Munro leaves Lenovo

Lenovo's A/NZ boss Alan Munro is on the market after nine years with the Chinese technology juggernaut.

Matt Codrington, Lenovo’s transactional business leader for A/NZ who joined the local team several months ago, will take on the role in the interim when Munro officially leaves the company at the end of this month.

Munro told CRN sister publication iTnews he had been thinkinjg about the next step in his career for the past 12 months. He joined IBM in 1996, moving over to the Chinese company when it bought Big Blue's PC business in 2004.

Munro said he was confident he was leaving Lenovo in good shape, with the company's market share for Asia Pacific /Latin America hitting a record of 11.3 percent for the last quarter.

“I felt like it was time and I’m still young enough to apply my skill set elsewhere. I haven’t got anything solid, but I’ve got a lot of ideas,” Munro said.

“I felt I wanted to go out at the top rather than grow old and die slowly in the role, that’s not something that interests me. It wasn't an easy decision, leaving when the company is going well.”

New opportunities

Munro is not planning time for a break, and instead will hunt down new opportunities in start-ups, boards and the corporate field. He said he would stay in the technology industry.

“Technology is what I know and I really like it. It’s where I’m from and it’s been my whole career, and it’s what interests me. I read the IT press every day,” he said. 

“I’ve been on the board of the ANZRP [Australia and New Zealand Recycling Platform] for the last two years since that started up, and unfortunately I’ve had to resign because I won’t be at Lenovo anymore. That’s given me an insight into board activity so I’m interested in that.”

“I’m interested in start-ups. I basically started Lenovo here - even though it was a sizeable business, it was like a start-up,” he said.

“And on the corporate side, the PC industry is so fast-paced, the discipline I’ve got from that could apply itself in the corporate world as well.”

He said good experiences at both Lenovo and IBM meant he’d even be interested in working for companies that had been his rivals over the past quarter of a century.

“I wouldn’t say no to anything,” he said. “I’ve spent my time fighting those guys so it’d be interesting to work for them. 

Munro's interim replacement, Codrington spent the last four years as general manager for partner sales in Lenovo’s Japan office. He first joined the company as its Asia Pacific director for notebooks, consumer products and enterprise systems group.