5 Things To Know On Lenovo’s New North America President, Vladimir Rozanovich

After 24 years at AMD, Rozanovich is joining Lenovo on June 24 to oversee all product sales and business groups in North America, where he will report to his former AMD colleague, Matthew Zielinski.

New Head Of Lenovo In North America

With a big hire from chipmaker AMD, Lenovo’s North America business is soon to get a new leader. PC and data center technologies giant Lenovo has hired AMD veteran Vladimir Rozanovich to become its new president of North America, effective June 24, CRN has learned. Rozanovich will also serve as senior vice president for the company’s new International Sales Organization, which covers all Lenovo sales outside of China and launched as part of the company’s reorganization on April 1. He will be responsible for all product sales and business groups in North America, Lenovo said.

What follows are five key things to know about Lenovo’s new North America president, Vladimir Rozanovich.

Career At AMD

Rozanovich is making the jump to Lenovo at a time when the company is enjoying a much closer partnership with AMD than in the past—with Lenovo significantly increasing the use of AMD processors in its PC and server lineups in recent years.

Rozanovich had spent his entire 24-year career at AMD up until now, initially joining the chipmaker in July of 1996, according to his LinkedIn profile—the same year he graduated from Boston University with a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering. Most recently, Rozanovich served as corporate vice president for mega data center and cloud sales at AMD, Lenovo said.

Prior to his latest role at AMD, Rozanovich held positions with responsibilities that involved AMD’s PC chip business, according to his LinkedIn profile. Those roles included corporate vice president for the Americas region and corporate vice president for the HP global account at AMD, according to the profile.

Other prior roles included responsibilities for OEM partner executive field relationships—across vendors such as Lenovo, HP, Dell and Acer—to promote AMD processors to IT managers, his LinkedIn profile says.

Lenovo Momentum

For his North America role, Rozanovich will be responsible for continuing Lenovo’s momentum in the region across its PC, data center and services businesses. In PC, Lenovo’s largest business by revenue, shipments in the U.S. climbed 17.7 percent in 2020 over the year before, according to data from research firm Gartner. That growth brought the company to a U.S. PC market share of 16.6 percent for 2020, up from 15.5 percent the prior year. Lenovo remained the No. 3 player in the U.S. by market share, but No. 2 Dell shed nearly a point of market share in 2020 as shipments grew at a slower rate of 6.6 percent, according to Gartner data.

Following its April 1 reorganization, Lenovo now operates three businesses in North America—the Intelligent Devices Group, which includes PCs and IoT; a rebranded Infrastructure Solutions Group (formerly known as the Data Center Group); and a new Solutions and Services Group focused on verticals and services.

Reporting Structure

The April 1 reorganization at Lenovo included a major promotion for Matthew Zielinski (pictured), who had been serving as the president of Lenovo’s Intelligent Devices Group in North America since early 2018. Zielinski was promoted to become president of the newly created International Sales Organization at Lenovo, giving him responsibility for all of the company’s sales outside of China.

Rozanovich—whose other role in addition to North America president is as senior vice president for the International Sales Organization—will be reporting to Zielinski, Lenovo said.

Rozanovich had previously worked with Zielinski at AMD. Prior to joining Lenovo, Zielinski had spent 12 years at AMD in sales leadership positions.

Infrastructure Solutions Group

While Lenovo’s Intelligent Devices Group continues to be its largest business by revenue, the company has also been continuing to gain traction with its data center business—which is now known as the Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG) following the recent reorganization. Lenovo’s worldwide data center business generated record revenue of $1.63 billion during the company’s quarter that ended Dec. 31, 2020, for instance.

Kevin Hooper (pictured) remains the president of the Lenovo ISG for North America, reporting to Wilfredo Sotolongo, chief customer officer for the ISG. However, with Rozanovich now responsible for all Lenovo North America business groups including ISG, there will be a “dotted line” from Hooper to Rozanovich in terms of the reporting structure, Lenovo said. That approach will help propel the company’s “One Lenovo” strategy of creating synergies between its PC and data center businesses, the company said.

Hitting The Ground Running

Along with the fact that Rozanovich previously worked with his soon-to-be boss, Zielinski, at AMD, he also brings a strong familiarity with Lenovo through his roles at AMD, Lenovo said. “Through his service at AMD, Rozanovich developed an extensive working relationship with Lenovo, giving him a deep understanding of the company’s presence in North America,” Lenovo said in its statement provided to CRN.

Larry Fulop, vice president of marketing and technology at Tempe, Ariz.-based MicroAge, a Lenovo Gold partner, said he’s glad to see Lenovo hiring another executive from AMD—given the “huge strides” that the chipmaker has made in the last few years with OEMs including Lenovo.

“As an independent company they have taken big market share—especially with Lenovo [devices] and the adoption of the AMD products,” Fulop said. “With the strong partnership with AMD, Lenovo bringing someone on board from that partner makes a lot of sense. I’m excited how the chemistry will continue to grow between the two organizations.”

Rozanovich and his family will be relocating to North Carolina, where Lenovo’s U.S. headquarters is located, from his current home in Cincinnati, Lenovo said.