Atlona recently announced that its co-founder and current chief executive officer, Ilya Khayn, will depart the company on September 15, nearly three years after Panduit acquired the company. On September 15, the company’s director of AV sales and business development Jamey Swigert will assume Atlona’s top leadership role as executive director.
Ilya co-founded Atlona in 2003 with his brother Michael, who served as vice president of engineering through October 2020. The brothers grew Atlona from a garage-based company focused on home AV connectivity products, with them as its only employees, to a global supplier of AV collaboration, control, and distribution solutions. Ilya spearheaded the development of the company’s partner network, which is now global.
“Atlona’s early and aggressive push toward AV-over-IP product innovation captured the attention of Panduit, a leader of IT networking and infrastructure solutions,” the company said. “The acquisition has differentiated Atlona from its competition by introducing the brand to an entirely new base of IT consultants, resellers and integrators seeking networked AV solutions for their end users.”
Ilya Khayn commented, “One example of our successful integration is the increased collaboration of our two sales teams to uncover new business opportunities. Our mutual partners are finding the combination of AV and infrastructure products offered by Panduit and Atlona to be advantageous. The company continues its aggressive new program with a stronger focus on quality assurance to build a solid foundation for winning enterprise AV and IT projects worldwide. With a strong and experienced leadership team and knowledgeable professionals in all key positions, the time is right to transition following 18 years of hard work.”
He also emphasized that it will be “business as usual” for Atlona, as Jamey Swigert assumes the leadership role. Khayn added that he anticipates “a new era of substantial growth and success” fo the company.
“Nearly three years ago we entered into an exciting growth industry through our acquisition of Atlona,” said Swigert. “We understood how important it was to invest in talent, product innovation, and business strategy while allowing Atlona to operate without interference. I have worked very closely with the incredible Atlona team over this period and I am honored to lead the company and continue the legacy of developing customer-centric AV products and solutions that Ilya and Michael created.”
When announcing Ilya Khayn’s impending departure, Atlona pointed out that the brothers’ tenure “is accentuated by several important milestones along the company’s initial 18 years. These positioned the company as an innovator ahead of industry trends including the launch of 12, 4K/UHD commercial AV products in early 2015; early-generation AV-over-IP and BYOD solutions in 2016-17; Velocity, the industry’s first IP-based AV control solution in 2017; and the Omega series of collaboration and presentation systems for corporate and education customers—the company’s fastest-growing product line to date—in 2019. Ilya also worked closely with Panduit to develop the company’s new quality assurance strategy, which includes rigorous product testing and validation with an eye towards achieving ISO-9001 certification.”