INSTALL PIONEER: SARAH YULE
FUSS-FREE
MOUNTS
YULE TIME! Sarah Yule, recently appointed UK Commercial Director at KEF, takes part in our returning Install Pioneer series. Tell us about your career before KEF?
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I have always worked within the music, audio and consumer electronics space. Originally trained as an audio engineer, I have since then built my career across mainly European and International leadership roles within sales and marketing. I’ve been fortunate to experience a few stand-out moments in my career thus far. The two that come immediately to mind are firstly, whilst I was with TL Audio (who were a British manufacturer of high-end tube mixing consoles, outboard and amplifiers). I did the conceptual design for a product called the ‘Fat Track’. It became one of the company’s best-selling products and won numerous awards. I still feel it is a unique product and now sells on marketplace sites for more than the original list price. My other highlight was probably back in December 2016, whilst I was Head of Sales for music creation startup ROLI. Within 18 months we had launched a new brand, set up global retail and distribution, become a top 10 selling product at every key music store in our category, then had a global launch with an entire wall display in every Apple store around the world. Visiting one of these stores to see the execution in person was a proud moment. What most excites you about working at KEF? Throughout the business, everyone is so passionate about what they do and committed to doing it to the best of their ability. For instance, at our Maidstone R&D Centre and factory, you can
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see and feel the history, knowledge and dedication that goes into the design and manufacture of every product. We have the research engineers on site that developed our award-winning Meta technology and who developed our Uni-Q technology. Those two inventions are really outstanding as they create an audio experience like I’ve never heard before. Such clarity and an amazing soundscape that isn’t limited to the normal, narrow ‘sweet spots’ and frequency dropouts that you experience with other speakers. To be able to immerse yourself in the brand, see the ground-breaking research being carried out, and clearly see the rich heritage right there on site is a huge selling point – and a huge achievement that it has remained that authentic. What are KEF’s ambitions/plans for the custom install space? The CI space is an important part of our business and as we move forward, we plan to continue to provide unique, high quality and feature-rich products for custom install applications. As we own our whole supply chain, with additional UK manufacturing and our service centre and R&D centre based in Maidstone, we are positioned to really provide the service level and product choice that installers and retailers need. We want to enable KEF customers to continue to plan and deliver projects with ease and peace of mind, knowing that the end customer will be delighted with the result.
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