Alvarion has tapped former Amdocs executive Eran Gorev to replace current President and CEO Tzvika Friedman, who announced in July that he would be departing after serving for four years.
Gorev brings 20 years of sales and high-tech experience to Alvarion at a time when the WiMAX vendor is struggling to recover from a stretch of sluggish infrastructure spending.
The company's losses widened to $4 million in its second quarter, from just $852,000 last year. Shipments of the company's WiMAX equipment fell to $39.2 million, an 11 percent decline from last year.
The company believes that long-term demand for WiMAX will remain strong, but short-term sales cycles remain long and it is difficult to predict how rapidly projects will move forward. Alvarion recently landed a $100 million contract to provide equipment to rural WiMAX provider Open Range Communications, but sales from that project will not begin to affect earnings until the second half of 2010.
In Gorev's last position as president and CEO of NICE Systems, sales tripled and profits grew at an even faster rate. Prior to his installment at NICE Systems, Gorev headed the major clients division for Amdocs North America segment, where he dealt with Tier 1 operators and media companies.
"Eran's experience with some of the world's leading carriers as well as his proven capabilities with large project execution will be important assets," Friedman said in a statement. "His background brings both continuity and a fresh perspective to the company."
The transition from Friedman to Gorev will take place during the fourth quarter, with Gorev assuming full day-to-day responsibility in December.
This week has had a number of executive shake ups. On Monday, Clearwire announced that Chief Strategy Officer Scott Richardson and CFO David Sach would be leaving the company. Sach had been at Clearwire for less than a year. The company gave no reason for the departure of the two executives, saying only that Sach was leaving to "pursue new opportunities."
Nokia Siemens Networks announced the appointment Rajeev Suri as its new CEO yesterday. Suri replaces Simon Beresford-Wylie, who joined Nokia in 1998 and helped lead the creation of the Nokia Siemens Networks joint venture.