PRESS RELEASE
Exclusive Group Transforms Leadership Team
Julien Antoine appointed Vice President EMEA; Will Smith named as Chief Information Officer
PARIS, FRANCE – March 07th 2017 - Exclusive Group, the value-added services and
technologies (VAST) group, announced today that it has restructured the business to exploit
continued global growth and opportunities with two key promotional appointments. Julien
Antoine, currently Group Director of Global Operations is taking the new position of VP of
EMEA while Will Smith, currently Group IT Director increases his scope to become Group CIO.
Julien Antoine’s new remit as VP of EMEA recognises the need for increased scale and
support to the Group’s largest operating region, enabling the structure to flex and adapt to
the challenges of a fast changing billion euro business unit. The promotion of Will Smith as
CIO, recognises the importance of the Group’s digital transformation and the significance of
IT and data intelligence in this journey.
These enhancements to Exclusive Group’s leadership team complement the recent highprofile appointments of Stéphane Duplaix as Director of Strategic Global Alliances, and David
Ellis as Group Director of Global Services. The senior leadership team now benefits from a
wealth of successful entrepreneurialism, diversity and know how in building a highly agile
global business structure, designed to deliver local value.
“Our long-term success has always been centred on the ability to anticipate and adapt to
disruption without diluting any of our value, and these important new positions will
safeguard these unique strengths as we scale to new levels,” said Barrie Desmond, COO of
Exclusive Group. “Julien and Will bring huge energy and talent to the team and are fully
committed to our VAST mission. These moves also recognise that we need to transform
ourselves as well as transforming technology consumption and distribution if we are to
maintain our disruptive position.”
“We are the only major VAD to be headquartered in Europe, and EMEA will always remain
an important part of our growing global operations,” said Julien Antoine. “Our value-adding
principles are absolutely central to our continuing market relevance and our future growth
throughout the region. There are exciting opportunities ahead as we continue to expand
our services capabilities as well as market presence for Exclusive Networks and BigTec.”
“The Group IT function has doubled in recent years, making us well-positioned at the
forefront of digital disruption to ensure we are creating value internally, and for customers,
partners and vendors,” said Will Smith. “Customer requirements are constantly evolving
and we must continually address these while remaining efficient and easy to work with. I
firmly believe that if you are not disrupting then you risk being disrupted.”
-ends-
About Exclusive Group
Exclusive Group (www.exclusive-group.com) is the value-added services and technologies
(VAST) group accelerating the growth of disruptive and innovative technologies around the
world. Its people are committed to the high-growth imperatives of ambitious IT vendors
and fueled by a strong culture of ambition, entrepreneurialism and sustainable growth.
With 60+ offices across five continents and presence in over 100 countries, Exclusive Group
brings all the essential elements of a proven winning strategy for market entry and growth.
Redefining value and enabling new market opportunities through “Disruptive Distribution” is
at the heart of the Exclusive Group proposition through its cybersecurity brand, Exclusive
Networks, and datacentre transformation division, BigTec. This is complemented by
extensive and innovative global services capabilities for project deployment and support
(ITEC), and comprehensive, integrated commercial leasing offerings delivered by Exclusive
Capital.
For more information contact:
Mark Waite/Andy Crisp
Cohesive
+44 (0) 1291 626200
[email protected]