CDW’s Executive Shakeup: Meet The New Team

IT solution provider CDW, which last week reported a revenue drop paired with increased GAAP and non-GAAP income for its third fiscal quarter 2023, made some significant changes to its executive team after the announced retirement of two upper level executives.

Rebuilding The Team

CDW unveiled the promotion or reassignment of five executives in a move the company said aims to position the global IT solution provider for “continued success,” just a week after the global solution provider said its sales in its most recent quarter had decreased.

For the quarter, which ended Sept. 30, CDW reported revenue of $5.63 billion, down 9.4 percent from the $6.22 billion the company reported for its third fiscal quarter 2022.

This includes corporate sales of $2.23 billion, down 13.6 percent; small-business sales of $378.4 million, down 23.0 percent; public sales including government, education and health-care sales totaling $2.42 billion, down 0.1 percent; and other sales of $601.3 million, down 16.7 percent.

CDW, ranked No. 4 in the CRN 2023 Solution Provider 500, did not respond to a CRN request for more information about the executive changes by press time.

Two of the five management shifts stemmed from pending retirements of longtime CDW executives. One of them is in the commercial sales businesses, where CDW said sales dropped due to pressure from sales of hardware, particularly client devices. The other was in its Digital Velocity business which is likely seeing a boost in sales thanks to stronger cloud and security sales.

Here’s a look at some of the people leading CDW now.

Aletha Noonan

Noonan, who has been at CDW almost her entire career except for a three-year stint as a partner sales executive at Microsoft, is slated to take over CDW’s commercial sales business, including sales to corporate and small businesses. Noonan, who started at CDW in 1994, appears to be on the way to take over for Jill Billhorn, CDW’s current senior vice president of corporate sales, who is planning to retire from the company by year-end.

Noonan is currently CDW’s senior vice president of product and partner management, and during her tenure at CDW has taken on both customer-facing and partner-facing leadership roles, CDW said.

Billhorn has long been a fixture at CDW, serving the company for over 13 years starting in mid-2010 when she joined as vice president of small business sales.

Mark Chong

Chong, a seven-year CDW veteran, is slated to lead the company’s product and partner management, or PPM, team. Chong, currently senior vice president and integration lead for CDW’s Integration Management Office, previously served as senior vice president of strategy and marketing where among his tasks was leading the company’s acquisitions, including CDW’s 2021 acquisition of Sirius Computer Solutions. He also led CDW’s marketing and strategy, partnering with PPM to build the company’s partner marketing plans.

Chong joined CDW after a 17-year-plus stint as a partner at Bain and company.

Liz Connelly

Elizabeth Connelly has for the last year served as CDW’s senior vice president of healthcare, but going forward is adding responsibility for the company’s corporate verticals team while continuing to manage the healthcare business, including healthcare sales, leadership, and business development. A five-year veteran of CDW, she spent the first four years as the company’s chief human resources officer. Prior to joining CDW, she spent 12 years at JPMorgan Chase, leaving that company in December of 2018 as managing director and head of healthcare, higher ed, and non-profit banking.

Andy Eccles

Eccles is taking over as leader of CDW’s new Digital Velocity business, an organization which helps clients with automated infrastructure, practical DevOps, modern cloud, software and enterprise architecture, and more. That business was formed by Andrew Cadwell, currently vice president and general manager for CDW Digital Velocity. Cadwell this week said via a LinkedIn post that he will retire from CDW Digital Velocity in early 2024, and that Eccles will take over the next phase.

CDW said Eccles and Digital Velocity will continue to partner with the company’s integrated tech and sales teams to deliver full solutions to clients.

Conor Waddell

Waddell going forward has been pegged to lead CDW’s Integrated Tech team which includes digital infrastructure, managed services, and configuration services. CDW said Waddell will focus on the next phase of growth of each practice area

Waddell in mid-2002 started at CDW as a corporate account manager, and is currently the company’s vice president and general manager for digital infrastructure where he is responsible for the growth of such solutions and services as cloud subscriptions, services, software and hardware technologies which support customer’s end-user experience outcomes.