Owen Holbourn has been promoted to a new role as sales and marketing director at Asko Australia.
Holbourn joined the company in July 2016 as sales director and has formally added the responsibility for marketing this month.
“It’s an exciting time for Asko with a product pipeline containing innovations through our range of cooking, dishwashing and laundry appliances,” Holbourn told Appliance Retailer shortly after the promotion was confirmed.
“Considering the challenges we’ve all experienced this year, we’ve been delighted with the results we’ve achieved in partnership with our retailers.”
Holbourn joined Asko after four years at Miele Australia and New Zealand including two years as head of key accounts and prior to this, he worked for two years as head of own retail managing Miele’s own retail stores including Experience Centres and Clearance Outlets. He also spent two years as marketing manager with BMW in Sydney and three years with Audi in the UK before joining the appliance industry.
In May, Holbourn said sales have been strong for the brand particularly following the release of its new series of dishwashers during the Covid pandemic with local and international travel restrictions resulting in more consumers remaining at home.
“Our new dishwashers have enabled us to build on our long heritage of premium dishwashers and so far, it has exceeded our expectations,” he said in May
“Consumers are spending their money wisely – it appears that if they are spending their money, they are looking for quality, which plays to our strengths. This been shown by our price points that have been maintained or increased.”
Holbourn also confirmed in May that Asko has more products in the pipeline – initially, the Asko Elements 5-in-1 combination oven – which made its debut at IFA 2019.
“It is a traditional oven, steam oven and microwave combined into one appliance. It has some unique first to market features and it should be arriving late Q3 this year,” he said.
“The new 5-in-1 combination oven completes the Elements range by complementing other products for customers that want the full suite of cooking appliances. It provides new innovation to increase ASPs and give retailers the opportunity to engage with customers on new technology. It pushes the boundaries and beyond that, we have more innovation arriving in early 2021.”