CDN has learned through several sources including one internal that Dan Fortin has retired from the president’s position at IBM Canada.
An IBM Canada source told CDN that it is business as usual at Big Blue North. The existing management team IBM Canada is continuing to run business as usual in the interim.
American executive Dave Liederbach is in charge of IBM Canada on an interim bases. Fortin was known as a great channel advocate by the many IBM business partners.
Fortin was unique in that he held the role of IBM Canada president on two separate occasions. The only other chief executive to do that in the Canadian IT industry was another IBMer Frank Clegg who was the president of Microsoft Canada on two different times.
Fortin first held the president’s job in 2005 and exited the post in 2010 only to return in early 2013.
Fortin replaced former IBM Canada president John Lutz, who left to be the vice chancellor of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn.
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The Quebec native joined IBM in 1978, right after earning a Bachelor of Civil Engineering from Carleton University in Ottawa. He held a number of marketing and management positions in Canada, the U.S. and Latin America, and was vice-president of SMB for IBM America before he took the helm of IBM Canada for the first time in January of 2005, succeeding Ed Kilroy.
In January of 2010 he moved to IBM corporate as general manager of global distribution sector, and held that position until his recent return to Canada.
This move comes as IBM makes a landmark partnership with long-time rival Apple. IBM reached an exclusive partnership with Apple, bypassing sister company Lenovo, in an attempt to transform enterprise mobility through a new class of business apps that will see IBM’s big data and analytics capabilities to iPhone smartphones and iPad tablets.
Fortin is a board member if World Vision Canada, where he served as the chair of its board of directors.