Head Of Avnet's HP Business Unit Resigns

Kleeman, the business unit&'s vice president and general manager, is leaving Avnet next month to pursue “entrepreneurial opportunities” outside the company, an Avnet spokeswoman said. Kleeman couldn&'t be reached for comment.

Kleeman&'s resignation, which occurred last week, comes just weeks after Steve Tepedino left his position as president of APS&' Americas region to pursue opportunities outside the company, according to Avnet. Fred Cuen, who had been co-president with Tepedino, took over as APS Americas president after Tepedino&'s departure.

Cuen said Kleeman has decided to pursue an opportunity with a venture capitalist and has agreed to stay with Avnet until the end of March. “Our HP business has seen double-digit growth under Jim,” Cuen said. “The fundamental direction of the HP business for Avnet is to get to $1 billion, and everyone is still executing to the plan.”

There's no connection between Tepedino&'s and Kleeman&'s departures, Cuen added. He said Avnet is looking for Kleeman&'s replacement from a list of internal and external candidates.

Kleeman served as the head of the APS HP business unit for about two years. Before that, he was a VAR and owned Expanets, an HP integrator.

In December, Kleeman told solution providers attending Avnet&'s annual HP partner conference in Phoenix that the distributor was on track to reach $1 billion in HP sales within three years. He said at the time that current annual revenue for the business unit was running at $750 million, aided in part by the decision of Logicalis--HP&'s largest enterprise solution provider--to switch its HP business from Arrow to Avnet.