Russo Shakes Up AlcaLu's Top Team

Two of Alcatel-Lucent's senior management team are leaving, including the CFO, and there could be more

October 31, 2007

3 Min Read
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Two of the senior management team at Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) are leaving as part of the vendor's latest round of restructuring.

The company today announced a number of measures to help cut costs and make the company more competitive, including a further headcount reduction of 4,000 staff and the creation of a seven-member management committee that will report to CEO Pat Russo. (See AlcaLu Cuts 4,000 More Jobs.)

As part of the changes, the vendor's CFO, Jean-Pascal Beaufret, is being replaced, and Christian Reinaudo, who was head of the Europe and North region, is leaving the company after 29 years of service. Reinaudo was previously president of Alcatel’s optical activities and its submarine unit.

The new CFO is Hubert de Pesquidoux, currently the head of AlcaLu's Enterprise Group. The vendor says de Pesquidoux has previous experience of financial management, having been the CFO of Alcatel North America and Corporate Treasurer of Alcatel for four years.

Beaufret is set to stay with the company for an unspecified time to hand over to de Pesquidoux. A new head of Enterprise will be announced at a later date.

Beaufret and Reinaudo are not the first senior AlcaLu executives to depart in recent months. (See Quigley, D'Amelio out at AlcaLu.)

One industry source with close ties to AlcaLu says Reinaudo's departure is not a big surprise, but that Beaufret's departure will be "more of a concern" as he was well regarded within the company and seen as the person who, as CFO, helped to keep Alcatel "afloat during the darkest years of the market downturn."

Alcalu's gang of seven (or eight)
De Pesquidoux is one of the new seven-strong team created to try and simplify AlcaLu's management structure and help speed up the company's decision-making process. The seven, who report directly to Russo, are:

  • Hubert de Pesquidoux, CFO

  • Etienne Fouques, who oversees Research, CTO, Strategy, and Corporate Marketing

  • Cindy Christy, who heads up the Americas region

  • Frederic Rose, who heads up Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia/Pacific

  • Michel Rahier, who leads the Carrier Business Group

  • John Meyer, who leads the Services Group

  • Claire Pedini, head of Corporate Human Resources and Communications

In addition, Janet Davidson, who is AlcaLu's Chief Compliance Officer and head of Integration and IT, will serve as secretary for the committee. So it's a gang of eight, really.

So what of the other folk who were in the vendor's previous senior management team?

The company says that Olivier Baujard is still the CTO, John Giere is still Chief Marketing Officer, and Helle Kristoffersen is still VP of Corporate Strategy. All three report to Fouques.

But AlcaLu has not yet announced who will report to Michel Rahier in the Carrier Business group, and the company was unable to comment on individuals such as Marc Rouanne, currently head of the Convergence unit in the Carrier group, and Mary Chan, currently president of wireless infrastructure.

Light Reading understands that the Carrier group is being restructured and instead of being split into three units -- fixed, wireless, and convergence -- it will be divided into seven, as yet unknown, units. AlcaLu could not confirm that plan as this article was published.

— Ray Le Maistre, International News Editor, Light Reading

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