Intel has reorganized the company’s global sales team for its largest OEM and cloud accounts, including Amazon Web Services and Dell Technologies, after the team’s leader departed to become the president of Lenovo’s North American business, CRN has learned.
Christoph Schell, Intel’s chief commercial officer, announced the reorganization and other organizational changes in a memo last week, seen by CRN, to employees of the semiconductor giant’s Sales, Marketing Sales, Marketing and Communications Group, which the company refers to as SMG.
[Related: Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger: The Silicon Man With The Software Plan]
The changes laid out by Schell (pictured), who Intel hired from HP Inc. to lead SMG in early 2021, are part of Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger’s ambitious comeback plan to put the semiconductor giant ahead of rivals in chip-making capabilities by 2025 and become a comprehensive provider of silicon, software and services.
“I’ve spoken before about Intel’s ability to innovate at the technology level—it is SMG’s role to also innovate on our go-to-market models,” Schell wrote in the memo. “This involves selling a system of silicon, software and services to provide valuable solutions to our customers, partners and ecosystem to improve their price, feature, value perception of our engagement.”ADVERTISEMENT
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An Intel spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Ryan McCurdy, Head Of Global Accounts, Leaves For Lenovo
The memo said Ryan McCurdy—who had led sales relationships with AWS, Dell and other significant Intel customers as vice president and general manager of global accounts since late 2021—was leaving for “an external opportunity” last Friday.
On Tuesday, Lenovo announced that it had hired McCurdy as senior vice president and president of North America, a role that will put him in charge of the IT giant’s device, infrastructure, and services and solutions businesses for the continent. He begins in the new role onSept. 1.
In a press release, Lenovo said McCurdy’s responsibilities as Intel’s head of global accounts included “leading strategic customer relationships, revenue, design win pipeline, co-marketing and sales across Intel’s largest and most strategic relationships.”
The Beijing-based company added that McCurdy’s teams “oversaw nearly half” of Intel’s roughly $60 billion in annual revenue.
“He has been a key member of the Intel family for 23-plus years and I want to thank him for his leadership in managing our top global accounts,” Schell wrote in his memo to Intel employees last week.
Intel’s Largest OEM And Cloud Accounts Get Split Up
As a result of McCurdy’s departure, Intel is splitting up its largest customer accounts between a new group and an existing group within SMG.
The management of Intel’s largest OEM customers—Dell, HP Inc. and Lenovo—will move under Greg Ernst, general manager of Americas sales, according to Schell. He noted that Leighton Phillips will continue to lead Intel’s relationship with Lenovo but will now report to Ernst and work closely with Alan Wang, who leads SMG for Intel in China where Lenovo is based.
Responsibilities for Intel’s largest cloud customers—AWS, Microsoft and Google—will move to a new SMG group called the Global Solutions and Services organization, which Schell said will “focus on accelerating the next phase of value-based selling across Intel’s offering.”
The Global Solutions and Services group will be led by David Meffe, according to Schell. Meffe is a 25-year Intel sales veteran who was most recently the interim global sales and marketing leader for the Network and Edge Group following last month’s departure of Brad Haczynski, according to a source.
Schell said that the sales and marketing team for the Network and Edge Group, a $9 billion business the company abbreviates as NEX, will move under the Global Solutions and Services organization. He added that the company is looking for a permanent leader to lead NEX sales from within this new group.
Schell Eyes ‘Innovative Business Models’ With New Strategy Team
Among the other SMG changes laid out by Schell is the creation of a new SMG Strategy and Development team, “whose charter is to focus on overall SMG [go-to-market] strategy [and] accelerate transformation as we adopt innovative business models and improve sales efficiency,” the memo said.
“I am moving with urgency to hire a leader for this organization,” Schell wrote.
Once a leader is in place, the new strategy team will contain Intel’s Transformation Program office, which is led by Meredith Fields and previously fell under the purview of John Kalvin, Intel’s vice president and general manager of global partners and support, according to Schell.
“The team will continue to drive critical transformation initiatives forward with the key one being value-based selling,” the chief commercial officer said.
The other change noted by Schell: the Global Account Marketing team, led by Julie Malloy, will move under the Brand, Customer and Sales experience team led by Becky Brown.
Schell added that Intel’s software business, which has become a larger priority under Gelsinger as part of his mission to pursue new business models, will continue to have a stand-alone sales and marketing team. Taher Behbehani, who has led sales for Intel software and Software-as-a-Service offerings since August 2022, will continue in his position and report to Schell, he said.
Partner Says Changes Reflect Growing Complexity Of Intel’s Products
A distribution executive said the formation of the new Global Solutions and Services Group to focus on, in Schell’s words, “selling a system of silicon, software and services to provide valuable solutions” is likely a reflection of Intel’s growing focus on developing new processor technologies in concert with enabling software and services that bring those new technologies to life.
Kent Tibbils, vice president of marketing at Fremont, Calif.-based ASI, pointed to new accelerator technologies within Intel’s fourth-generation Xeon Scalable CPUs as well as the new security features within its latest client processors as examples of products that could benefit from a sales approach that emphasizes solutions rather than a solution’s individual components.
“I think this group could have some role in pulling all of those resources that Intel has into a consolidated effort and message around, ‘It’s not just hardware technology. It’s also software.’ And that’s even more important now as we go forward with AI,” he said.LEARN MORE: CPUs-GPUs | Servers
Dylan Martin is a senior editor at CRN covering the semiconductor, PC, mobile device, and IoT beats. He has distinguished his coverage of the semiconductor industry thanks to insightful interviews with CEOs and top executives; scoops and exclusives about product, strategy and personnel changes; and analyses that dig into the why behind the news. He can be reached at [email protected].
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