Yang cedes more power to Lanci at Lenovo

Yang Yuanqing, chairman and chief executive of Lenovo Group Ltd, is delegating more power to his right-hand man after the world's largest personal computer maker completed two major acquisitions and is on the prowl for more.

The Beijing-based company said on Tuesday Gianfranco Lanci, its chief operating officer, has been named corporate president, effective April 1. The 61-year-old Italian will oversee Lenovo's global sales and also take responsibility for the company's enterprise business group and the PC division.

"He will have global, end-to-end responsibility for performance and business management systems in these areas, while retaining his current position as Lenovo COO," according to a company statement.

Lanci will be the highest-level non-Chinese executive at Lenovo although sources said the former Acer Inc executive will have no say on China business, its largest market. It remains unclear if he will move his office to the Lenovo headquarters in Beijing. Lanci spent most of his time in Europe prior to the appointment.

"We have a unique opportunity to address these structural needs and best leverage the talent of our leaders and our team while also celebrating the achievements of several of our top leaders," Yang said on Tuesday.

Antonio Wang, an analyst from IDC, said the appointment reflects Lenovo has become a fully internationalized corporation. "The latest realignment shows Yang has given overseas executives more room to use their power."

Giving out power also gives Yang more time to plan the company strategy in the post-PC era, Wang said. Lenovo has put heavy emphasis in exploring new businesses after global PC sales slid to the slowest point about two years ago.

Under Yang's direct supervision, Lenovo bought IBM Corp's x86 server unit and Google Inc's Motorola Mobility unit in 2014. The two acquisitions cost it more than $5 billion in total.

After maintaining the No 1 position in global PC shipments from Hewlett-Packard Co for more than a year, Lenovo is now looking to smartphones and servers for higher profits in its new fiscal year starting next month.

Lenovo also assigned Chen Xudong, a senior vice-president overseeing China business, to find new business models that can compete with rising Chinese electronics startups such as Xiaomi Corp.

On Monday, the company teamed up with online shopping firm JD.com Inc to sell about 10 million affordable handsets this year.