Geoff Wright (Huawei)
Huawei Australia and New Zealand vice president of channel and commercial Geoff Wright is set to leave the company amid a major restructure.
Huawei moved to bolster its channel capabilities across Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ) through the appointment of Wright as its partner chief in October 2018.
Wright was tasked with building out the vendor’s ecosystem of partners locally, which spans value-added resellers, system integrators and service providers.
“Huawei Enterprise’s aim is to ultimately sell 100 per cent via our channel partners,” said Colin Hu, enterprise managing director at Huawei A/NZ, at the time. “Our channel is critical to support our substantial business growth targets of more than 50 per cent year-on-year for 2019/20.”
Wright came to the role just months after vacating his role as director of channels across Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ) at Dell EMC, a role he held for over three years.
Wright's departure is likely to occur within the next month or so, as he helps Huawei restructure its local business following headwinds arising from security concerns about the Chinese vendor’s involvement in the rollout of 5G networks in the local market.
According to Wright, the restructure is likely to see Huawei ramp up its reliance on the local channel, which makes sense given that the company is understood to be reducing its headcount in the local market as it works find a way forward in the absence of big ticket 5G network engagements.
“This is part of a broader change in the direction of Huawei to make us more successful in the Australian market, we’re not giving up on Australia; we see this as a growth country and I’m still here in a transition mode and I’ll be working with the partners up until I leave," Wright told ARN.
