Hyde quits NEC

news NEC Australia managing director Alan Hyde has unexpectedly resigned from his role leading the local operations of the Japanese company, with the chief planning officer of NEC Australia, Tetsuro Akagi, to take his place.

Hyde (see his LinkedIn profile here) was the first non-Japanese executive to lead the company in Australia, according to NEC. He was appointed in October 2010 after a career at SAP and PeopleSoft and oversaw a period of rapid expansion and corporate change for NEC in Australia, during which it bought the Technology Solutions arm of locally listed company CSG for up to $260 million and sold its Nextep broadband division to AAPT.

Akagi’s appointment was flagged in a media release issued yesterday, which did not mention Hyde. A NEC spokesperson said NEC did not terminate Hyde’s contract, and that the executive had resigned to take up another position in Australia’s IT industry.

Akagi is a 30 year NEC veteran with “vast international experience” in sales, business planning and management functions gained in America, Hong Kong and China, according to NEC’s statement. For the past two years,. Akagi has been Chief Planning Officer at NEC Australia, responsible for legal, risk and compliance, corporate IT, several specialised solutions business areas as well as strategic liaison with NEC Asia Pacific and NEC Corporation.

Akagi said: “I am honoured to be appointed as Managing Director of NEC Australia and am looking forward to the challenge of leading the company through its next phase of growth. Over the last three years we have evolved the business from a solely communications business into an integrated, multi-vendor ICT solutions and services organisation. In particular, the acquisition of CSG’s Technology Solutions group in 2012 has allowed us to develop many new, valued added solutions and services for our customers and to develop a large and growing pipeline of opportunities.”

“My vision is to make NEC Australia the leading group in NEC globally, with the most recognised portfolio of leading edge ICT solutions and services. I am confident that we can achieve that goal in the mid-term by leveraging the enthusiasm and commitment of our talented pool of employees.”

Regional head Toshiya Matsuki, Chief Executive Officer of NEC Asia Pacific (Regional HQ), commented: “Mr. Akagi’s appointment reflects the importance of the Australian marketplace to NEC and the new business model that is evolving there. We are very pleased with the progress made and look forward to further deepening our relationships with customers and partners with Mr. Akagi’s appointment.”

opinion/analysis
Hmm. To be honest, I don’t think we’ve gotten the full story here — by far. Alan Hyde was a high-profile appointment for NEC Australia and was leading a very aggressive strategy of expansion and corporate renewal for the company. He is a dynamic individual who wasn’t going to settle for only mild growth at the company. It had been my impression that Hyde wanted to build NEC Australia into an IT services giant which could stick it to the big guns of the industry … IBM, HP, etc. NEC’s bosses in Japan clearly trusted him with this strategy as they approved the $260 million buyout of CSG’s IT services group and the long-necessary sale of Nextep.

For NEC to merely issue a media release without mentioning Hyde’s departure smells a little bad. I would be very interested to hear from anyone behind the scenes at NEC about what’s really going on here (see Delimiter’s anonymous tips form here). What new position has Hyde taken, for example? What was happening internally at NEC politically, and with the relationship with Japan? Will NEC Australia’s strategy now become more conservative? All very interesting questions. Let’s hope we get some answers soon.

Image credit: NEC