Systems Integration Asia — February-March 2018

portfolio companies is one that Highlander has used many

times, combining the strengths of the executive's familiarity

with the industry with Highlander's experience and strength in

nancing and corporate development. The Biamp purchase is

simply that most recent execution of this well rened strategy.

SIAsia: Taking Highlander Partners as a Consumer, F&B

company (non-tech), how would [it] connect with Biamp

which is a pure tech enterprise?

RASHID: Highlander Partners isn't a Consumer, F&B company,

it is a private equity investor whose investments have been

mostly in those sectors to date. However, the industries

Highlander invests in reect the background of the operating

executives it works with. Its investment model is industry

independent, and it will consider investments in any industry

that meets its criteria so long as it has operating partners

deeply experienced in those industries. My experience in

technology sectors offered Highlander the opportunity to

consider new investment candidates such as Biamp which it

would not have considered previously.

SIAsia: In what particular/specic ways does the move t

into the business interest of the holding company

(Highlander)? What brand value add per se?

SIAsia: Upfront, applauds for the big move. How and why
did you ideate buying Biamp?

RASHID: Thank you; I'm excited about our latest endeavors.
Biamp has a great reputation in the industry and I've been
interested in Biamp as a company for many years. In fact, I've
tried to buy Biamp as many as four separate times in the past
10 years or so. I'm thrilled it nally happened. In this most
recent effort to buy the company, the goal was to nd a
platform on which we could build a much bigger company to
deliver valuable and comprehensive solutions to solve
communications challenges our customers have been
confronting.

SIAsia: How would you describe your journey from
technology company to non-tech, investment company to
technology company again?

RASHID: Exciting – that's the rst word that comes to mind,
but what may seem to be three separate journeys is really just
different parts of one journey. I have decades of experience in
technology and I joined Highlander Partners with the specic
intent and responsibility of nding a technology investment
platform that would take the highly successful Highlander
investment model to a different industry. The strategy of
utilizing experienced industry executives to identify and lead

Biamp Systems getting acquired by Highland Partner, and

Rashid Skaf leading the charge might be an old new

now. But the coming of Rashid – as the audio-visual

industry has known him – to the helm of the

Beaverton-based, innovative networked media

systems company keeps the excitement ticking, even

after nine weeks of what was seen as one of the

most 'industry-dening developments,' in

November 2017.

Knowing the dynamism that both Biamp and

Rashid demonstrate from time to time, their

coming together is watched with an

anticipation of an undened technology

business exploration. A new journey

has just begun.

systems integration asia, rightly caught up with

Rashid on the eve of ISE 2018, an event that most on

the planet AV look forward to moving with expectations.

Excerpts:

Strengthening Technology

Business Exploration

INTERVIEW

Rashid Skaf & on A New Journey