Former Acer CEO Lanci Appointed Lenovo’s EMEA Chief

Lenovo has hired former Acer CEO Gianfranco Lanci as its chief of operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Lanci left Acer last year after a disagreement with the board of directors over the company’s future direction.

World number one

“EMEA is a strategically critical market for us,” said Lanci, who said that the rise of tablets and ultrabooks presented an opportunity for Lenovo to increase its market share in the region.

In December last year, Lenovo overtook Dell as the second largest global PC manufacturer with its sights firmly set on surpassing HP to become world number one. However it is just the fifth largest in EMEA, trailing HP, Acer, Asus and Dell with an 8.2 percent market share in the fourth quarter of last year.

Lanci’s stated aim is to break into the top three, adding that the company would focus on retaining its position in enterprise sales before expanding its consumer and small business sales. During his tenure at Acer, Lanci also served as president of EMEA, the largest market for the Taiwanese manufacturer.

However he was said to hold “different views” from a majority of board members, who were unable to reach a consensus about the company’s future strategy after “months of dialogue”. The disagreement was reported to be over how to counter the success of tablets which were impacting Acer’s profits and were described by founder Stan Shih as a “short term fad.”

Lanci later accused Acer of resisting globalisation, partly by not hiring engineers outside of Taiwan and claimed that he had been on the verge of achieving the company’s ‘de-Taiwanisation’. Following his departure, he joined Lenovo as a consultant last year, prompting Acer to file a lawsuit on the grounds that his appointment breached a non-compete clause in his departure agreement.

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