As Ingram Micro (NYSE: IM) CEO Greg Spierkel was getting interviewed live on Fox Business News show, the company’s No. 2 Alain Monie, who not too long ago was named president and COO, resigned.
Monie plans on leaving the distributor on Aug. 22 of this year. He has accepted a CEO position at a Asian-based multi-national. Ingram did not name the company he is heading to. I speculate that they simply can’t name it at this time because of legal or competitive reasons.
Monie is based in AsiaPac and you can’t blame anyone for taking a CEO job, but this situation must be disappointing to Spierkel as the COO position has turned into a revolving door of sorts with Kevin Murai retiring and then un-retiring to become the CEO of Synnex and now Monie who hasn’t been on this post for very long.
Shortly after Monie’s announcement, Justin Crotty, an up-and-coming executive at Ingram said he was leaving the company for NetEnrich, an IT services company. Crotty created the Seismic division for managed services and coincidently NetEnrich is a customer of Seismic.
In more positive news, Ingram became the first high tech distributor to join the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of the U.S. Ingram will take part in the EPA’s Climate Leaders program, which is a partnership of industry and government leaders who are dedicated to improving the environment through the measurable reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
I think it would make sense for Spierkel, Ingram and the rest of the industry to listen to Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki’s approach of making products from reusable parts.
Monie’s departure was not the only senior executive to leave his distribution post. Tech Data Canada has lost the services of Ray Gonsalves, who was instrumental in building the Canadian operations storage division. Gonsalves has accepted a position at VMware Canada.
Speaking of Tech Data, they did a Web site makeover of www.techdata.com and it looks terrific. The old site, with all due respect, looked like a site that was made by a distributor. This new site is quite dynamic with enhanced navigation, new e-business tools and content that’s presentable to the none-tech person. Great job!
Back to more executive news. Lynn Smurthwaite-Murphy has been promoted. The Canadian GM of Westcon is now the new senior vice-president of U.S. and Canada. Smurthwaite-Murphy will report to company CEO Dean Douglas.
But that was not the only news coming out of Westcon. The specialty distributor has a new Latin America office, but the new organization was consolidated from Westcon Mexico, Westcon, Central America, Westcon Caribbean and Westcon South America offices. Usually Latin American operations are conducted out of Miami, but Westcon will run Latin America from Sao Paulo, Brazil. Otavio Lazarini Barbosa will be the president of Westcon Latin America. No word on if the consolidation means close of offices in those other areas. But I applaud the move to base it out of an actual Latin American country. I never understood why other distributors run Latin America out of Florida.
Arrow is coming to Canada
Arrow Electronics Inc. announced it will bring its ArrowFest technology exhibition to Canada. On September 23, the show that provides a forum for current and potential Arrow customers will be in Toronto.
Toronto will be ArrowFest’s second stop on its tour which starts September 16, the night of the CDN Channel Elite Awards. Other stops include: Chicago, Minnesota, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and Boston. ArrowFest brings top vendors and offers technical seminars on a variety of marketplace trends.
Speaking of shows, Avnet’s Technology Solutions Partner Summit 2010 will be held in the Omni Interlocken Resort in Broomfield, Colo., on July 26 to the 28 of this year.
