New Huawei Ireland CEO, Tony Yangxu. Image: Huawei Ireland
Huawei Ireland has a new CEO with the appointment of Huawei UK’s former sales director, Tony Yangxu.
A new face will lead Huawei’s Irish operations, including overseeing its roll-out of 5G infrastructure in the country. The company announced today (15 September) that Tony Yangxu has been appointed CEO.
Until recently, Yangxu was the sales director for Huawei UK. He joined the telecoms giant in 2006 and has held several senior positions, with responsibility for business strategy development, sales revenue and contributing to the growth of Huawei.
“I am honoured to have the opportunity to lead the Huawei Ireland team and help contribute to Ireland’s recovery at such a challenging time,” Yangxu said of his appointment.
“Huawei Ireland is fully committed to playing an active part in helping to create world-leading digital infrastructure throughout the country, including broadband and 5G, which will be essential for Ireland’s future economic success.”
Role in Ireland
Yangxu will replace Jijay Shen, who stepped into the role of Huawei Ireland boss in June 2016 and who was previously an account sales director and solution sales director for Huawei Germany. In a recent article for Siliconrepublic.com, Shen spoke of the importance of 5G in the coming months and years.
“5G will play a central role in improving business performance through faster data transmission and more reliable connectivity and this will present more new opportunities for Irish businesses in the post-Covid recovery,” he said.
Huawei is set to play a role in the roll-out of 5G in Ireland – unlike in the UK – with Eir among the companies that will be using the Chinese firm’s equipment in their next-generation networks. Speaking to CNBC last week, Eir CEO Carolan Lennon confirmed that the company will stick with Huawei tech.
Huawei Ireland currently employs 500 directly and indirectly, and works with a number of Irish third-level institutions including Trinity College Dublin, Dublin City University, University of Limerick, University College Dublin and University College Cork.
Last year, the company invested €6m in a research programme at the Lero software research centre aimed at improving the reliability of software applications.
