Tepedino Departs Avnet, Cuen Named New President

The announcement was made in an internal memo at the Phoenix-based distributor sent Monday by Rick Hamada, senior vice president of Avnet and president of Avnet Technology Solutions.

Tepedino was a 21-year employee at Avnet and was sharing responsibilities—and the same title—with Fred Cuen since last summer. Cuen now becomes solely responsible for the $3.5 billion region. For several months, some channel observers had speculated that Cuen&'s ascension—he had been leading Avnet&'s IBM business unit—meant that Tepedino was on the way out.

Avnet introduced Cuen as its new president to its advisory council of solution providers in Phoenix, said Mark Graham, general manager of Network Storage, an Indianapolis-based solution provider.

“Avnet&'s had a lot of success. Some of it attributed to [Tepedino] obviously. I think [Cuen] will step in and continue to do a good job for them,” Graham said.

The memo did not provide a reason for Tepedino&'s departure other than to say he opted to pursue his next opportunity outside the company, said Eileen Gibson, vice president of marketing for the HP business unit of Avnet Partner Solutions.

Tepedino and Cuen could not be immediately reached for comment. Avnet announced a regionalization plan for its business units last May. Once that new regional structure developed, the plan always was to have one president of the region, Gibson said.

She dismissed the notion that Cuen and Tepedino had been competing for one position for the last six months.

“They are both great. Rick decided to bring it under one person, Fred. Steve is extremely talented, I&'m sure he will find himself in great demand,” she said. “Fred&'s title remains the same. He has no more responsibilities today than he did yesterday. He just now has no one to share it.”