By James Wells
 
MELBOURNE: Newly-appointed Toshiba Australia national sales manager, Steve Rindfleisch, has announced a series of sales appointments designed to drive the brand’s expansion into the AV category.

James Francis has joined Toshiba as a national account manager based in Sydney. Francis worked for Panasonic for six years and will manage the Harvey Norman account.

Matthew Watts has joined Toshiba as account manager in Melbourne. Prior to joining Toshiba, Watts was national account manager with Samsung for the last three years including the last 15 months as national account manager for Myer and prior to this was with Sony for five years.

Rindfleisch has also appointed is a team of business development managers.

In Queensland, Heath Avers joined the business last month after three years with the former distributor of Toshiba branded products – Castel.

In New South Wales, Adam Byrne has been given an internal promotion from within Toshiba ISD after two years working in the sales centre.

Rindfleisch has confirmed that of the four positions in Sydney, there is only one vacancy remaining with two candidates likely to accept roles within the next few weeks.

In Victoria, Max Tizzano has joined Toshiba Australia as business development manager following an internal promotion after working with Toshiba ISD for five years.

Also joining the company as a business development manager in Victoria is Nik Smirnios – formerly sales manager with DGTEC.

Representing the South Australian and Western Australian markets will be Brad Papotto who is finishing up with Samsung after three years. Prior to joining Samsung, Perth-based Papotto worked for Sony.

Rindfleisch said that no decision has been made about the sales force in the Northern Territory at this stage.

Two product managers have also been recently appointed in Sydney to work on the development and introduction of new products into the local market.