Longtime Avnet Vet Tapped For Global Presidency

Longtime Avnet veteran Patrick Zammit is taking over as global president of the distributor's Technology Solutions division.

Zammit has been with the Tempe, Ariz.-based company since 1993 and has served as president of the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region of its electronics marketing group since October 2006.

"I believe Patrick is the right leader to take advantage of new opportunities for profitable growth," Rick Hamada, Avnet CEO, said in a statement. "He has expertise in managing complex multicultural and geographic markets and is known as a passionate business leader."

[RELATED: Avnet Solutions Global President To Step Down]

Zammit replaces Phil Gallagher, who announced his intent to depart in September. Gallagher will remain with Avnet to assist with the leadership transition, the company said.

In his new role, Zammit will be responsible for the global performance, strategic direction and day-to-day operations of the technology solutions group. He will report directly to Hamada.

Hamada touted Zammit's success in his previous electronics marketing role, where EMEA profitability grew by more than 70 percent during his eight years at the helm. The region also achieved market share leadership in both the semiconductor and interconnect, passive and electromechanical (IP&E) markets under Zammit's tutelage.

Prior to that, Zammit held a series of positions at Avnet in finance, operations and strategic planning. He also spent four years as president of Avnet subsidiary EBV Electronik.

Before working at Avnet, Zammit spent five years at Arthur Andersen as a senior consultant. He holds the French equivalent of a master's degree in business administration, speaks fluent English, French and German and is based in Belgium.

TEKPROS would like for Zammit to re-establish a partner summit, expedite the quote-generation process and bolster Avnet's new product education efforts, said Kumar Nandigam, CEO of the Plano, Texas-based solution provider and Avnet partner.

Having to rely on two point-of-contact Avnet representatives to email price quotes can result in delays of three to four days, Nandigam said. He said he hopes Zammit establishes a web-based system where Avnet partners can log into vendor-specific portals and immediately pull the quote themselves.

TEKPROS also finds itself behind the eight ball when it comes to new product releases from vendors such as EMC, IBM and Oracle. Nandigam said Zammit should push Avnet to take a more proactive role in altering the channel's approach to new releases and providing related technical and sales training.

"I can only educate my client if I know what the product is," Nandigam said.

Finally, Nandigam would like to see Avnet bring back an annual solution provider conference so that TEKPROS can network and collaborate with Avnet partners that offer synergistic areas of technical expertise.

Avnet's stock price has tumbled by 1.1 percent to $42.35 since the announcement was made Monday morning.

Avnet's Technology Solutions division generated $11 billion in revenue in the 2014 fiscal year, ended June 30, and saw quarterly non-GAAP earnings soar by 14.4 percent to $144.2 million in the first quarter of the 2015 fiscal year.

However, Avnet continues to struggle with both operating margins and computing component sales. The distributor's operating margins were just 2.5 percent in the most recent quarter, a far cry from the company's long-term goal of 3.4 percent to 3.9 percent.

Computing component sales, which include processors, servers and CPUs, also continue to struggle due to transitions and technology refreshes from major vendors.

In addition, the distributor has undertaken a $15 billion to $20 billion cost-cutting initiative in Europe, consisting in part of streamlining EMEA's four different enterprise resource planning (ERP) programs onto a single platform. Cost savings from the cuts are expected to be felt in the first half of 2015, according to the company.

PUBLISHED JAN. 5, 2014