Elgar Somerville

Of Anglo-Scottish ancestry, Elgar Somerville, the audio hero, is an international altruist with in-depth knowledge and experience concerning global manufacturing, branding and design industries. He was employed by the HMV record retail group as National Display and Merchandising Manager, whose primary role was to plan and implement a new identity across the chain of over 200 record stores; secondary to that role, he conceived and established ongoing nationwide programmes to promote the release of selected albums to support the national marketing campaigns. This philosophy of store layouts and structure of display programmes was adopted by most UK record retailers to further become a world benchmark. The zenith of his career pinnacled in 1986 with the opening of the world's largest record store, HMV, in Oxford Street, London. The springboard to his international career began in 1987, recruited by Richard Branson's Virgin Empire to develop a graphic identity and display system for Virgin record stores, UK. Migrating to Australia from England, Elgar became a Man of the World. Progressing to be selected as part of the inner circle of four key managers, headed by Ian Duffell, Elgar was recruited to establish the first Virgin record store in the Asia-Pacific region; Sydney, Australia.