From Crestron’s 50-year legacy to its latest breakthroughs in intelligent video and wireless collaboration, Brad reveals how Crestron is helping enterprises, universities, and government agencies scale content, collaboration, and control across their environments.
Crestron has been at the heart of workplace technology for decades—but what does its future look like in an era defined by hybrid work, AI, and global scale? Brad Hintze joins Kieran Devlin for an in-depth discussion on how Crestron is evolving its solutions, culture, and partnerships to meet the needs of today’s enterprise customers.
Watch now to hear:
- How Crestron’s culture of passion and innovation shapes product development and customer engagement.
- Why solutions like AirMedia, AutomateVX, 1Beyond, and NVX are leading the way in wireless collaboration, intelligent video, and AV-over-IP.
- How Crestron empowers partners and customers with its “true blue” go-to-market strategy, FlexCare support, and hands-on training.
- What trends are dominating customer conversations today, from AI adoption to refresh cycles and scaling hybrid collaboration.
Interview Transcript
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not accurately reflect the conversation. Please view the video for the original.
Kieran Devlin
Hello and welcome to UC Today. My name is Kieran Devlin, and today’s session is the big UC update for Crestron. I’m delighted to be joined by Brad Hintze, VP of Global Marketing at Crestron. Brad, thanks for joining us.
Brad Hintze
Hey Kieran, great to see you.
Kieran Devlin
Let’s dive in. Before we get into Crestron, could you share a little about your professional background?
Brad Hintze
Sure. My career started in a few software startups, really focused on technology and marketing. One of the first was a software company building rich web applications—early Web 2.0—around the time Google Maps first let you click and drag inside a browser. That was exciting and introduced me to the idea of integrating technologies to create new possibilities.
From there, I joined another startup focused on web mashups, which was a lot of fun, and eventually moved into the professional integration space—Pro AV, UC, and IT—starting in SmartHome and then on to Crestron, where I now focus on commercial technology. My career has always centered on marketing and go-to-market strategy in the tech space.
Kieran Devlin
Terrific. And in your current role at Crestron, what aspects are you most passionate about?
Brad Hintze
I really enjoy product launches—messaging, positioning, and helping customers understand the outcomes a product can deliver. We often say every product should feel like a superpower for the person using it, so I love helping customers envision that.
I’m also passionate about training and being hands-on with our partners and customers. For example, next week I’ll be out meeting channel partners, and just this morning I was preparing presentations for some customer events. So for me, it’s messaging, positioning, and direct engagement with the people who use our technology.
Kieran Devlin
You’ve touched on it already, but what does a typical day—or maybe week—look like for you?
Brad Hintze
It’s definitely more of a week than a day. I spend time in executive meetings discussing trends, successes, and challenges across the company. I work with my team on campaigns and projects, collaborate with sales leadership on strategy, and stay close to the product teams as they develop what we bring to market.
Alongside that internal work, I’m also meeting with customers, press, and partners—conversations like this one. So it’s a mix of strategy, execution, and external engagement.
Kieran Devlin
Great. Let’s talk Crestron itself. How would you describe the company in a nutshell—your elevator pitch?
Brad Hintze
That’s always a challenge, because Crestron does so much. But ultimately, we develop leading technologies for content, collaboration, and control. Every organization needs to share information, connect people—whether in person or remote—and make spaces easy to use. That’s exactly what Crestron enables through technologies for distribution, collaboration, and control.
Kieran Devlin
That was concise and informative—I’d give it a 9.5 out of 10. Could you expand on Crestron’s history, global presence, and scale?
Brad Hintze
Crestron’s been around for more than 50 years, starting in New Jersey. In the early days, it was a range of engineering products, but we quickly focused on control—making technology simple to use. From things like remote controls for slide projectors, to centralizing VCRs for universities, the theme was always enabling easier access to technology.
From there, we moved into content distribution and video conferencing, investing heavily in solutions like digital media, HDMI switching, room scheduling touchscreens, and now intelligent video. Over the decades we’ve built a broad portfolio of collaboration and control technologies.
Today we’re truly global, with strong roots in New Jersey but centers of excellence in Dallas, Belgium, Australia, and Singapore, plus engineering resources in places like Portland. We combine a global footprint with local representation across many regions.
Kieran Devlin
Terrific. One of my favourite questions now—what’s unique about Crestron’s culture?
Brad Hintze
What struck me immediately is the passion. People here really care about what we do. When you live with the technology you sell, you feel a closer connection to it. I see it across teams—manufacturing, finance, engineering—everyone has that energy.
That stems from our founder, George Feldstein. He was brilliant, passionate, and put everything into building this company. That energy still pervades Crestron today.
Kieran Devlin
You mentioned enjoying the go-to-market side of your role. How does Crestron approach the market, and what can you tell us about your partner ecosystem?
Brad Hintze
We’ve expanded our approach over the years. We never sell directly—we always go through our integrator channel. Some integrators are very AV-centric, some focus on IT and AV together, but all play a key role.
Our strategy revolves around enabling content, collaboration, and control through those partners. We invest heavily in channel enablement—training, content, and tools. We also invest in field resources—sales and technical experts—who can go onsite with partners and customers to ensure success. We call this our “True Blue” commitment, and it’s a core part of our go-to-market model.
Kieran Devlin
Fantastic. Who would you say is the typical end customer buying through those partners?