Dell Inc. has hired former Advanced Micro Devices Inc. CEO Rory Read as chief operating officer.
Dell disclosed Monday it enlisted Read as COO in addition to former Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO) executive Paul Pérezas chief technology officer of Dell’s enterprise solutions group. The company has undergone a significant turnover in senior executives since the company completed a leveraged buyout of shareholders in October 2013.
In October 2014, Read resigned his position at AMD(NYSE: AMD), a California-based semiconductor maker that operates a facility in Austin that employed about 1,900 workers last year. The company has since undergone layoffs to offset slumping revenue.
Dell plans to use Read’s connections to sell more computers directly to large, corporate customers and create partnerships with large systems integrators.
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At first glance, Read’s hiring would seem to run counter to Dell’s attempt to refashion itself into more of a software and services company since Read has specialized on the hardware side of the tech sector. Before AMD, Read, a 23-year IBM (NYSE: IBM) veteran, was the chief operating officer of Lenovo Group Ltd., a Chinese computer maker with operations in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park. While at Lenovo, Read led the computer maker’s entry into both the tablet and smartphone markets. When Read left Lenovo, the company was the third largest global PC manufacturer. Today, it’s number one.
Dell officials have been saying for years that personal computers and hardware don’t provide the profit margins the company seeks.
Over several months following the shareholder buyout, some senior executives announced their departures, including Chief Commercial Officer Steve Felice, Chief Financial OfficerBrian Gladden and General Counsel Larry Tu.
The $24.9 billion buyout was completed by an investor group led by CEO Michael Dell and California-based Silver Lake Partners. Michael Dell now owns 75 percent of the company.
The go-private deal was designed to enable Dell, which had been publicly traded for 25 years, to transition beyond personal computers to the higher profit margins provided by software, services and other networking tools.
Date: March 23, 2015