THE END OF AN ERA
By Jennifer Lee

When she spoke with CFO Asia back in 1999, Lenovo (then known as Legend
Holdings) CFO Mary Ma stated her ambitions boldly: “In ten years time, we hope to be one of the Fortune Global 500 companies, as well as one of the top 100 high-tech companies in the world.”

Eight years later, Lenovo hasn’t quite cracked the Global 500, but it now ranks as the world’s fourth-biggest PC maker, with annual revenues of US$14.6 bn and a presence in more than 160 countries. Much of that success was due to the efforts of Ma, who announced her retirement in May after 17 years with the company (she will stay on as nonexecutive vice chairman).

Ma engineered the 2004 acquisition of IBM’s personal computer business, a job that involved raising US$1.25 bn for the purchase. She’s also credited with guiding the company’s global expansion and overseeing recent restructuring efforts aimed at improving the earnings of the company’s struggling US division.

The integration of IBM’s PC business took a heavy toll on Lenovo. While sales within China remained strong, the US business languished (it hadn’t been profitable for years), and Lenovo dropped from third to fourth in the global ranks of computer makers. A restructuring saw many veteran IBM executives dropped in favor of several poached from Dell. Another 1,000 were cut from the workforce, with 1,400 more expected to be let go or relocated to lower-cost centers.

The efforts are paying off. For the fiscal year just ended Lenovo posted a profit of US$161m. Indeed, while Ma hasn’t said so, she seems to have chosen her retirement date strategically. The announcement came at the same time as the company’s latest quarterly results, which marked a return to profitability.

Still, her departure came as a surprise to investors. “Mary Ma is the person who put Lenovo on the map, so her departure is a significant loss for the company,” says Kirk Yang, an analyst with Citi Investment Research in Hong Kong. “But from her perspective, her job has been done after Lenovo bought IBM and things are now back on track.” She’ll be replaced by Wong Wai Ming, a Lenovo board member and previously CEO of Roly International Holdings Group of Singapore.