Andy Rhodes

Andy Rhodes has run Lenovo’s UK and Ireland business since April 2026. Lenovo announced him as general manager for the region on 6 February 2026, succeeding Adrian Criddle, who had led it for two years. Rhodes came from HP, where he was division president and general manager of its video conferencing and accessories division and led its global commercial PC business. Before that he spent more than a decade at Dell in data center, workstation and industrial internet of things roles. He told IT Channel Oxygen he took an 18-month sabbatical before joining Lenovo.

Early and open on pricing

Rhodes arrived in the middle of a memory shortage that has pushed up hardware prices across the industry. He told IT Channel Oxygen in August that Lenovo “took the price increase to the partners and our customers probably earlier than anyone else”, and that it was holding quote validity at 30 days. He does not expect costs to fall soon: “I think we’re going to be in an inflationary environment probably over the next couple of years still,” he said, adding that Lenovo would keep adjusting its terms with the channel.

He is just as blunt about customers who delay upgrades. When a customer says it cannot afford to move its fleet to AI PCs, his reaction, he said, is “you’ll get left behind”. His answer is for customers to use leasing, asset recovery and second-user IT rather than simply sweating older machines.

From PC brand to data center supplier

The group numbers give him room to push. In the three months to 30 June 2026, Lenovo’s revenue rose 43% to $26.9bn (£20.1bn), and its Infrastructure Solutions Group, which sells servers and storage, nearly doubled revenue, up 98%, to $8.5bn at a record 9.1% operating margin, according to the company.

Rhodes wants UK partners to follow that shift. “We’re well known as the number-one PC brand in the world; we’re less well known as that datacentre player,” he said. Lenovo needs to “put more of the go-to-market in place” so that partners who built their businesses on its PCs can cross-sell its data center portfolio, he added. Lenovo used its role as technology partner to the 2026 FIFA World Cup to make the same case, flying “a lot” of UK and Ireland partners out to see the tournament’s systems, IT Channel Oxygen reported.

Why it matters to the channel

Lenovo’s price moves and quote terms feed straight into how UK device partners price deals and hold stock, and Rhodes has told them to plan for up to two more years of inflation. The data center go-to-market he describes would give Lenovo’s PC partners a second line to sell.

Rhodes has been open with partners about costs and clear about where he wants them to go next: from Lenovo’s PCs into its servers and storage, a business that nearly doubled its revenue in the latest quarter.