Westcon-Comstor has announced the appointment of Tidiane Lo in the capacity of director of Westcon Sub-Saharan Africa.
The announcement follows a strategic realignment of the company’s African business and will provide additional leadership to help the organisation realise its goal to be the premier value-added distributor on the continent.
Lo formally filled the position from 1 April 2018 and reports into Rakesh Parbhoo, CEO of Westcon-Comstor sub-Saharan Africa. He will have oversight of the Westcon business practices that extend its Mobility, Security, Software, Unified Communications and Collaboration portfolios as well as its strategic Cloud and Services capabilities.
“Africa is a key region for Westcon, but it is not a region that one can manage at arm’s length,” says Parbhoo. “I believe that with the appointment of Tidiane, we have someone who is not only exceptionally knowledgeable and passionate about the continent, but who also understands the dynamics of our geographically dispersed resellers.
“Furthermore, with his knowledge of our business and his roles in leading transformation in his previous positions, he is ideally suited to help us consolidate and mobilise our teams to better service our customers.”
Hailing from Senegal, Lo joined Westcon in 2011 at its Dakar office, where he held the position of Regional Sales Manager for French Africa including Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. In 2015 he was promoted into the role of Sales Excellence Lead and Area Implementation Lead for Africa, based in both Dakar and Nairobi. Prior to joining Westcon he worked for the distribution company Tech/Data Azlan (from 2005 – 2011), where he had oversight of its sales operations in the French market, including the management of its strategic resellers.
In his new role he will not only have oversight of the day-to-day sales, customer service, partner relationships and services operations, but will also lead the charge to unlock further potential for new and existing vendors within the Westcon solutions portfolio. This will include a particular emphasis on security, unified communications and collaboration as well as mobility, all of which he has identified as key growth areas on the continent.
“As someone who is passionate about distribution and sales I am eager to embrace my new role and work with the management team to help consolidate the business in Sub-Saharan Africa,” says Lo. “Part of this progression in the business will be to explore synergies between vendors and partners, identify new market opportunities and continue to offer a best in class experience to our customers and vendors.
“Africa sits at the precipice of a technology revolution, where the cloud and digital transformation are at the forefront of how we as a continent want to work. As a distributor we need to be ready to provide our partners and their customers with technologies and services that act as an enabler for this.”