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Former Acer CEO heads to Lenovo as a consultant

Lanci knows how to handle big Germans

Former Acer CEO Gianfranco Lanci is joining Lenovo as a consultant to help steer the firm's consumer biz worldwide, particularly the integration of recently-acquired German PC maker Medion.

The exec left Acer in March following a disagreement over future direction of the troubled Taiwanese PC maker and has been on a six-month gardening leave, though he was incorrectly linked to a senior role in Samsung.

An EMEA spokeswoman at Lenovo confirmed to The Reg that Lanci was coming onboard to advise the Chinese corporation on ways to bolster its retail operations.

"I can confirm that Gianfranco Lanci has a contract as a consultant with Lenovo with the objective to leverage and share his experience in the consumer space to help Lenovo build a consumer business," she said.

In a statement sent to El Reg, Lenovo CEO Yuanqing Yang took what could be a thinly veiled swipe at rival HP, which may well quit the PC business.

"As a consultant to us, Gianfranco brings years of expertise and insights to Lenovo that will help us strengthen our growing global consumer business. Talented people are joining Lenovo because of our commitment to the PC industry," he said.

Lenovo was a late entrant to the consumer market in Europe because it was fighting fires elsewhere in the business after buying IBM's PC division, and did not establish relationships with the major retailers.

Of course this is history now, though Lenovo still feels it needs to lean on Lanci's experience.

Flogging retail boxes was one of Acer's fortes, which helped it rise to the top of the notebook market across Europe, that is until consumers fell out of love with its low-cost machines after discovering Apple's mercurial fondleslab.

Lanci has the supply chain relationships to help Lenovo with its recently stated goal of becoming the second-largest PC player in the world this year. This should be boosted by the acquisition of German PC giant Medion. ®

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