Unisys Taps Altabef, Former Dell Services President, as New Chief Executive

Unisys (UIS) has named Peter Altabef, a 20-year industry veteran with extensive channel experience, as its new president and chief executive, replacing J. Edward Coleman, who abruptly announced in early October he would step down on December 1 after six years at the company’s helm.

In addition to his executive duties, Altabef also has been granted a seat on Unisys’ board of directors. Paul Weaver, currently serving as Unisys’ interim board chairman, will assume the role on a permanent basis effective January 1, 2015, and Janet Haugen, Unisys chief financial officer (CFO), who’s temporarily been holding down the chief executive slot, will yield to Altabef.

Altabef is well-regarded for his prior experience driving sales growth and overall financial performance, skills he will need to extricate Unisys from a string of declining earnings, a trend the company arrested in its most recent Q3 2014 when it posted $47.8 million in net income as compared to an $11.6 million loss a year earlier. Unisys credited higher sales of its ClearPath enterprise software and servers for a 66 percent uptick in Q3 technology revenue.

“The board of directors has completed an intensive search process and we are extremely pleased to welcome Peter Altabef, a highly-regarded and experienced IT executive, to the helm of Unisys,” Weaver said.

“As an industry veteran, Peter brings outstanding leadership skills, a track record of delivering top and bottom line results and strong operational execution skills, which will complement the strengths of the existing management team,” he said. “With these attributes, we are confident that Peter will guide Unisys to profitable revenue growth.”

Altabef’s background includes stints as enterprise applications provider Micros Systems’ president and chief executive from January 2013 until Oracle (ORCL) acquired the company this past September. He previously served as Perot Systems president and chief executive from 2004 – 2009 until its acquisition by Dell, when he transitioned to Dell Services president until exiting the company in 2011.

According to a Unisys SEC filing, Altabef will be paid an annual base salary of $972,000 with the opportunity to earn a bonus of at least 125 percent of that figure. He also will be granted 30,000 restricted stock units and options to acquire 140,000 shares of Unisys common stock on January 5, 2015. By April 1, 2015, Altabef will gain another 70,000 performance vesting restricted stock options.

“I have long been impressed by the quality of services and solutions that Unisys brings to the world’s largest companies and government organizations to solve their increasingly complex and mission-critical IT challenges,” Altabef said. “I am pleased to be joining the senior leadership team at Unisys and working with the Company’s talented people around the world to accelerate its progress, leverage growth opportunities and create added value for our clients and shareholders.”