Lenovo Shakes Up Executive Suite, Names New PC, Enterprise Business Head, Shuffles Geo Sales

Lenovo has elevated Gerry Smith, formerly head of its Enterprise Business Group in the Americas region and a nine-year company veteran, to the global helm of its PC and Enterprise Business Group (PC & EBG), tasking him with growth and profitability responsibilities for the vendor’s two core businesses that comprise some 80 percent of its overall sales.

Smith, who is credited with crafting the global supply chain that lifted Lenovo to the top spot in worldwide PC shipments it has held since mid-2012, will report to Gianfranco Lanci, the former Acer chief executive who joined Lenovo three years ago. Smith’s new official title is PC & EBG executive vice president and chief operating officer.

Lenovo also upped Lanci to corporate vice president effective April 1. His new responsibilities span all of Lenovo’s geographic sales organizations, the vendor’s Enterprise Business Group and its PC Business Group. He will retain his current corporate chief operating officer position.

In addition, Lenovo promoted Jay Parker to the senior vice president slot in its Enterprise Business Group, responsible for the company’s server and storage business. Parker previously served as president of Lenovo’s North America operation.

Lenovo didn’t make any changes to the leadership in its Mobile Business Group and Ecosystem and Cloud Services groups with both units still reporting directly to chief executive Yuanqing Yang.

Lenovo also announced some additional upper management and geographic organizational changes. Tom Shell, who heads Lenovo’s commercial and consumer laptop, desktop, workstation and monitor business, is now PC Business Group senior vice president; Johnson Jia was promoted to PC & EBG Global Operations senior vice president, handling global supply chain operations; and, Qingtong Zhou gained a promotion to senior vice president and chief information officer from his former role as Strategy vice president.

Lenovo also altered its geographic structure, splitting its Americas Group into a Latin America unit headed by Luca Rossi and a North America group managed by Lanci on an interim basis until a permanent boss is hired.

Lenovo made no changes to its China region, led by Tong Fuyao; EMEA, led by Aymar de Lencquesaing; and, Asia-Pacific, led by Rod Lappin. All five geographic sales organizations report to Lanci.

“With the successful integration of our recent acquisitions, we have three major growth engines–PC, Enterprise and Mobile,” said Yang. “So, we must have the right structure and focus on outstanding execution in every market and with every customer.”