A familiar face is heading up Dell New Zealand, with former Dell channel manager, James Arnold, taking over as New Zealand general manager.

Arnold was Dell's first New Zealand channel manager, back in 2010, and was responsible for establishing the vendor's channel presence for the first time in New Zealand.

His history with Dell goes back as far as 1997 and he has held a number of roles. He took a break from Dell in 2002, working for several other vendors, including IBM and Lenovo, where one of his roles was distribution channel manager for New Zealand.

He returned to Dell in 2010 with the channel manager position. After just over a year in the role, his position was expanded to cover the consumer, small and medium business segments for both direct and indirect sales. He held that role as Dell regional sales manager, New Zealand for consumer, small and medium business, until his recent promotion to New Zealand general manager.

In the new role, Arnold is responsible for growing the New Zealand business and meeting financial and customer satisfaction goals along with creating and executing long term growth strategies for Dell locally.

Arnold replaces Peter Murphy who has headed to the United Kingdom as director for Dell Data Protection Encryption for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Prior to his departure, Murphy told ChannelLife the company was considering appointing a distributor for the New Zealand market. Ingram Micro was named as the first Australian distributor for Dell's enterprise products late last year.

Locally, the vendor funded its first head into the New Zealand channel, with an enterprise solutions focused position at Cyclone Computers.

That position was a trial run, with Murphy hoping it would be replicated with several other positions throughout the New Zealand channel, as Dell seeks to put more focus on channel sales.

The company was traditionally known for its direct sales strategy.

Murphy told ChannelLife late last year that the company acknowledged it had some way to go in building trust with the local channel.

“Making substantial investments like people helps accelerate the ability to generate trusted relationships,” he said. “Put your money where your mouth is if you like, but really to demonstrate that we are deadly serious about driving a strong and lasting partner business, and this is just one of the investments we have made to accelerate that.

Brenton Smith, ex Symantec managing director and vice president Pacific, has also jumped to Dell, taking on the role of vice president and general manager of Dell Software Group, APJ as of earlier this month.