TORONTO—Nortel Network Ltd. nabbed another General Electric Co. Ltd. executive, naming Joseph Flanagan its new vice president of Order Management.
Nortel said Flanagan will report to another former GE employee, Joel Hackney, who joined Nortel in December as vice president of global supply chain and quality. Flanagan’s priorities will be standardizing Nortel’s business-to-business processes as well as driving efficiencies across systems, Nortel said.
“Joe will play a critical role in simplifying the way we do business with our customers and partners,” said Hackney. “His experience will be a tremendous asset in creating a competitive advantage for our order management process, and in assisting our management team in driving the cultural and business transformation essential to Nortel’s future success.”
Flanagan, a 13-year veteran of GE, will be based at Nortel’s facility in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park near Raleigh, the company said.
The announcement comes as no surprise since Nortel’s chief executive officer, Mike Zafirovski, has spoken publicly about his intentions to overhaul the company’s supply chain and has recruited several executives from his former posts at both GE and Motorola Inc. to do so.
In other Nortel news, the company said it has completed its acquisition of Tasman Networks, a company that makes enterprise routers. Nortel paid $99.5 million in cash for Tasman and said it plans to market its products with Nortel’s secure router line.
Nortel’s stock remained unchanged after the news, trading down just one cent at $2.94 per share.
