BenQ Grabs Donnelly From Samsung To Head U.S. Sales

Donnelly spent the past 10 years helping Samsung take the top spot in retail LCD sales and the No. 2 spot in the overall U.S. display market.

For Donnelly, the move provides an opportunity to start again from scratch at a company with a lot of potential. "I have an opportunity to make a big splash," he said.

BenQ President Ralph Tang said in hiring Donnelly his company has brought in one of the industry's best-known people.

"With his experience, there was 200 percent interest in getting Mark to build the sales team for BenQ," Tang said. "We want to be a professional American company with American operations. We need people with his experience and his understanding of the industry."

One advantage of working at a smaller company like BenQ is that all the different parts of the company, especially its IT and consumer products, are under one roof, Donnelly said.

"This is not like many ... companies, where different products come under different houses," he said. "To the end user, [these companies] show a single front. But to the resellers, it's not a single front."

At BenQ, on the other hand, Donnelly said he and his colleagues can talk to resellers, regardless of whether they are from the Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association (CEDIA), pro audio/video, or IT solution providers, about both the consumer and IT products.

"We don't have to say, 'let me go talk to the TV guy, let me talk to the camera guys,' " he said. "Instead, we can present a holistic view. . . . We can engage fully with our partners."

In July, BenQ plans to move from its current City of Industry, Calif., office and warehouse to a smaller facility in upscale Irvine, Calif. "We've cut warehouse space by doing more drop shipping," Donnelly said. "We use our distributors' and channel partners' warehouses."