“In all professional relationships there comes a time when you feel you have to take a break, especially in an industry as competitive as IT,” Mihai Tudor told ZF in an interview. “I have reached such a moment.” He did not wish to provide more details on the reasons that led him to put an end to his career at IBM.
Tudor, one of the best known managers in the local IT industry, worked for IBM for 18 years, during which time he held various management positions. He was sales manager of IBM Romania between 1998 and 2001, he handled regional business operations for Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa at IBM’s Vienna headquarters between 2001 and 2006, and from 2006 to 2010 he was general manager of IBM Romania. In the four years during which he led IBM Romania the US company extended its local business significantly, including by opening service centers in several cities across Romania, which hired hundreds of people.
A year ago, in another interview to ZF, Tudor said his most important achievement as CEO of IBM Romania had been the “position he had earned Romania on IBM’s geographical map,” through the investment projects that the Romanian subsidiary won as part of an internal competition with IBM subsidiaries in other countries. IBM is in talks with the Romanian authorities to conduct new investment projects that could create several hundred jobs, according to statements from former communications minister Valerian Vreme.
“18 years is a long time in anyone’s professional career, it’s been a very rewarding period and I have practically advanced within IBM from system engineer to regional general manager and was able to contribute to the company’s regional growth and to Romania’s presence in this picture,” Mihai Tudor says.
IBM’s business in Romania is worth over EUR50 million per year, while at regional level it amounts to hundreds of millions of euros.
Asked if he would necessarily return to an IT company, Tudor said no, without providing further details.
“The IT market is a reflection of the wider Romanian society -divided and unable to accept diversity as an engine for growth and of evolution. The profitability of state investments in IT technology is low because of the lack of competence in the implementation of IT projects. This concerns both Romanian and international players,” Tudor said.
Asked which sectors he expects to generate strong growth for IT solutions, Tudor said this “can only come from the SME area and from sectors of strategic importance for Romania: exports of services based on knowledge (as high as possible in the value chain), energy and transport, and making the state apparatus more efficient through IT consolidation.”
(English version by Daniela Stoican)