IMARK Electrical recently added Steve Wright to the headquarters team as vice president of supplier relations.
In this role, he will work to provide distributor members with supplier programs that are more beneficial than those they can secure on their own by building relationships with both the distributor members and supplier partners.
“Negotiating terms, program agreements and other elements with suppliers is key but is not done in a vacuum; many reference points are needed, and detailed analysis is required,” Wright said.
As vice president of supplier relations, he will use his relationship-building tactics, collaborative nature, analytical skills as well as his personality and drive to create win-win results.
Wright started his career while he was still attending college by opening a brick-and-mortar retail business specializing in sports memorabilia, baseball cards, comic books and collectibles.
“The business was very successful, and I ended up selling it as I moved into a more traditional corporate headquarters role in the home improvement industry,” Wright said. “I feel I have a very unique background in that I have significant experience from “both sides of the desk” and in multiple related channels.”
Wright spent multiple years in purchasing/supplier relations and also several years in sales/leadership roles managing both products and sales processes in the electrical, com-mercial, industrial and home improvement retail channels.
“This has provided me with a unique perspective and thought process, which helps me understand what the sales person is thinking and why—and also what a buyer or purchasing manager is thinking and why, allowing me to come up with win-win solutions to situations,” Wright said.
His 10-year career with WESCO Distribution as the company’s director of global supplier relations compares very directly to his role at IMARK Electrical and the eight years he worked with ACE and True Value provided him with direct knowledge of how a co-op, very similar to how IMARK Electrical operates, works.