The VAR Guy

Yes, The VAR Guy can be a name dropper from time to time. A case in point: The VAR Guy knows new AMD CEO Rory Read (pictured). And Read — formerly Lenovo‘s president and chief operating officer — is a channel-friendly guy. In fact, Read is as channel-friendly as they come.

AMD announced today that Read has joined the company as president and CEO, effective immediately. Read previously oversaw Lenovo’s global day-to-day operations.

Read arrives during a key inflection point for AMD. The chip company claims to have its strongest product portfolio in its history — led by the Fusion APUs. But Q2 revenues slipped to $1.57 billion, down from $1.65 billion in Q2 2010. Also, AMD had somewhat of a leadership void. Thomas Seifert had been serving as interim CEO since January 2011. Seifert now shifts back to his primary post as senior VP, CFO.

So who is Rory Read? The VAR Guy can sum that up in a single sentence: Read is a straight-talking executive with a global view and fierce loyalty to channel partnersl. At Lenovo, Read guaranteed that the company would never acquire a big IT consulting firm, because Lenovo preferred to work with channel partners. Read made the statement during the 2011 Lenovo Partner Summit in this FastChat Video:

Read spent five years at Lenovo, helping the company to gain market share across multiple regions. Prior to Lenovo, Read spent 23 years at IBM where he held a range of executive positions across Business Consulting Division and Global Business Transformation organization.

The VAR Guy will be watching to see if Read can lift AMD’s fortunes.

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