Logicalis Group Appoints Rob Evans As COO
Just days after announcing a new global CEO, Logicalis Group has made another executive appointment with the addition of Rob Evans as chief operating officer.
Evans will assume the role of COO on March 1. He replaces Mark Rogers, who was appointed CEO late last week and will assume the role on the same day.
Evans has been with Logicalis since 2012, where he has served as a nonexecutive director. Evans most recently served as COO of Datatec's Consulting Services division, a position he held for seven years. Datatec is the parent company of Logicalis. Prior to that, Evans held a variety of operating and commercial management roles at Datatec subsidiaries.
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"Rob has made a very strong contribution to the group over many years and brings extensive industry experience to this role," Datatec CEO Jens Montanana said in a statement about the news.
Vince DeLuca, CEO of Logicalis US, said he believes Evans' experience will balance out the executive team very well. In particular, DeLuca said Evans brings strong commercial experience, strategy and international experience. He said Evans has a lot of financial expertise, but, more importantly, brings a "very business-oriented lens" to the role, focusing on developing the customer, competitive landscape, commercial businesses and more.
DeLuca said that the dual executive appointment of Evans and Rogers will drive a "unified" philosophy at the top executive level. He said Evans will be more "hands-on" with implementing Logicalis' strategic projects, which will allow Rogers to reach his full potential as CEO.
"I think from a philosophy standpoint, a strategy standpoint, an ideology standpoint, I think they're completely aligned," DeLuca said.
Evans' international experience, in particular, will come in handy as Logicalis looks to leverage its international capabilities and drive solutions globally, as opposed to country by country, DeLuca said. In addition, Logicalis is looking to build competency centers around the world, DeLuca said, and Evans will be a "catalyst" to executing on that vision. The U.S. division will be a benefactor of those changes, he said.
"As a company, we're going to continue to leverage our international capabilities to drive scale, to drive credibility and to drive solutions where an independent operating country wouldn't necessarily have the ability to do that at the levels that we wanted. [Evans] will be very active in furthering our position as a multinational provider while leveraging our position in the most unique way possible to leverage our portfolio," DeLuca said.
DeLuca said he also anticipates Evans will be able to utilize his operational capabilities to drive efficiencies in the solution provider's product business. Logicalis is facing the same challenges as the rest of the industry as products become more and more commoditized, he said.
"I think the ingredients are all there for a very healthy relationship and one that will benefit Logicalis as a whole," DeLuca said.
PUBLISHED FEB. 25, 2015