David McNutt
COMPANY: Sennheiser
TITLE: Industry Team Leader, Installed Sound
BACKGROUND: With a broad history that includes everything from broadcast to design/ build, McNutt is able to adapt these varied experiences into his everyday work flow.
THE CHALLENGE: To find enough time to develop the wealth of ideas and opportunities created by his team.
SCN: What are your responsibilities and how do they fit in with Sennheiser's goals?
David McNutt: As the industry team leader for installed sound it's my privilege to spread the word about the passion of our people and the performance of our products. Great job, intelligent people, wonderful company. My task is to help organize the company and focus our resources to address specific customer needs and serve them better than anyone else. That's my goal.
How has your background prepared you for your new role?
You know, every day I use from something from my education or professional experiences. Broadcasting, advertising, live engineering, production, marketing, system design, managing a design/build business, Masters in Telecommunications, Masters in Business Administration. I've had many fortunate opportunities and learned from some great people. I draw from this background every day I get up. What's cool is my company wants me to; expects me to forge ahead in new directions. And what's rewarding is, they actually let me do it.
What are your short- and long-term goals?
I have one goal, really, and it's a shared goal within the company; and that is to help make Sennheiser the leading global supplier of professional audio products. Doing that involves listening to and understanding customers, introducing new products, entering new categories, creating new organizations, finding and adding the right people. It's an exciting time to be a part of this company with many global initiatives in the works. With the U.S. comprising the single largest global region, all of us in the U.S. operation play a great role in steering the direction of the company and its investments.
What is the greatest challenge that you face?
That's easy: simply finding time. There is no shortage of ideas or of opportunities, only a shortage of time. I work with the best team of people both here, in the field, and in Europe, and we are constantly encouraged to challenge status quo and offer new ideas. One of my main responsibilities is to set and maintain channel direction and yet keep the ideas coming.
Where do you see your market heading?
To be accurate about trends you'd have to address that question to lots of sub markets. Sennheiser is a player in most of those markets, but within a limited number of product categories. The installed market as a whole is demanding better products that work better together and provide more integrated solutions. This trend is great for Sennheiser quality and performance, as well as the innovative initiatives in new product development.
Are there new initiatives we are likely to see from Sennheiser?
Sennheiser is developing new wireless products next year; we are launching our new SDC8200 conferencing/voting system right now, and we just recently introduced Net-1, our new controllable wireless network. We are now shipping GuidePort, our new all-digital audio tourguide product for museums, and we are launching Tourguide 2020, a brand new portable multi-channel wireless tour guide system.
For the past six months I've been involved with lots of other Sennheiser brand initiatives that our markets will begin to see in the coming year. I think the installed sound market will be pleasantly surprised and welcome our new directions.
