Luis Lourenço, currently chief country executive of Brazil at Ingram Micro, will relocate to Singapore

Francis Choo has unveiled plans to transition out of his current role as chief country executive of ASEAN and Hong Kong at Ingram Micro, switching focus to leading Global Partner Engagement and Cyber Security efforts across Asia Pacific.

Effective 1 May, Channel Asia can exclusively reveal that Choo will be replaced by Luis Lourenço – currently chief country executive of Brazil at Ingram Micro – who will relocate to Singapore as a result of the change.

Meanwhile, Choo will also shift focus to supporting the growth of Ingram Micro’s Advanced Solutions business in China. Central to such efforts will be engaging new and emerging vendor partners as well as further strengthening the distributor’s regional relationship reach.

Leveraging more than 20 years of channel experience, Choo – inducted into the Channel Asia Hall of Fame in 2019 – will continue to be based in Singapore, reporting to Diego Utge as executive vice president and group president across Asia Pacific.

“As highly successful and innovative leaders, we look forward to the new ideas and insights both Francis and Luis will bring to their new roles,” Utge said. “This is an excellent opportunity for Francis to broaden his leadership and business expertise and I am eager to work closely with him and our China team as we continue to bring new growth and profit opportunities to our partners.”

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Replacing Choo is Lourenço who joined Ingram Micro more than 20 years ago, occupying executive-level roles in Portugal, Spain, Miami and Brazil. Also reporting to Utge, Lourenço spent the past four years running the Brazil division of the distribution giant, growing the business “substantially” in the process.

“We welcome Luis to our Asia Pacific team and are excited for what I know will be his many contributions to the region,” Utge added. “His understanding of our business and our markets and the learnings gained from his successful leadership in Brazil, will be invaluable in further strengthen our leadership in Asia Pacific and continuing to ensure we provide a differentiated and exceptional level of customer service to our partners in the region.

“Ingram Micro is fortunate to have a broad base of talent throughout our organization, always ready and willing to step up to the next challenge. Francis and Luis are the latest example of our tremendous talent and I know our partners will be as excited as we are to work closely with them in their respective new roles.”

As reported by Channel Asia, Ingram Micro recently increased investment across Asia Pacific through an advanced solutions strategy designed to guide partners across the key areas of technology, sales, solutions and support. The move resulted in Choo assuming wider responsibilities across the region, including oversight of the new-look channel strategy, effective June 2020.READ MOREIngram Micro Cloud and AWS strike multi-year investment deal

Specifically, the strategy is centred around providing additional go-to-market sales, technical and solution architect resources within the Global Partner Engagement team, which is based in Singapore.

This is alongside an expansion of the distributor’s value-added services portfolio across Asia Pacific – spanning 10 countries – which includes the creation of a Centre of Excellence supporting partners seeking to specialise within cyber security, data centre and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions.

Such focus is backed up by added business intelligence, marketing, small-and-medium sized business (SMB) and emerging technologies support for partners region-wide.

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