Hikvision USA Hires VP of Business Development

Actually a common issue with sales managers. Companies tend to promote their best salespeople to management, hoping their skills will rub off on the rest of the team. Thing is, managing people is very different than selling things to people. Call it the Michael Scott problem. 

I was promoted to sales manager as kind of a reward for winning my company's sales contests year after year after year. Problem is, nobody taught me how to make a schedule, assign prospects, discipline bad employees, coach poor performers, or how to deal with bureaucracy or play office politics. 

It took me a few years, but I think I taught myself how to be an okay manager, maybe even a good manager in some respects. I never learned how to be a great one, though. Mainly I used my sales skills to convince people to want to work harder. Didn't work on everyone, but we showed consistent growth quarter over quarter, and that's mainly what they wanted upstairs, ever-increasing revenue.  

I've worked with him before, That's a spot on assessment that I'm sure many share; Not a team player  

He'll say all the right things but won't stay long. The A&E and top tier segment is an uphill battle for Hik and China has unrealistic expectations. 

They want Hik specified as much as Axis when they've only been in the enterprise market less than 2 years. They'll continue beating on this team until they break. Jeremy doesn't handle that kind of pressure well.

I wonder where this leaves Sam Belbina...

Hikvision's response: "This organization change allows Sam Belbina to focus on the growth of the Enterprise Sales and National Accounts." That is consistent with what we have heard from others, that it is complimentary to Belbina.

I think the 5 changes of employment in the last 7 years speaks for itself...

its perfect for Hik though, they want results and don't care how they get it. So if he stays 12 months and moves on, it fits their churn and burn model. 

It accomplishes better reader understanding.

Feedback on Howard was very consistent, far from "hearsay". If it was only 1 or 2 people, or only related to a job he held 10 years ago, we would certainly not mention it. In this case, it was very consistent.

It was included because it is relevant to his role/position at Hikvision.

Brian has already commented on why we published this and I concur with that.

I did want to clarify on this claim:

publishing this type of hearsay

This is not 'hearsay'. Hearsay, in this instance, would be something like "Hey Jane Doe, what did did Bob Rogers say about working with Jeremy Howard?"

Our reporting was only based on feedback from people who either directly managed, worked for, or worked with Howard, based on those people's direct experiences with Howard.

Is this persons career and future opportunities now potentially damaged because of this story?

I assume Hikvision did the same reference checking we did and were comfortable with the hire. It literally was not hard, surely they have as many connections in the industry as we do.

A line in an IPVM article is not going to have anywhere close to the impact on anyone's career as what a person accomplishes in his job. If he does great at Hikvision, his career will do great, etc.

Spot on UD7!

I hope IPVM continues to balance their articles with these questions otherwise I'd be reading the same old press releases posted on other security news sites.

I like the "industry feedback". I think it's insightful and not something you'll find anywhere else. 

Peer review is invaluable in my opinion. 

For any given report, we tend to contact multiple people/companies, depending on the topic and scope. From information gathered we determine what is most relevant and provides the best overall view/analysis for that given report.

If we had received consistent feedback along the lines of "Jeremy was born for this job", that would have been included instead. If we received mixed feedback with no clear consistency or applicability to the report we would have likely omitted that section altogether.

For future reports, you can expect "Industry Feedback" summaries to the extent there is a consistent theme applicable to the report.

The comment about the deeper relationships with VMS providers is a little ironic. (Genetec)