Arrow’s Interim CEO On Succession Search: ‘This Isn’t A Willy-Nilly Replacement’

‘It’s a very difficult search, and we want to make the right call. This isn’t a willy-nilly replacement. We’re trying to find the right person that has the right skill set, the right value set, and who understands how the company works. So it’s a little longer process,’ says Arrow Interim CEO William “Bill” Austen.

IT distribution giant Arrow Electronics is taking its time to find a replacement for Sean Kerins who stepped down from that role nearly a year ago.

Arrow Interim CEO William “Bill” Austen, who took the reins last September after Kerins left the company, told CRN in a recent conversation that the question of when Arrow will get a full-time CEO is one that comes up a lot.

“This is a question I get, whether it’s in employee meetings or investor meetings, or wherever it happens to be,” Austen said. “I came in in mid-September. I would have anticipated by now that we’d have somebody.”

[Related: Arrow Interim CEO: End Of Dell Partnership With Arrow ECS Will Have No Material Impact On Financial Results]

However, Austen said, Arrow Electronics is a big company, meaning the choice for a new CEO is extremely important.

“[Arrow has] a tremendous legacy,” he said. “It’s got a tremendous amount of respect within the industry segments that it plays in. Trying to find somebody that gets all that, that has the right value set, that has the scale of ability—not that I have a whole bunch of ability—we’re not looking for a step-up candidate. We’re looking for somebody that can operate at that scale already. Not so much on the sales and marketing side of the equation, because this is a company full of sales and marketing wizards. We want somebody that’s more operationally focused and is over rotated on the operating side. And finding that mix has not been as easy as I would have anticipated.”

Executive search firms tell Arrow that CEO searches take anywhere from nine to 13 months, said Austen (pictured above).

“We have reviewed a tremendous amount of people, myself and the search committee,” he said. “We’ve narrowed it down, and we’re still in the narrowing down process. But it’s a very difficult search, and we want to make the right call. This isn’t a willy-nilly replacement. We’re trying to find the right person that has the right skill set, the right value set, and who understands how the company works. So it’s a little longer process.

Dave Van Hoy, president and founder of Advanced Systems Group, an Emeryville, Calif.-based solution provider that works with Arrow for products from vendors such as IBM and Qumulo, said he expects Arrow’s next CEO to play a big role in helping the distributor define its future direction and focus on what’s important to its channel customers.

“Arrow needs to decide what it wants to be, and I know that, at least from the point of view of people like us, we’re looking to distribution for a lot more than just carrying the paper and placing an order,” Van Hoy said. “We want distributors to bring more services, more value. Where I think Arrow could do better is helping us with enablement for my sales teams. That’s a role that good distributors can really play an unsung hero part in.”