Lenovo Hires Intel Exec Steve Long To Lead Commercial PC Business

Lenovo hires Intel veteran Steve Long as the Chinese IT giant seeks to defend its top spot in the global PC market and become a significant AI computing player through its hybrid AI strategy, which touches everything from PCs to cloud and data center infrastructure.

Lenovo has hired longtime Intel executive Steve Long to lead the company’s commercial PC and smart device business in a newly created role.

The Chinese IT giant announced last month that Long, most recently the head of Intel’s Asia-Pacific Japan business, will take on the role as senior vice president of the Intelligent Devices Group (IDG) commercial segment. He begins at Lenovo on Feb. 26.

In the new role, Long (pictured above) will be responsible for driving revenue growth and profits as well as the strategy for the commercial segment of IDG, which includes Lenovo’s PCs, Motorola smartphones and other kinds of smart devices, like virtual reality headsets.

Long will also run day-to-day operations for the IDG commercial segment, define product strategies and road maps and listen to customer feedback to inform its business strategy.

These responsibilities previously fell under Marco Andresen, the COO of IDG.

Lenovo hired Long as the company seeks to defend its No. 1 position in the global PC market and become a significant player in the AI computing space through its hybrid AI strategy, which touches everything from PCs to cloud and data center infrastructure.

At CES 2024 last month, the company revealed a wide array of AI-enabled PCs as part of an industry-wide push to establish the new category of AI PCs. These devices included flagship commercial products like the ThinkPad X1 Carbon laptop as well the ThinkCentre neo Ultra ultra-small form factor desktop, both of which come with AI acceleration ships.

“Steve’s proven record at Intel, paired with his deep understanding of the technology sector, makes him the ideal leader to steer our commercial segment,” said Luca Rossi, president of IDG at Lenovo, in a statement.

“Under Steve’s new leadership, we expect to accelerate our commercial business even more to enhance profitability, competitiveness, and our foothold in the AI era,” he added.

In addition to leading Lenovo’s AI efforts for commercial client devices, Long is also expected to push growth in areas like education, smart collaboration and cybersecurity, the company said.

A 23-year veteran of Intel, Long was most recently corporate vice president and general manager of the chipmaker’s Asia-Pacific and Japan business for more than two years.

Prior to that, Long was corporate vice president of global sales and marketing for Intel’s Client Compute Group, which includes CPUs and other products for PCs, for more than four years.

As the leader of sales for Intel’s PC business, Long led the division through a giant spike—and subsequent drop-off—in demand for computers during the COVID-19 pandemic. He also managed the business through a pre-pandemic CPU shortage.

Long is set to arrive at Lenovo after fellow Intel veteran Ryan McCurdy joined the company as senior vice president and president of North America last September.