O'Neill to run Siemens, Gores Group venture
By
Nick Wakeman
James O'Neill will run a new joint venture created by Siemens AG and the Gores Group.
James O'Neill, former president of Northrop Grumman Corp.'s information technology business, will lead a new joint venture created by Siemens AG and the Gores Group, a private equity group.
O'Neill most recently was chief executive officer of CompuDyne, a company owned by Gores.
The joint venture, which will keep the Siemens Enterprise Communications name, combines the current Siemens Enterprise Communications business with two Gores companies, Enterasys, a network equipment and security provider, and SER Solutions, a call center software company. Gores owns 51 percent of the joint venture with Siemens holding the rest.
The new venture has about 14,000 employees and will offer enterprise communications and data networking products, solutions and services, the company said in a statement.
O'Neill was picked as CEO because of his international business experience as well as his background in networking, electronics and systems integration, said Mark Stone, chairman of Siemens Enterprise Communications and managing director for The Gores Group.
O'Neill led Northrop Grumman IT from 2004 to 2008. It had more than $4.5 billion in annual revenue. He also served as president of the government solutions business unit at Lucent Technologies, and vice president and general manager of Digital Equipment Corp.'s federal government region, where he managed Digital's government business worldwide.