Premier Farnell CEO Awarded O.B.E for Services to the Electronics Industry

Premier Farnell plc's Chief Executive Officer Harriet Green has been awarded an O.B.E in the Queen’s Birthday Honors list for services to the electronics industry.

Harriet’s career in electronics began in 1985 when she joined the Macro Group, and over the last 25 years she has developed extensive business leadership experience within the world-wide technology markets for leading intermediary businesses, including world leader Arrow Electronics, and now at Premier Farnell plc where she is CEO. Her particular expertise has been in driving business transformation and change programmes, building successful strategies and engaging employees globally. Harriet brings a unique perspective to global business gained from living and working on four continents, and her in-depth understanding of the fast-developing markets in Asia has been particularly valuable to her work at Premier Farnell.

Since joining Premier Farnell in 2006, Harriet has led the group through a period of strategic transformation in which it has focused on the high-margin Electronic Design Engineering sector, driven business increasingly via the web and internationalised its customer base while maintaining a strong core business in engineering Maintenance, Repair and Operations. Her innovations include the creation of a dedicated eCommunity for engineers – element14, an industry first, which celebrates its first birthday this month. More than 20% of the group’s growing business now comes from the new and emerging markets, and this proportion is set to rise further in the next phase of the strategy.

Premier Farnell’s industry-leading performance has continued to improve. This week, the group announced that sales in the first three months of the financial year increased by 20 percent, underlying pre-tax profits increased by 71 percent and gross margins increased for the sixth consecutive quarter. The group also set new performance targets for the next phase of its transformation, including a further acceleration of web-based services.

The establishment of close links with small and medium-sized businesses has been integral to Harriet’s international strategy. She is a member of the important UK industry body, the Electronics Leadership Council, which seeks to improve the trading conditions and opportunities for the UK electronics industry by close collaboration between government and industry leaders. Harriet is also a Non-Executive Director for Fortune 200 global technology and manufacturing giant, Emerson, sits on the Peaceworks Board and is a founding member of the One Voice initiative.

Commenting on the award, Sir Peter Gershon, Chairman of Premier Farnell, said “We are delighted that Harriet’s work and significant contribution to the electronics industry has been recognised in this way. Since joining as Chief Executive in 2006, Harriet has successfully led a major global transformation of Premier Farnell. This has enabled the company not only to emerge from the economic downturn in excellent shape for the future, but also to change its whole approach to responsible business as demonstrated by the award earlier this week of Platinum status in the Business in The Community corporate responsibility index.”

Premier Farnell


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