Channel Veteran Illson Takes On New Post At Bell Micro

Illson, former president of distributor Merisel and CEO of solution provider Wareforce, last month was named executive vice president of finance and operations and CFO at Bell Microproducts, based here.

Illson said he was attracted to the distributor because of its focus on building storage solutions. "There's a real depth and expertise around storage and storage-related solutions," he said. "That depth and understanding of the marketplace, along with some important relationships with our core customer base and key vendors, allowed us to differentiate ourselves from the competition."

Illson joined Wareforce, a Web-based e-services provider in El Segundo, Calif., in March 2000, and helped the company through its sale to PC Mall this past summer. Before that, he was president and COO of Merisel when it was a broadline distributor.

Illson began consulting for Bell Micro this past summer, after Don Bell, CEO of Bell Micro, asked him to find ways to cut costs and improve profitability. Bell Micro has already improved its performance, but Illson is quick to extend credit to the management team in place before he arrived. The distributor earned $436,000, or 2 cents per share, in the third quarter ended Sept. 30. The results compared with a loss of $3.3 million, or 20 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter. Bell Micro's revenue increased 13 percent to $552 million, up from $489 million for the same period last year.