It was another busy week in Pro AV. Riedel Communications has a new CEO; Neat and Peerless-AV expand their leadership positions; a slew of manufacturers made new partnerships; and then, of course, was FORTÉ and D-Tools.
D-Tools started a busy Tuesday by announcing its merger with Portal.io. The merger creates a stronger technology partner for commercial integrators by bringing together complementary strengths. Want more details? Dig in here with our full coverage.
Later that same night, SCN had the inside scoop, breaking the big news that FORTÉ acquired Vega Global. Fresh off its split from GPA, FORTÉ chairman and CEO Jeff Stoebner sat down with us to discuss what was behind the strategic acquisition. Spoiler alert, it wasn't simply expansion for the sake of expansion. Learn more in our exclusive interview here.
Now, on with the show.
People News
Neat Deepens Leadership Bench for Global Expansion
Neat has appointed Sandeep Mehra as SVP and general manager of International. In this key executive role, Mehra drives market expansion, commercial execution, and strategic partner ecosystems across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific regions.
A 20-year industry veteran across SaaS, video collaboration, and enterprise technology, Mehra has scaled businesses from early-stage startups to multi-billion-dollar global operations. He spent over a decade at Cisco in senior leadership roles spanning sales, engineering, and go-to-market. His tenure included serving as managing director for APAC collaboration sales, VP of customer experience across ASEAN and Korea, and global GM for video devices out of Oslo, where he launched a suite of innovative products covering work-from-home solutions and Intelligent Spaces. Early in his career, Mehra co-founded India’s pioneer conferencing company, which was acquired by Webex; he later served as an executive leader at Moxtra.
Peerless-AV Appoints Rob McKenna as National Account Manager for CI, Retail, and eCommerce
Peerless-AV has announced the expansion of its CI, retail, and ecommerce team with the appointment of Rob McKenna as national account manager McKenna brings 37 years of consumer electronics industry experience to the role, further strengthening Peerless-AV's growth strategy across key commercial and residential channels.
McKenna joins Peerless-AV with an extensive track record of building high-value retail and custom business throughout the CI channel at known organizations. In his new role, McKenna is responsible for managing and expanding key account relationships across custom integration, retail, and eCommerce channels. His appointment reflects Peerless-AV's continued commitment to strengthening its partnerships and accelerating digital growth in an increasingly competitive marketplace.
Riedel Evolves Leadership and Global Go-to-Market Organization
Riedel Communications is strengthening its leadership and global go-to-market structure for 2027. Lutz Rathmann will become chief executive officer (CEO) of Riedel Communications, assuming overall responsibility for the product division and managed technology division. At the same time, Anthony Zuyderhoff will take on the role of chief commercial officer (CCO), leading the company’s newly unified global go-to-market organization. Jan Eveleens, currently CEO of the product division, will retire at the end of 2026 following a long and successful career in the broadcast industry. The new setup brings the product division and managed technology division into closer alignment, combining Riedel’s product development and live-production expertise more closely.
The new setup brings the product division and managed technology division into closer alignment, combining Riedel’s product development and live-production expertise more closely. Both divisions will retain their respective teams, expertise, and market focus while collaborating more closely across the business. At the same time, Riedel will connect its customer-facing sales, service, support, and marketing functions through a shared go-to-market leadership, enabling a more coordinated and consistent approach to customers and partners.
Before returning to lead Managed Technology in 2020, Rathmann had already held senior roles at Riedel, including Vice Director Global Events and Head of Project Management. Since then, he has strategically expanded the business, developed new opportunities and partnerships, and advanced the solution portfolio for international event and live productions. Together with Jan Eveleens, he has also driven closer collaboration between Managed Technology and the Product Division—laying the groundwork for bringing both areas even closer together under his leadership.
Zuyderhoff, currently Executive Director Global Sales, will assume leadership of the new go-to-market organization and bring Riedel’s primary customer-facing functions under a shared direction. The new setup is designed to make collaboration more seamless, accelerate decision-making, and strengthen how Riedel supports customers and partners across products and services.
Whitwam AVI appoints Jack Baker as Operations and Project Manager
Whitwam AVI is continuing to strengthen its operations with the appointment of Jack Baker as operations and project manager. Having spent the past three years as maintenance manager, Baker brings an in-depth understanding of the business and its clients. In his new role, he is developing tools and processes to improve onboarding, renewals, and contract management, while supporting colleagues and removing barriers to support consistent, scalable delivery.
