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Warren East: ARM's safe pair of hands
Even though he is only 50 years old, Warren East has been chief executive officer of ARM Holdings plc for 10 years and 5 months. That's just three months short of the time his predecessor, Sir Robin Saxby, held the post.
Does that mean that East is about to relinquish his position at the world's leading licensor of processor and related intellectual property? With ARM riding high on increasing sales and profits, why would he? There is no sign that East is bored with his job or that ARM's board of directors and shareholders would be prepared to let him go.
East is a very different character from the affable, enthusiastic Saxby, who spent a decade successfully selling the idea of ARM to anyone who would listen. East is quieter, more thoughtful, but as intellectually sharp as his Oxford University engineering background would suggest.
At the same time, he is a person motivated by business as much as by engineering. His have been the hands that have taken ARM to the next level.
East has presided over a corporate mission to make ARM the digital architecture that is in everything. Design wins in smartphones and tablet computers in particular mean that ARM is now the focus of an ecosystem that competes with Intel Corp., the world's largest chip company.
One could describe both East and ARM thus: British reserve spiced with renaissance-style intellect and creativity. But that British reserve also seems to reflect a certain distance from short-term financial pressures.
There is a clear sense that East and ARM are working with a long-term plan and are not overly concerned with meeting financial targets in the next quarter. So far, favorable financial results have been the natural outcome of doing what the company's CEO and workforce are really interested in: good engineering and making a difference in the world. This also may explain why ARM has never pushed the royalty rates or initial license fees it has sought to extract from licensees.
The result is that ARM is a debt-free, highly profitable, publicly owned company that, in terms of influence, punches way above the weight its relatively modest annual sales—about $770 million in 2011—would appear to command. Nonetheless, East has shown himself prepared to make difficult decisions, engaging in reorganizations and cutting some jobs as the global economy headed toward economic slowdown in 2008.
In its March 28, 2011, edition, Barron's put East among the top-30 CEOs in the world. Since then, East has done nothing to tarnish his reputation.
"Every problem is an opportunity, recessions are no different and fortune favors the brave—though not the foolhardy," East told a gathering of venture capitalists and startups in May 2008. He added, "We should invest through the cycles, sharpen profit and loss, and build in resilience through balance and choice of markets, regions, products and organizational design. There is opportunity out there."
East has guided ARM forward steadily for a decade. Progress in a difficult 2011 make him a candidate for executive of the year.
-- Peter Clarke
Even though he is only 50 years old, Warren East has been chief executive officer of ARM Holdings plc for 10 years and 5 months. That's just three months short of the time his predecessor, Sir Robin Saxby, held the post.
Does that mean that East is about to relinquish his position at the world's leading licensor of processor and related intellectual property? With ARM riding high on increasing sales and profits, why would he? There is no sign that East is bored with his job or that ARM's board of directors and shareholders would be prepared to let him go.
East is a very different character from the affable, enthusiastic Saxby, who spent a decade successfully selling the idea of ARM to anyone who would listen. East is quieter, more thoughtful, but as intellectually sharp as his Oxford University engineering background would suggest.
At the same time, he is a person motivated by business as much as by engineering. His have been the hands that have taken ARM to the next level.
East has presided over a corporate mission to make ARM the digital architecture that is in everything. Design wins in smartphones and tablet computers in particular mean that ARM is now the focus of an ecosystem that competes with Intel Corp., the world's largest chip company.
One could describe both East and ARM thus: British reserve spiced with renaissance-style intellect and creativity. But that British reserve also seems to reflect a certain distance from short-term financial pressures.
There is a clear sense that East and ARM are working with a long-term plan and are not overly concerned with meeting financial targets in the next quarter. So far, favorable financial results have been the natural outcome of doing what the company's CEO and workforce are really interested in: good engineering and making a difference in the world. This also may explain why ARM has never pushed the royalty rates or initial license fees it has sought to extract from licensees.
The result is that ARM is a debt-free, highly profitable, publicly owned company that, in terms of influence, punches way above the weight its relatively modest annual sales—about $770 million in 2011—would appear to command. Nonetheless, East has shown himself prepared to make difficult decisions, engaging in reorganizations and cutting some jobs as the global economy headed toward economic slowdown in 2008.
In its March 28, 2011, edition, Barron's put East among the top-30 CEOs in the world. Since then, East has done nothing to tarnish his reputation.
"Every problem is an opportunity, recessions are no different and fortune favors the brave—though not the foolhardy," East told a gathering of venture capitalists and startups in May 2008. He added, "We should invest through the cycles, sharpen profit and loss, and build in resilience through balance and choice of markets, regions, products and organizational design. There is opportunity out there."
East has guided ARM forward steadily for a decade. Progress in a difficult 2011 make him a candidate for executive of the year.
-- Peter Clarke
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Luis Sanchez
3/20/2012 10:15 PM EDT
I like to read about the persons behind the companies and how they influence their success.
Many times the difficult and negative events shake things up to either improve them or remove the weak. "When the going gets tough, the tough get going". That is what happened with Renesas and Cadence. And really impressive that move of cutting paychecks to survive in the case of Juki Automation Systems. An the winner is... ?
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junko.yoshida
3/21/2012 9:56 AM EDT
You're right. You should do more stories about what's behind all the news -- especially when it comes to hard decisions these top executives need to make.
As for the winner of the Executive of the Year, stay tuned. It will be announced next Tuesday evening in San Jose, Calif.
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elctrnx_lyf
3/21/2012 2:12 AM EDT
My choice would be the chief of Juki.
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dylan.mcgrath
3/22/2012 1:19 PM EDT
Any one of this executives would make for a deserving winner of the award. But for me, Akao may well be the favorite, simply because of the mess Renesas was left with after the Japan quake. To get the fabs back up and running ahead of schedule required a very impressive company-wide effort, even while Japan as a country was still reeling from the disaster. That takes inspiring leadership.
I also think that the impressive turnaround of Cadence under Lip-Bu Tan deserves a lot of consideration.
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sharps_eng
3/30/2012 12:56 PM EDT
I would think the skill comes from managing the multi-cultural environment of these global businesses, some more so than others, internally but they all have global markets and need to read those correctly to plan and take risks with the future direction of plant and product investments.
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