In 2005, Murray Wright, through no fault of his own, tells two very important stories in the channel. He is CDN’s top newsmaker because he was unceremoniously dismissed, along with the vice-president of marketing Dave Walsh, at Ingram Micro Canada, which sent shock waves throughout the entire IT industry.
Wright then basically picked himself up, dusted himself off, and managed to land the presidency at Lenovo Canada. For Wright, he admitted that not even in his “wildest dreams” back in January would he believe he’d be the new president of Lenovo Canada replacing Heather Ross, who left to pursue an executive opportunity at TD Canada Trust.
In his role as president of Ingram Micro Canada, Wright thought of Lenovo as an unknown in the market place.
“IBM was going to do something because the PC division was under pressure and we’d often heard that IBM either didn’t make any money or made limited amounts of money in PCD. It made sense to partner with someone who is focused on that business,” he said.
Ingram shocker
On May 20, Wright’s career was given the proverbial curve ball. After a string of profitable years under his tenure, Ingram Micro’s vice-president of North American operations Keith Bradley made managerial changes replacing Wright with Martin Kalsbeek.
To this day, Wright still does not know what happened or why it happened.
“I’d rather focus on Lenevo candidly at this stage. I would tell you that decisions get made in business for a variety of reasons. I am proud of the job I did at Ingram Micro and I left them with big results. I’m looking forward to the challenge of Lenovo and Ingram Micro will be an important partner for us. Everything else is history,” he said.
For more on the CDN’s Top 25 Newsmakers pick up a copy of the December 9, 2005 issue or visit online at www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/CDN/Home.asp.
This year’s list includes:
Murray Wright, Lenovo Canada president
Wendy Hayes, Apple Canada director
Mike Lazaridis, RIM president
Stephane Boisvert, former Sun Canada president
Susan Harper, Microsoft Canada’s License compliance manager
Jennifer Stoddart, Canada’s privacy commissioner
Kevin Murai, Ingram Micro president and COO
Robert Courteau, Bell Business Solutions CEO
Michael Murphy, Symantec Canada GM
Doug Wright, Alberta Recycling Management Authority CEO
James Gosling, creator of Java
Alan Schwietzer and Ken Killin of RAM Group
Mark Zafrovski, Nortel Networks CEO
Stephan Elop, Macromedia Inc. CEO
Terry Matthews, Mitel Networks Chairman
Rick Reid, Tech Data Canada president
Bruno Pupo, NEC regional manager
Dave Frederickson, HP Canada’s VP solution partners
Jim Estill, Synnex Canada CEO
Terry Walsh, Cisco Canada president
Stuart Turk, On The Go Technologies CEO
Ian McFarlane, Canon Canada VP and GM
Shawn Snobelen, LG Electronics Canada national sales manager
Edsel Shreve, Siebel Canada regional manager.