DC Velocity - February 2013

thoughtleaders
BY MITCH MAC DONALD, GROUP EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

Winning the war for talent INTERVIEW WITH GERRY FAY

What separates a global market leader from the also-rans is its people, says Gerry Fay of giant electronics distributor Avnet. That’s why the company is so intent on winning the war for talent.

GERRY FAY HAS A LOT ON HIS PLATE. AS THE CHIEF GLOBAL LOGIStics and operations officer for giant electronics distributor Avnet Inc., his job puts him in charge of an operation that spans the globe with 48 locations and ships 40,000-plus items per day on behalf of the 300 suppliers that make up Avnet’s client base.

While those numbers may tell you something about the scope and scale of the operation, they don’t begin to convey the magnitude of Fay’s overarching challenge: keeping more than 100,000 end customers in 70 countries happy.

Fay may have the ideal background for the job. Upon joining Avnet in 2005, he was named senior vice president of global strategic accounts for Avnet United and created the Avnet Velocity global supply chain practice at Avnet Electronics Marketing. In that role, he led the expansion of a key accounts program designed to provide global support services to Avnet’s top customer base.

He met recently with DC VELOCITY Group Editorial Director Mitch Mac Donald to discuss his career, Avnet’s extensive logistics operations, and the company’s strategy for winning the “war for talent.”

QCould you describe the scale of Avnet’s global logistics operation?

AAvnet is the world’s largest electronic equipment distributor by mar- ket cap. We are in many countries all around the world and finished FY 2012 at $25.7 billion in revenue. We’ve got about 3. 4 million square feet of Avnet-owned warehouse space globally and ship billions of units each year.