
Audacy and Sonos Forge Exclusive Partnership
Audacy and Sonos have announced a strategic partnership that includes Audacy serving as the exclusive U.S. sales and distribution representative for Sonos Radio’s streaming inventory. Through the partnership, Audacy will leverage its sales capabilities, technology and audio expertise to expand Sonos Radio’s advertising business and strengthen monetization across the platform. The partnership reflects Audacy and Sonos’s shared vision of maximizing the power of audio wherever and however people are listening, for both audiences and marketers.
Sonos Radio’s more than 100 stations will also be distributed on the Audacy platform, expanding access to Sonos Radio’s curated music, artist channels, and mood-driven listening experiences. Listeners will be able to discover Sonos Radio stations across the Audacy app and web, with Sonos Radio featured alongside Audacy’s popular owned-and-operated brands. In addition to distribution on the Audacy app and website, Audacy will also distribute Sonos Radio stations across various platforms, including Google Home, Alexa, and Apple Music. Audacy’s complete portfolio of broadcast stations has been available on Sonos devices since 2020.
AVI-SPL Achieves SOC 2 Type II Attestation
Among a bevy of announcements at ISE 2026, AVI-SPL announced that it has achieved SOC 2 Type II attestation. This attestation applies to the entire AVI-SPL organization and includes a separate SOC 2 Type II report for Symphony, AVI-SPL’s experience management platform. By earning SOC 2 Type II attestation directly, rather than relying on third-party platforms, AVI-SPL reinforces its commitment to security and its role as a trusted, enterprise-grade partner for organizations worldwide.
SOC 2 Type II attestation confirms not only that AVI-SPL has established strong security and confidentiality controls, but that those controls operate effectively over time. For customers, this provides assurance that their data and environments are protected throughout the full lifecycle of engagement, from design and deployment through ongoing managed services and support.
Brompton Technology Welcomes New Partner to Panel Manufacturer Partner Program
Brompton welcomed Fabulux LED as the first Silver Partner in its Panel Manufacturer Partner program. Brompton is introducing the Silver Partner tier to its Panel Manufacturer Partner program, alongside the existing Diamond and Gold Partner levels. While Brompton works with a huge range of LED panel manufacturers, the Partner Program recognises the particularly strong relationships the company has developed with panel manufacturers including ROE Visual (Diamond Partner), Absen, AOTO, and INFiLED (Gold Partners).
Grass Valley and NETGEAR Partner on Enterprise Broadcast AV Workflows
Grass Valley and NETGEAR announced a strategic partnership to serve the rapidly growing Broadcast AV segment. The collaboration combines NETGEAR AV’s live media optimized switching and secure IP networking with Grass Valley’s software-defined production tools and hardware platforms to make it simpler for enterprises to produce, manage, and distribute high-quality content.
Enterprise organizations, including corporations, universities, houses of worship, esports, and venues, increasingly require broadcast-quality production capabilities but have historically faced prohibitive costs and complexity. This partnership directly addresses that gap. Both companies share a common vision of interoperability, built on major standards including NDI, SMPTE ST 2110, Dante, and SRT, alongside a customer-first approach that simplifies user experiences and delivers powerful tools.
Ross Video, BeckTV Expand Ravens’ LED Display System for Stadium-Wide Control
BeckTV and Ross Video have partnered to deliver a major upgrade at M&T Bank Stadium, home of the Baltimore Ravens. Building on a collaboration that began in 2017 and continued with a comprehensive content management system (CMS) overhaul in 2023, BeckTV led the design and integration of a fully unified LED display system that is now fully installed and operational for the current NFL season.
The upgrade introduces new LED boards in Premium Club and concourse areas, extending the Ravens’ CMS beyond the bowl displays. At the heart of the solution is the Ross XPression Tessera M9 engine, enabling real-time graphics rendering and data integration for LED displays and IPTV. The system also incorporates the Ross Ultrix FR5 routing platform, custom Rocket Surgery graphics design, and DashBoard control interfaces for seamless venue-wide management.
To support large-scale visual experiences, the system leverages Carbonite Mosaic for compositing live video and graphics and Ultrix Carbonite switchers for routing and processing. These technologies, combined under BeckTV’s design, ensure pixel-accurate rendering across massive LED surfaces, including end-zone boards approaching 13,000 pixels wide. The expanded CMS now drives content to 52 unique displays throughout the stadium, including concourse TVs, club screens, vomitory displays, and upper and lower ribbons. Full redundancy is built into the system to guarantee reliability during high-profile events.
Pleneo, Sennheiser Announce Intelligent Room Kits
Pleneo and Sennheiser unveiled the availability of two intelligent meeting room kits designed to remove installation complexity, reduce deployment cost, and enable consistent, AI-ready collaboration experiences in medium and large meeting spaces at scale.
The Pleneo Medium Room Kit and Pleneo Large Room Kit are designed to change that. Engineered for medium and large rooms, the kits extend AI-enabled collaboration into larger environments that are typically difficult to standardize and scale. By integrating Sennheiser ceiling microphones as part of a fully orchestrated Pleneo system, the kits deliver high-performance audio pickup that supports intelligent meeting experiences in the spaces where collaboration matters most.
Each kit is built around Pleneo RoomHub, which connects all room endpoints into Pleneo Room OS, the system layer that powers the room as a single, unified environment. Room OS enables zero-touch deployment and automated setup, allowing complete rooms to be brought online without specialist configuration or individual tuning of audio or video settings. Rooms deploy over standard IT infrastructure, using enterprise-grade security and governance frameworks by design.
Visix Named Premier Partner in BrightSign Bright Alliance Program
Visix has been recognized as a Premier partner in the BrightSign Bright Alliance program. This designation acknowledges Visix's commitment to leveraging BrightSign's media players and operating system, BrightSignOS, to power enterprise-level visual communications.
As a Premier partner, Visix will collaborate more closely with BrightSign to strengthen integrations, streamline support, and deliver greater value to customers. This ensures faster alignment on technology updates, deeper knowledge sharing, and coordinated assistance for complex deployments. Visix's priority access to BrightSign firmware and engineering resources accelerates development, supports advanced technical troubleshooting, and fosters continuous innovation informed by client feedback. All of this supports seamless performance and exceptional service, ultimately enabling more powerful, engaging digital signage experiences.
