By James Wells

BRAESIDE: The departure of Pioneer Electronics managing director, Yasuo Sakuma, may trigger another company restructure, which has been a consistent trend in the business over the last 18 months.

The first restructure under Sakuma’s management was held shortly after he replaced Ken Barelli who left the business on 31 March 2007 after 31 years with the company including 17 years as managing director.

The initial restructure took place in May 2007 in which the general manager of the mobile entertainment group, Peter Hutchinson and the general manager for the home entertainment business group Richard Bragg effectively swapped roles.

Under this restructure, Sakuma decided that the public relations function will no longer operate outside the business groups and is being integrated into the sales and marketing arms of the home entertainment and mobile entertainment divisions and the general manager of corporate affairs, Sandra Cowan, left the company.

In May this year, Pioneer announced another company restructure emphasizing that jobs would be added and not lost as the business sought to align itself with a business model designed to expand its distribution.

In late July, Pioneer announced that Home Electronics Group general manager, Peter Hutchinson, would be leaving the business immediately “to pursue other career opportunities” after 15 years with the company.

Hutchinson was replaced by Tim O’Leary who has experience in the whitegoods industry primarily with Southcorp on the Bonaire, Vulcan, Pyrox, Rheem, Hoover, Chef and Dishlex brands and more recently at Climate Technologies.