Revolving door at top of firms

In the recent past, IBM appointed Tan Jee Toon to act as IBM Vietnam CEO superseding Vo Tan Long who shifts into managing IBM ASEAN special projects.

Earlier, in late 2008, IBM Vietnam abruptly replaced Nguyen Viet Hoang by Vo Tan Long, when Hoang took office only five months.

Similarly, Lenovo Group appointed Nguyen Minh Son to hold the post of Lenovo Vietnam CEO.

Son’s new duties are working on plans to hike sales revenue and enlarge customer base among small to medium size businesses and individual consumers for business expansion.

In late December, 2012 Qualcomm chose Thieu Phuong Nam to the post CEO Vietnam, Lao and Cambodia, who will act as a top executive for business development in Asia-Pacific for Qualcomm.

As with local IT firms, former deputy general director at media firm VTC Nguyen Thuc Anh was recently appointed as MVCorp’s general director. MVCorp. reportedly represents around half of the local music industry.

Earlier, in late September 2012 Truong Gia Binh, board chairman at telecom giant FPT took on the post of CEO after CEO Truong Dinh Anh resigned, arguing that divergences in strategy planning and management approach between him and the management board the key reason behind his move.

In their statements, most IT giants said shifts in top executives were to match new development requirements.

One former executive at a multi-national unveiled that changes in top management posts at IT giants came on the back of huge pressures on revenue targets, with managers underperforming expectations, partly because businesses adopted changes to development strategies or technology to sharpen competitiveness in the future.

According  to Qualcomm chairman in Asia-Pacific John Stefanac, Thieu Phuong Nam’s nomination is a right move matching current telecom market development stage.

At IBM, Toon would propel development course and innovations in Vietnam through IBM’s smarter cities strategy, according to IBM ASEAN director Cordelia Chung.

Most IT firms view Vietnam and Southeast Asia as accommodating vibrant and fast-changing IT market. This means the expectations for these new leaders would be high and their duties would be big.

As 2013 is forecast to be another turbulent year to IT development, so market players must be in a position to translate capacity into revenue and profit growth figures to be sound in their posts.