Applications flood in for Renaissance MD role

180 applications received for Johnston's position

By Hamish Barwick, Auckland | Friday, 27 November 2009
One hundred and eighty people had, at the time of writing, applied to replace Renaissance managing director Paul Johnston, who announced his resignation last month.

Johnston will vacate the role on 31 December, while finance director Clive Lewis is also leaving the distributor, on 15 January. The pair announced their resignations following news the company had revised its full year profit guidance from a projected result of between $1.7 million and $2 million to $700,000.

At the time, Johnston told Computerworld, “If you accept accolades when the company’s doing well, you should be prepared to accept responsibility if it hasn’t met expectations.”

Renaissance’s executive divisional manager Mark Dasent says the company is in the process of reviewing applications for the managing director role, and applications for Lewis’ replacement.

The announcement of replacements will “take some weeks” because Johnston and Lewis’ departures won’t take place until 31 December and 15 January respectively, Dasent says. Renaissance only advertised the positions locally, he says.

Johnston has been with Renaissance for 12 years, and has been managing director since 2003.

He joined as general manager of the company’s creative division, managing products from vendors such as Adobe and Macromedia, in 1997, before becoming GM of the Apple division the following year.