Avnet Names New Head Of IBM Business Unit

Tony Madden was named vice president and general manager of the IBM business unit, and Dennis O'Connell was promoted from that position to senior vice president of operations. Both report to Fred Cuen, president of Avnet Technology Solutions Americas.

In taking over the IBM business unit, Madden will be responsible for the group's continued growth after a strong 2006. He previously served as senior vice president of sales for the unit and before that spent 22 years working at IBM.

"He's all about getting the partners in a groove from a sales standpoint and driving sales and doing the right things in order to help them be successful out in the marketplace," Cuen said. "I think you're going to see Tony introducing some new plays with exciting IBM products and complementary products with a broader focus on solutions."

Joe Mertens, executive vice president at Sirius Computer Solutions, a San Antonio-based solution provider, said Madden is a good choice to head Avnet's IBM unit. "He's a very bright, qualified individual, and I know he'll do a very good job in that role. He has a good balance of IBM knowledge, as well as knowledge of Avnet," said Mertens, himself a former general manager of Avnet's IBM unit.

O'Connell will oversee centralized operations, materials management and technical operations at the Phoenix-based distributor. He has more than 30 years of experience with Avnet and IBM, and he once served as IBM's vice president of operations.

"We're bringing everybody together so that they're under one team, united, to work on what I think is going to be a superior customer experience based on the reconfiguration of how we actually work with our customers," Cuen said.

Bringing operations under one umbrella led by O'Connell is just one facet of its strategy moving forward, Cuen added.

"We're on offense, and we're moving in the right direction. Some of the moves that you're starting to see are us really building the foundation that's going to take us to the next level -- with Access, with the current business, with the new hardware and software and services plays that we're starting to generate," he said. "This whole change is really about optimization: getting better, doing what we do better, faster and cheaper. At the end of the day, that's what it's all about."