He has held engineering roles at Virgin Media and Ultra Electronics, as well as aboard several mega-yachts, giving him extensive experience of complex, high-pressure technical environments.
Partnerships
Absen, Polywall Announce Strategic Technology Partnership
Polywall and Absen announced a strategic technology partnership. The collaboration delivers solutions that provide organizations with a seamless, high-performance foundation for their command and control environments.
The partnership addresses the growing demand for sophisticated, reliable visualization solutions in network operations centers (NOCs), security operations centers (SOCs), transportation hubs, utilities, and public safety facilities. By combining Polywall control room software platform with Absen's LED displays, enterprise customers get a unified ecosystem that enhances operational efficiency, situational awareness, and decision-making.
The joint solution has already been successfully deployed in complex operational environments, including high-profile government and financial sector projects . At the heart of the partnership is a commitment to interoperability, with both companies' technologies tested and validated to ensure optimal performance and reliability in 24/7 operational settings.
AIMS Welcomes Bolin Technology and ITDev as Newest Members
The Alliance for IP Media Solutions (AIMS) today announced that ITDev and Bolin Technology have joined the organization as its newest members. The additions bring a professional PTZ camera and AV over IP hardware manufacturer and a FPGA design and IP licensing specialist into the alliance, further broadening the range of expertise represented among AIMS members as adoption of IPMX and SMPTE ST 2110-based standards continues to expand across broadcast and Pro AV.
Bolin Technology designs professional PTZ cameras and AV over IP solutions built for real-world production environments. ITDev and Bolin Technology join a growing roster of broadcast and Pro AV companies working within AIMS to advance IPMX and support the industry's transition from proprietary, point-to-point systems to open, standards-based IP media networking.
AISpeech Appoints Empire PRO as U.S. Distribution Partner
AISpeech has appointed Empire PRO as its U.S. distribution partner to support its continued growth in North America. Under the agreement, Empire PRO will help bring AISpeech products to dealers, integrators, consultants, and end users across the United States, supported by regional inventory, order fulfillment, technical assistance, and customer service for the Pro AV channel.
Empire PRO is a professional audio, video, and lighting distributor based in the Los Angeles area. The company serves dealers, systems integrators, consultants, and technology partners with access to leading AV brands, in-house inventory, logistics support, technical resources, and full-system solution support.
Almo Pro AV Partners with Audio-Technica
Almo Pro AV and Audio-Technica have jointly announced that Audio-Technica’s flagship D50 Digital UHF Wireless System is now available for order through Almo Pro AV. For integrators, the partnership offers much more than just access to a new wireless platform. Almo Pro AV’s in-house audio team also provides technical and business development support, while LinkLab Services can help with everything from system design and programming to commissioning and labor. Together, these resources give integrators a way to move from product selection to project deployment with expert support at every stage.
As wireless systems become increasingly integrated into commercial AV networks, RF reliability, scalability, and ease of deployment are critical considerations for integrators. The D50 is designed specifically for these demanding environments. The system uses antenna summing and Maximal Ratio Combining (MRC) technology to improve RF stability across the available UHF frequency range. Its high-density capabilities allow integrators to deploy more wireless microphones in environments where RF spectrum is limited. Dante networking also simplifies system integration by allowing multiple channels of digital audio to travel over a single network cable. For integrators, that can mean less cabling, easier troubleshooting and potentially lower installation labor.
AtlasIED Partners With PT Hikari Indo Sarana
AtlasIED announced its partnership with PT Hikari Indo Sarana, a Jakarta, Indonesia-based distributor. The partnership aims to expand AtlasIED’s APAC reach.
Hikari Indo Sarana has over 25 years of industry experience and has consistently held its highly respected position since its inception in 2001. The company is known as a top-quality project supplier and system integrator. Hikari Indo Sarana specializes in the hospitality, office, data center, and industrial sectors.
INFiLED Appoints UC Technology Partners for the Northeast United States
INFiLED has appointed UC Technology Partners as its representative firm for the Northeast United States, extending the LED display manufacturer’s reach into one of the country’s densest commercial AV markets. The appointment forms part of a wider expansion of INFiLED’s North American channel strategy, through which the company is building a network of regional representative firms to bring its sales and support capability closer to integrators and end users.
