One-time Evesham chief pops up as Centerprise marketing honcho

Anyone who was anyone is someone again in Basingstoke

Centerprise International is becoming something of a retreat for the grandfathers of Blighty's once mighty PC building community. Richard Austin, founder at defunct Evesham Micros, has now pitched up as head of marketing.

Only last month, Sam Kazerounian who set up local PC maker Compusys, landed at Basingstoke-based Centerprise as managing director.

Austin will "take ownership" of the marketing activities for each operating division - DR unit Adam Continuity, OnTop Media (e-commerce web design), Partners IT (recycling/re-use), Centiant (wireless networking reseller) and Centerprise International (services/hardware design).

"After an almost six year absence I am thrilled to be back in the IT industry," said Austin, who added that he "plans to use the skills" he learned from starting Evesham and taking it to a £104m turnover business.

Austin chaired Evesham Micros until it was hit hard by the 2007 collapse of the government's Home Computing Initiative which left a £30m hole in its accounts.

By the summer of that year the firm was forced to set up a restructuring plan as TimeUK came in for the business claiming to have a $22m investment lined up: but it came too late, and administrators were called in that August.

The firm continued to trade while under control of administrator DTE Leonard Curtis, and was put up for sale in February 2008 as Austin walked - but there were no takers.

After an extended administration process the firm was finally dissolved in early 2009. Evesham left debts totalling £6.8m.

Since then, Austin is understood to have helped finance his son's motor racing career and worked on several consumer electronics projects stateside. ®