RØDE Microphones has upgraded Sales & Marketing Director Damien Wilson to the role of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of The Freedman Electronics Group, home to pro audio brands RØDE, Aphex, Event Electronics and now SoundField.
Damien will take over the everyday management of the Group’s business, giving Founder and Managing Director Peter Freedman AM more opportunity to embrace his passion of playing the Didgeridoo, as well as product conception and development, manufacturing innovation, brand acquisition, and personal representation for the group internationally.
Prior to RØDE, Damien had been Creative Director at boutique advertising agencies The Shop and Peer Group, specializing in below-the-line marketing for alcohol and tobacco brands. He joined the Freedman Electronics/RØDE team in 2007, starting as Marketing Manager. Within a year, he was made RØDE Global Sales & Marketing Director, and acted as General Manager of RØDE Microphones, LLC (in the USA) from 2008 till 2013, where he helped steer the company through the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis. The pioneering $1 Mic campaigns, online marketing and editorialized social strategies have since been emulated by the rest of the industry.
In recent years, Damien has also become involved in product design and development, and intimate with every aspect of RØDE’s industrial design, production, sourcing, dispatch and global presence, both in supply chains and sales channels. His knowledge of the company’s operation is front-to-back.
“Damien is the perfect person to help me guide the company through a very exciting time in our 50-year history,” says Peter Freedman. “He’s extremely talented and a proven RØDE warrior – dedicated, creative, solution-oriented, exceptionally hard-working and an excellent communicator with team members, customers and stakeholders.
The announcement comes on the heels of the company purchasing the surround sound recording concern SoundField from TSL Products. The deal sees Freedman Electronics taking control over the entire SoundField company, including the current product line as well as all IP associated with the brand. The existing product line will continue, and all support and warranty for SoundField products will now be handled through the new entity. TSL Products will retain the upmix/downmix processing product range, which will be rebranded.
The Freedman Electronics Group MD is ecstatic with the purchase. “I’m extremely excited we have added the SoundField product line to the Group,” Peter Freedman stated. “RØDE is a power player in studio and live microphones and the world’s market leader in on-camera mics, so adding a product line like SoundField – with its unique surround sound microphones and applications – to our portfolio is a real step for the Freedman Electronics Group.”
SoundField claims to have invented 360-degree surround sound – or ambisonic – audio capture technology in 1978. Today the range includes innovative ambisonic microphones, and systems/apps for broadcast, music and location recording. TSL Products’ Product Director Pieter Schillebeeckx will be joining The Freedman Electronics Group as New Product Development (NPD) Director in January 2017. He has been working on the SoundField technologies for 16 years and is unarguably a world leader in pro audio product and R&D workflow.