Founded in 2024 and based in Connecticut, UC Technology Partners is an AV and IT sales and marketing organization representing manufacturers in the unified communications and commercial AV sectors. The Northeast-based firm covers nine states: New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maine, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Vermont, and Rhode Island. Its founders, Aaron Chisena and Rob Leclerc, bring more than five decades of combined experience earned working directly with manufacturers, integrators, service providers, and end users.
TRENDnet Partners with Hiperwall
TRENDnet and Hiperwall announced a new partnership that makes select TRENDnet managed switches compatible with Hiperwall technology. This collaboration gives users better networking infrastructure options for demanding AV over IP and video wall installations.
The new compatibility enables businesses and organizations of all sizes to deploy Hiperwall-powered video wall systems using certified TRENDnet managed switches. This delivers the network performance and reliability required for high-end visualization environments across a wide range of applications and industries.
Click here for a full list of TRENDnet managed switches now certified for compatibility with the Hiperwall video platform.
Company News
Reinforcing its commitment to helping customers build recurring revenue through a growing portfolio of services, ADI has redesigned its Parasol experience within its 1Plan platform, providing custom integrators with a single place to design, sell, activate and manage recurring services. The update brings Parasol into the 1Plan platform alongside ARCC, ADI's cloud-based network management service. Customers can now access Parasol and ARCC through a single portal, simplifying access to recurring services. They also benefit from modernized business administration capabilities, including more streamlined credit card management, granularity for user management and permissions, enhanced notification management, and centralized end-customer contact management.
AVer Information introduced its Try & Buy Program, an evaluation initiative that allows organizations to test eligible AVer products in their own environments before making a purchasing decision. Designed to simplify the technology evaluation process, the program provides customers with up to 60 days to assess AVer solutions within their existing meeting rooms, classrooms and professional AV environments.
PPDS announced the evolution of its EcoDesign learnings, wrapped together with its ‘future proof product thinking’, to become ReDesign. Alongside the new naming, the company has extended the circular design approach that enabled the EPEAT Climate+ Gold rated Philips Signage 3650 EcoDesign, applying it to the development of new products. This philosophy reinforces PPDS’ long term commitment to sustainability, circularity, and social responsibility, embedded through every stage of its product lifecycles. The reimagined ReDesign philosophy is built around six core principles: reduce, reuse, repair, refurbish, recycle, reinvent.
Product News
Biamp announced that its Kleeo Desk Manager is now Zoom Certified for Workspace Reservation. This certification enables organizations to provide employees with a unified, streamlined desk booking experience directly within Zoom Workspace Reservation, bringing the power of Kleeo to the collaboration tools their teams already use.
Blackwire Designs has announced a full catalog integration into Specifi, the all-in-one business management platform built for AV integrators. This integration allows custom integrators to feature, specify, and quote Blackwire products across their entire workflow, from Specifi-built integrator websites to final client proposals. Authorized Blackwire dealers using Specifi can effortlessly pull accurate product data, specifications, live pricing, and high-resolution imagery directly into client-facing proposals, technical documents, and the client portal, eliminating manual data entry.
Boland Communications introduced a new SMPTE ST 2110 input option for its full range of professional 4K HDR monitors. Featuring integrated 25GbE connectivity and SMPTE ST 2022-7 protection, the option brings resilient UHD monitoring directly to IP-based production environments without requiring external ST 2110-to-SDI gateways. The integrated design reduces the switch ports, gateways, transceivers, cabling, rack space, and power required for monitor walls, production control rooms, master control facilities, mobile production units, and other multidisplay environments. Removing external conversion equipment also simplifies installation and maintenance while reducing system complexity and potential points of failure.
Carousel has unveiled enhancements to its integration with the Amazon Signage Stick. Carousel Cloud's latest update introduces several key feature enhancements that streamline digital signage operations across Amazon Signage OS devices. The Carousel dashboard now supports over-the-air updates, flagging when Carousel app or Amazon Signage OS updates are available and allowing operators to launch them together manually or schedule them to install automatically overnight. Energy efficiency is improved through an updated Power Save feature, which uses Amazon Signage's HDMI-CEC display control to automatically switch compatible HDMI displays on and off at scheduled times. Furthermore, content display reliability is enhanced via Amazon Signage's OS-level rotation APIs, keeping settings fixed across reboots to ensure proper portrait and inverted-landscape playback for all content, including YouTube. To provide deeper device visibility, Carousel now reliably identifies specific Amazon Signage Stick models by reading their model identifiers directly through APIs, while regular resource monitoring tracks CPU, memory, disk usage, and overall health to give operators a clear view of each player's operational status.
