Ben Martin, a tech industry veteran, recently joined us as our Senior Vice President of Sales and Strategy at Legrand | AV. His responsibilities include worldwide commercial and residential sales, strategy, business intelligence and transformation, sales operations, customer care, and support and integration services. Most recently, he served as an Executive Director & General Manager at Lenovo. Prior to Lenovo, he spent 18 years at Dell Technologies in a range of leadership roles.

After onboarding at Legrand | AV for several months, we had the chance to connect with Ben to learn more about him, his impressions of the company and the opportunities that he sees.

Ben Who?

Let's start at the beginning, where did you grow up?
I grew up in New Zealand. Since then, I've lived in nine cities and seven countries over the past 25 years.

When and why did you make the decision to work all over the world?
I initially caught the bug on a business trip to Sydney when I was living in Auckland. After that, I was intentional in pursuing career opportunities that would expand my international experience.

What advice would you give to other people looking to move internationally?
Know and market your mobility!

Having met and worked with people across the world, what have you learned that connects us?
Fundamentally, we all seek the same things - shelter and security for families, the best for our children, a sense of community, and pride in what we do. Some of the warmest and most generous people I’ve met are also some of the most financially disadvantaged or culturally different from me.

The Road to Legrand

How did you come to consider working at Legrand | AV?
It started with a call from a recruiter. The way they described the company, culture, and opportunity piqued my interest. Through the interview process, as we talked through the challenges and opportunities, I started to see all the areas I could add value and learn and was convinced that this was going to be a great fit.

For me, this is an exciting opportunity to be part of something different and expand my base of experiences. Most importantly, I appreciated what I heard about the culture and the people at Legrand | AV. I’m a big believer in people first. If you do right by your team, everything else will follow through.

Settling In

Now that you’ve had a few months to settle in and get up to speed at Legrand | AV, what are your impressions?
This is a company that has confidence in our model. We are clear about how we are going to grow and return value to shareholders, how we treat people to foster a winning collaborative culture, and how we will relate with partners. Our reputation for high quality, well-engineered, deeply thought through solutions and for doing the right thing by people and customers is some of the best I’ve seen.

If the past two years have taught us anything, it’s the importance of supply chains and pivoting quickly to growth areas. What do you see as the first areas you want to address?
I have a long list of to-dos and many of my near-term objectives are foundational, for example: systems, data accuracy, business insights, optimizing our resources. These areas ultimately benefit our employees and customers.

The teams have done an incredible job of managing all the unprecedented challenges over the last two years and now we need to focus on the last mile for our key initiatives. If we can be more efficient internally, we enhance work-life balance and are more responsive to customers. Improved systems provide deeper insights helping our partners better plan and grow their businesses, and us, our own. This all supports other goals around providing best value products and solutions, predictable delivery, and best-in-class customer experience.

How do you see Legrand | AV in its current form and where we can go?
Legrand | AV is transforming on two tangents. Firstly, we are in the tail end of that culture shift from privately held to a division of a much larger publicly listed company. Secondly, we still have a few final hurdles before we completely assimilate all the brands under the AV umbrella. As we accelerate out of these two transformations, we’ll be ensuring a great environment for our people to grow and thrive, and a truly seamless “one Legrand AV” experience for our partners and customers.

So, a lot of “busy work” to get things humming, but ultimately, enormous potential as we realize the synergy from all that we do. We should expect to be the best value player in every market we serve, expanding our solutions to real world AV challenges that bring people together and enrich lives. We’ve got the fundamental ingredients. It’s all here, and I’m excited to see the opportunity ahead of us.

Lightning Round! (Hope you are protected with Middle Atlantic PDUs)

Family?
Yes, married with a 6-year-old daughter.

Hidden talents?
I speak passable mandarin. I’m an instrument-rated commercial pilot. I have 3 blackbelts in Karate and Kobudo and (used to) teach martial arts.

Any advice about overcoming issues?
Every problem has a solution, data is your friend.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
People and Numbers – and in that order!

Best business or leadership book you’ve read.
Not one, but a combination: The Art of Essentialism, Five Disfunctions of a Team, Who Moved My Cheese… among a few.

You played rugby?
I love rugby. I played it from as young as I can remember. It’s all we used to do at school. We practiced twice a week, and then in our spare time we’d just run moves and play seven-a-side or touch in the summer. I played full-contact until I was in my 30s and touch rugby until I was in my 40s. I haven’t played much recently but I miss it. I always try to watch the New Zealand All Blacks play.

Last question. What do you do to wind down?
Watch a movie or spend a day out with my wife and daughter. If I’m on my own, I like to read books or build flight plans for adventures I want to take. Sometimes I go to the gym.