This article is more than 1 year old

Lenovo fishes in Brit PC pond for new UK boss

Lands Preben Fjeld

Lenovo confirmed to the UK teamsters this morning at 9am that a new boss is set to parachute into the vacant MD’s hot seat locally in a little under six weeks.

Preben Fjeld will take control of ops as GM from 1 November - he quit Acer last week where he was the UK country manager from July 2015.

In a statement to staff, seen by The Reg, EMEA CEO Francois Bornibus, described Fjeld as an “experienced leader with a strong understanding of the dynamics” of the British PC sector, one in which Lenovo has struggled of late.

According to distributor sales data for Q2, Lenovo’s UK shipments crashed 22.6 per cent year-on-year, roughly twice the decline of total sales across the entire market, far cry from the double-digit gains of yesteryear.

The General Election in June and ongoing uncertainty attributed to Brits’ vote to leave the EU shouldered some of the blame for the sales decline, but Lenovo’s local output mirrors that of wider Europe.

Bornibus was plonked into the EMEA exec seat in March following five quarters of declining turnover. His remit was to make Lenovo the biggest shifter of PC tin in the region; consolidate its third spot in servers locally; and import the full Motorola portfolio so that customers can not buy here – similar to its performance in other territories.

Lenovo has been caught out by the return to form of arch rival HP Inc and has spent recent times trying to turn around the costly acquisitions of businesses that have seen better times - IBM's x division and Motorola's handset operation.

The former UK heard at Lenovo, John Harber, exited in May after just 15 months in the role and is currently MD at reseller Arrow Business Communications, which seems like an unusual career progression. ®

More about

More about

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like