NEWS
INCORPORATING COLD CHAIN
n 1 August 2018, Fred Penhall
took over as managing director
(MD) of Carel Controls South
Africa, putting his extensive industry
experience and knowledge behind this
global controls giant.
Penhall took over from Rodney Taylor
and is now responsible for managing
the three local offices and its staff.
This includes both the HVAC and the
refrigeration portfolios, focusing on sales,
software, and the field support areas in
particular.
THE RIGHT EXPERIENCE –
A CAREER IN BRIEF
Penhall’s career in HVAC&R spans
nearly three decades, as he started at
Heating Centre in 1989, working under
Peter Timm on heat exchangers and
taking engineering courses on the side.
However, after getting the opportunity
to go into technical sales, he moved
into the wholesale sector. That is how he
eventually ended up as Pretoria branch
manager for Metek. After this, he moved
to Africold before relocating to Singapore
in 1995 to work for Danfoss as technical
manager for Southeast Asia.
After six years in Singapore, at this point
being part of a small specialised team
selling the Performer Scroll compressor
to OEMs throughout Asia Pacific, Penhall
moved to Baltimore in the US to manage
the York account inside the Danfoss key
account organisation.
It was around this time that Danfoss
bought Reco in South Africa and Penhall
was proposed to move back to South
Africa to take on the role of sales director.
Danfoss later decided to exit wholesaling
and the business was sold to Afrox (which
itself was sold to Linde three months later).
Penhall then took over as MD of
Reco but because Linde’s core business
is industrial gas, it became Penhall’s
immediate responsibility to sell the now
‘non-core’ Reco business. The sale of
Reco to Tecsa was realised in 2012
and Penhall then took on the role of
operations director for the merged entity,
TecsaReco.
After two and a half years with
TecsaReco, Penhall moved to join the
rapidly growing HC Heat Exchangers as
sales and export manager to assist to
establish cross-border partners, where he
remained until he was approached to
head up Carel South Africa.
THE FUTURE IS PROFITABLE
Penhall had to hit the ground running,
as Taylor had already gone by the time
that he assumed the role. But, he says,
the competencies within team South
Africa are well entrenched and with
the great support from them and the
Italian headquarters, it has been going
fantastically well so far.
In terms of future plans, the main
focus will be on energy efficiency,
natural refrigerants, and the Internet
of Things — working with customers
to apply Carel’s cutting-edge
technologies and solutions. With this
in mind, he also has plans to revamp
the Carel training facility early in 2019
and bring back the focus on training
O
Fred Penhall takes over
Carel SA reins
COLD LINK AFRICA • January/February 2019
Fred Penhall took over as managing
director of Carel Controls South Africa on
1 August 2018.
customers to more effectively utilise all
the intelligence contained within the
Carel product portfolio.
In some way, this is another
beginning … CLA
www.coldlinkafrica.co.za
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