Rory Read

For those of a similar name, see Rory Reid (disambiguation).

Rory Read
Born	(1961-12-13) December 13, 1961 (age 62)[1] Ellenville, New York
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Hartwick College
Title	CEO of Vonage (July 1, 2020)
Spouse	Mary Savoy
Children	4

Rory P. Read is an American business executive. He is the CEO of Vonage, a position he assumed on July 1, 2020.^[2] He previously served as EVP chief operating executive at Dell as well as president and CEO of Virtustream.^[3] He was formerly the chief integration officer at Dell, with responsibility for planning the integration of Dell and EMC.^[4] From August 2011 to October 2014 he served as president and chief executive officer of AMD.^[5] He has also worked for IBM and Lenovo.

Education

Read graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree in information systems from Hartwick College.^[6]

Career

IBM

Read spent 23 years at IBM serving in various global leadership roles.^[7] He worked in IBM's Asia Pacific region as general manager, Business Innovation Services for Asia Pacific.^[8] As managing partner for IBM's Business Consulting Services Industrial Sector, Read led the division through a turnaround that significantly improved gross margins, drove new customer acquisitions and generated double digit revenue growth and operating profitability.^[9] He was vice president of IBM eBusiness Transformation that produced more than $1 billion in company-wide savings and $21 billion in sales.^[10]

Lenovo

Read served as president and chief operating officer of Lenovo Group, Ltd. During Read's five-year tenure at Lenovo he was responsible for driving growth, execution, profitability and performance across a global $16 billion enterprise encompassing over 160 countries.^[11] At the time of Read's departure, Lenovo had just marked the seventh straight quarter as the fastest growing PC maker in the world and had become the world's third largest global PC manufacturer.^[12]

AMD

Read is the former CEO and president of AMD, where he followed Dirk Meyer.^[13] Appointed president and CEO in August, 2011, Read served on the company's board of directors. Rory was followed by Lisa Su.^[14]

At AMD, Read inherited a company that had approximately 95% of its revenue driven by the PC market.^[15][16] Read diversified the portfolio to produce revenue of 50% from five new high growth markets, building over US$2 billion in new businesses.^[17][18] Under Read, AMD lowered costs by over 30% (primarily due to employee layoffs) while restructuring AMD debt, strengthening the balance sheet, and returning to non-GAAP profitability.^[5][19] He was responsible for attempting to implement an ambidextrous X86/ARM architecture and the clean sweep of AMD GPUs or APUs in new game consoles during his tenure (with Nintendo being the exception).^[20][21]

Read also served as an executive advisor for AMD.^[5]

Dell / Virtustream

Read served as the EVP chief operating executive of Dell, and president and CEO of Virtustream, a Dell subsidiary.^[3] Read was formerly the chief integration officer at Dell, with responsibility for planning the integration of Dell and EMC.^[4] He led a cross-functional team which managed the planning of the proposed acquisition. Previously he was chief operating officer and president of worldwide commercial sales for Dell. He was responsible for Dell's global go-to-market initiatives, omni-channel sales planning and enablement.^[22][23]

Vonage

On June 8, 2020, Read was named the next CEO of Vonage, a business cloud communications provider. He assumed the role on July 1, 2020.^[24]

Personal life

Read is married to Mary Savoy-Read, also a graduate of Hartwick College.^[25] As of 2011, the couple had four children.^[1]

References

1. "Rory Read (bio)". The News & Observer. Raleigh, North Carolina. January 18, 2011. p. 6B. Retrieved June 8, 2020 – via newspapers.com.
2. "Vonage appoints Rory Read as CEO". seekingalpha.com. June 8, 2020. Retrieved June 8, 2020.
3. Mark Haranas (May 7, 2018). "Virtustream's CEO And President Are Stepping Down, Rory Read To Take Leadership Role". CRN.
4. Ohnesorge, Lauren K. (21 October 2015). "Former Triangle exec to co-lead Dell-EMC integration". Triangle Business Journal.
5. Don Clark (October 8, 2014). "Advanced Micro Devices CEO Rory Read Steps Down". The Wall Street Journal.
6. "CEO Compensation #435 Rory P Read". Forbes. Retrieved October 25, 2014.
7. Dylan McGrath, EE Times. "Former IBM, Lenovo exec takes the helm at AMD." August 25, 2011. Retrieved August 25, 2011.
8. Ian King (August 25, 2011). "Advanced Micro Names Lenovo's Rory Read Chief After a Seven-Month Search". Bloomberg News.
9. "Executive Profile Rory P. Read". Bloomberg BusinessWeek. October 24, 2014.^{[dead link]}
10. "Rory Read - President and Chief Operating Officer". China Daily. October 12, 2010.
11. Robin Wauters (August 25, 2011). "Lenovo COO Jumps Ship To Become President And CEO At Chip Maker AMD". TechCrunch.
12. "AMD Names Rory P. Read President and CEO". Yahoo Finance. Retrieved 8 April 2013.
13. "Executive Biographies - Rory Read". Amd.com. Retrieved 2013-06-14.
14. "Lisa Su replaces Rory Read" (White paper) (Press release). PCworld.com. Oct 8, 2014. Retrieved 2014-10-10.
15. Agam Shah (October 17, 2013). "AMD reports Q3 profit after reducing reliance on PCs". Computer World.
16. Sean Chandler (July 10, 2014). "AMD May Beat Earnings Again Due To Better PC Shipments". Seeking Alpha.
17. Timothy Prickett Morgan (May 5, 2014). "AMD To Unify X86, ARM Systems With SkyBridge". EnterpriseTech.
18. Tom Genot (November 27, 2013). "AMD: A Positive Turnaround Play". Seeking Alpha.
19. Trefis Team (July 21, 2014). "AMD's Restructuring Initiatives Translate Into Strong Growth In 1H 2014". Forbes.
20. Mark Hachman (May 5, 2014). "AMD announces 'SkyBridge' chips to bring together X86 and ARM". PC World.
21. Timothy Green (January 2, 2014). "AMD's Troubles Will Continue in 2014". The Motley Fool.
22. Jack Clark (March 20, 2015). "Dell Said to Hire Former AMD CEO Rory Read as COO". Bloomberg Business.
23. Brian Gaar (March 23, 2015). "Dell adds ex-AMD chief, former Cisco exec". Austin American-Statesman.
24. "Vonage Appoints Rory Read Chief Executive Officer" (Press release). June 8, 2020. Retrieved June 8, 2020 – via prnewswire.com.
25. "Rory Read '83 – Global Computing Luminary President/CEO Advanced Micro Devices, Inc". Hartwick College. Retrieved October 25, 2014.

Business positions
Preceded by Dirk Meyer	CEO, AMD 2011–2014	Succeeded by Lisa Su