Fred D’Alessandro & Eric Hutto, Diversified

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT New Jersey-based Diversified has grown into one of the world's largest AV integration companies, and certainly among the most active in digital signage. The company was started almost 30 years ago by Fred D'Alessandro, who just recently announced he was shifting his role in Diversified to make way for a new CEO. He's still going to be very much involved, but says former Unisys executive Eric Hutto is now very much in charge of the company. The two of them kindly set aside some time recently to talk about that big news, and what's ahead for Diversified. Among many things, we get into the steady convergence of AV and IT. Fred also relates a story I'd not heard before, about how and why Diversified got started, which funnily  traces to a job he didn't want at the Home Shopping Network. Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS TRANSCRIPT Fred and Eric, thank you for joining me. Fred, congratulations on your decision to slow down and Eric, welcome to pro AV! Eric Hutto: Thank you.  Fred D'Alessandro: Thank you. I don't know about slowing down, but thank you.  Is this a transition that's about to happen or it's been underway for a while and you're now just talking about it? Fred D'Alessandro: No, it's been under way and it has happened. So yeah, Eric is the new Diversified CEO and I couldn't be happier to have him on the team. Absolutely great move by us, and I'll say it by myself as well.  You finally did something right!  Fred D'Alessandro: Exactly, only took 29 years.  So why now?  Fred D'Alessandro: A lot of good reasons. I've been blessed to start Diversified in 1993, really as a startup, it's a garage story and to have the opportunity to lead it for 29 years, create a $1 billion organization, I think the first ever in our industry, which is, absolutely exciting and just a real honor, we have an army of industry expertise in the organization. But what the organization doesn't have is somebody with Eric's leadership at this level, when you're trying to build an organization that has a clear path to being a multi-billion dollar organization. So from,the strategy, from the vision, from the operations, how to, I would say, continue to exceed our client's expectations and our employees development, it's the right time and it’s the right team and the right place. So yeah, thrilled.  Coming out of COVID, we're financially sound. So now's the time.  So this is not just you deciding, you know what, I want to go down to Boca Raton and lawn bowling? Fred D'Alessandro: No, I'm a young 63 year old, so I have a lot of energy. But you know what I feel why my value at this point in time for the organization can be used in other areas. I think strategic accounts and clients that I've known for years, employee mentorship, development, things that, again, I know that I'm really good at and I know Eric's really good at taking a financially sound organization, and I've said this in the past it's not so much about how big we are, it's just really continuing to be the best as we get bigger, and that's really important.  To me, as a founder, again it's about being unselfish and doing what's right for our customers, doing what's right for our employees, and Eric is the right guy to do that for us. So I'm excited.  So sometimes when a company is founded by a particular person who's still there and when they maybe not step aside, but step back into another role, it could be a bit of a balancing act to say, “No, you need to go talk to Eric about that.” How are you going to work that out?  Fred D'Alessandro: Yeah look, there's no ego in this organization.  I've met people there. Fred D'Alessandro: There's no ego at the leadership level, let’s say that and I will be the first to say that, I am here in a different role, I've made that very clear over the past week to all the employees and that Eric is going to make the decisions on the strategy, the operating model