Nick Jiannas will become vice president of sales and marketing at Stihl Inc., headquartered in Virginia Beach, effective July 1. He succeeds Peter Burton who has held the position since 1997 and is retiring after 30 years with the Stihl organization.
Jiannas, who most recently served as the branch manager at Northeast Stihl, will be responsible for sales for the domestic and export markets, sales planning, new product development, all marketing programs, and branch operations throughout the U.S.
“Nick’s experience in various positions at Stihl branches and at corporate, here and in Germany, gives him a unique perspective of the company and insight in to the strategies necessary to further our sales and marketing success,” said Fred Whyte, president of Stihl Inc. “I look forward to Nick building on the legacy that Peter Burton established and advancing Stihl’s position as an industry leader.”
Background on Nick Jiannas. Jiannas began his Stihl career in 1995 as an operations assistant at Pacific Stihl, during which time he spent three months of 1996 in Germany working in the research, development and product management departments at ANDREAS Stihl AG & Co. KG. A year later, Jiannas relocated to eastern Tennessee to become a territory manager for Mid-Atlantic Stihl, the North Carolina-based branch, where he actively represented Stihl among independent servicing dealers and provided product and sales expertise, as well as customer relations. He was promoted and moved to Virginia Beach to assume a product manager position at the Stihl headquarters for U.S. operations, where he developed overall marketing programs for power tools and coordinated the development of sales objectives and strategies, while working with the marketing communications team on advertising and promotional programs.
In 2002, Jiannas took over as manager of export and sales planning, responsible for preparing and monitoring monthly sales forecasts and evaluating annual purchase projections for domestic and export markets.
In July 2006, Jiannas was promoted to branch manager at Northeast Stihl, where he was responsible for all aspects of branch operations. Under his leadership, Northeast Stihl experienced an overall sales growth of 35 percent in six years. He is most notably recognized for maintaining profitability throughout the recession by managing business elements down and controlling expenses and, ultimately, leading two record sales years coming out of the recession.
Jiannas has a bachelor’s degree from the College of William and Mary, where he majored in Economics and German. He earned his master’s in business administration from the University of Florida.
Although born in Naples, Italy, Jiannas considers himself native to Virginia Beach. As a son of a U.S. Navy Officer, Jiannas moved around quite a bit in his childhood, but his parents retired in Virginia Beach. Jiannas is excited to be back at the beach with family and enjoys spending time with his son, Nikolas.
