Acer Appoints ex-TSMC Executive New CEO
Acer announced the appointment of former TSMC sales executive Jason Chen as Corporate President and CEO from January 1st next year, as the a Taiwanese company is struggling to overcome sluggish PC sales.
Taking the important role of leading Acer through its corporate transformation, Chen is currently the senior vice president of Worldwide Sales and Marketing at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). The resolution was approved by Acer?s board of directors today.
Acer Chairman Stan Shih said, "Jason is an excellent manager with extensive management experience and proven execution capability. Acer's search committee met with him on several occasions for in-depth dialogue and exchange of views. We consider him to be the ideal executive to lead our transformation with his wealth of new thinking, international perspective, and willingness to face this challenge. Moreover, he shares the consensus on our strategy and development for Acer's future."
With Chen as Acer's Corporate President and CEO, Shih shall continue to serve as Chairman of Acer and Chairman of the Transformation Committee. In addition, Chen will become a member of the committee and work together to review the change initiatives, and enhance communication and processes between Acer's board and the management team.
Before joining Acer, Chen served at TSMC from 2005 as the vice president of TSMC Corporate Development. Since 2008 he has served as senior vice president of Worldwide Sales and Marketing.
From 1991 to 2005 Chen worked at Intel for 14 years in a variety of sales and marketing positions in growing capacity. Before joining Intel, Chen worked at IBM Taiwan from 1988 to 1991.
Acer has seen its fortunes wane after failing to make inroads into the mobile market, as tablets and smartphones walloped global PC sales. Last month, it reported a quarterly loss of T$13.12 billion ($446 million) for the June-September period, which prompted then-CEO J.T. Wang to resign and the company to announce a reduction in its workforce.
Last week, Acer announced plans to combine its strength and scale in PCs with the foundations and core competence in cloud technology, to become a hardware plus software and services company.
Acer Chairman Stan Shih said, "Jason is an excellent manager with extensive management experience and proven execution capability. Acer's search committee met with him on several occasions for in-depth dialogue and exchange of views. We consider him to be the ideal executive to lead our transformation with his wealth of new thinking, international perspective, and willingness to face this challenge. Moreover, he shares the consensus on our strategy and development for Acer's future."
With Chen as Acer's Corporate President and CEO, Shih shall continue to serve as Chairman of Acer and Chairman of the Transformation Committee. In addition, Chen will become a member of the committee and work together to review the change initiatives, and enhance communication and processes between Acer's board and the management team.
Before joining Acer, Chen served at TSMC from 2005 as the vice president of TSMC Corporate Development. Since 2008 he has served as senior vice president of Worldwide Sales and Marketing.
From 1991 to 2005 Chen worked at Intel for 14 years in a variety of sales and marketing positions in growing capacity. Before joining Intel, Chen worked at IBM Taiwan from 1988 to 1991.
Acer has seen its fortunes wane after failing to make inroads into the mobile market, as tablets and smartphones walloped global PC sales. Last month, it reported a quarterly loss of T$13.12 billion ($446 million) for the June-September period, which prompted then-CEO J.T. Wang to resign and the company to announce a reduction in its workforce.
Last week, Acer announced plans to combine its strength and scale in PCs with the foundations and core competence in cloud technology, to become a hardware plus software and services company.
