Sinisa Nikolic (Lenovo ISG)
Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG) has named Sinisa Nikolic, former IBM director for hardware systems, industrial market, North America, as its new Asia Pacific director of high performance computing and artificial intelligence (AI).
Nikolic joins after close to 15 years at IBM building high performance computing (HPC) teams, growing sales, revenue and operational efficiencies to drive smarter HPC performance for clients across several industries.
In his new role, Nikolic will work closely with Lenovo’s global HPC team to drive the portfolio across the region.
“As data consumption by individuals and businesses exponentially grows, infrastructure solutions to support these changing needs are simultaneously evolving,” Nikolic said. “The pandemic has accelerated this rapid transformation and increased the appetite for businesses to maximise data insights, be it to better personalise services in retail or conduct large-scale research in medicine.
“I am thrilled to be joining an industry leader like Lenovo ISG at such an exciting time in their own evolution, and helping businesses unlock new opportunities within HPC and AI,” he added.
At the same time, the infrastructure hardware vendor has tasked former Nutanix Asia Pacific and Japan OEM sales director Kumar Mitra with ‘synergising the company’s performance’ across its Central Asia Pacific (CAP) region as its new director and regional general manager for the territory.
Credit: Lenovo ISG Lenovo’s CAP region comprises eight key Asian markets, six of them major players in the ASEAN region, with Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines included in Mitra’s remit.
“As businesses across Central Asia Pacific aim to accelerate their growth in 2021, I am eager to lead the team at such an opportune time," Mitra said. “Over the past year, Lenovo ISG has demonstrated its ability to deliver despite challenges.
“As I take the reins in this dynamic region in Asia, I hope to build on the successes we have had and help Lenovo ISG deliver cutting-edge infrastructure solutions for the ‘datacentered’,” he added.
Mitra comes to the role after close to six years at Nutanix, which he joined in 2015 from Quest Software, where he held the role of APJ sales director. He has also occupied the roles of India managing director and general manager for Blue Coat Systems, which was acquired by Symantec in 2016, and general manager and managing director for Sybase in India.
All up, Mitra has over 26 years of experience in sales and tech optimisation, bringing with him a strong understanding of the needs and nuances of markets across Asia Pacific, according to Lenovo ISG.
Lenovo ISG, formerly known as Lenovo Data Centre Group (DCG), said Mitra’s new role will see him focus on driving growth and customer confidence by “synergising the company’s performance across the CAP region".
Both Nikolic and Mitra will be based in Singapore and will report to Sumir Bhatia, president of Lenovo ISG, Asia Pacific.
“Our organisation has revitalised under a new banner as Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group to demonstrate that our business reach and impact goes far beyond the data centre,” Bhatia said. “We are excited for this next stage in our evolution and warmly welcome Sinisa and Kumar who will no doubt help us in our mission to continue delivering smarter technology for all.”
The new appointments come just weeks after Lenovo changed up its Asia Pacific leadership ranks, with the vendor's Asia Pacific channel general manager for small and medium business (SMB), Roy Ng, taking on responsibility for the channel business across all segments of the vendor’s PC and smart devices business (PCSD) in the region.
At the same time, Prashanth Mani, Motorola Mobility managing director for India and surrounding countries, took on the leadership of Lenovo’s mobile business group across Asia Pacific.
The vendor’s Asia Pacific general manager for its SMB segment, Takeshi Okuma, took up the role of CEO for Fujitsu Client Computing Limited (FCCL), a joint venture established in 2017 by Lenovo and Fujitsu, with the Development Bank of Japan.
Former e-commerce director at Lenovo Japan Tony Lee, in turn, succeeded Okuma as executive director of Lenovo’s SMB segment in Asia Pacific, and is responsible for driving growth across Lenovo's expanding portfolio from PCs, workstations, tablets, smart devices to services and solutions.
Meanwhile, executive director and general management of Lenovo's PC and smart devices business in the corporate and public sectors across Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea, Eddie Ang, was appointed as executive director and head of the relationship segment, Asia Pacific.
