T-birds on the Move

Thunderbird Alumni

T-birds on the Move

Revathi Advaithi ’05 CEO, FLEX Flex, the Sketch-to-Scale® solutions provider that designs and builds intelligent products globally announced that Revathi Advaithi, has been named Chief Executive Officer and appointed to the Board of Directors at Flex.

Prior to Flex, Ms. Advaithi was president and chief operating officer for the Electrical Sector business for Eaton, a power management company with over $20 billion in sales, 102,000 employees and a market capitalization in excess of $33 billion. She also had corporate responsibility for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. Ms. Advaithi managed the largest of Eaton’s businesses, consistently delivering high margins, while reducing earnings volatility. She secured more than $13 billion in sales in 2018, with an array of electrical solutions built on the strengths of full-scale engineering and support services.

Ms. Advaithi has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology and

Science in Pilani, India and an MBA in International Business from the Thun derbird School of Global Management. She currently serves as a non-executive director on the BAE Systems board. She also serves on both the executive committee and board of governors of the National Electrical Manufacturers Association, and on the board of the Women’s Center & Shelter of Greater Pittsburgh. She is a strong advocate for STEM education for girls, women’s issues and diversity in the workplace.

Darrell Edwards ’09 Sr. Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, La-Z-Boy Inc.

La-Z-Boy Incorporated announced the promotion of Darrell Edwards to Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer in May 2019. Edwards joined La-Z-Boy in 2004 and has held positions of increasing responsibility, most recently as Senior Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer. In his expanded role, Edwards will lead the company’s international manufacturing operations, including its joint venture in Thailand. Edwards will continue to report to Kurt L. Darrow, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, of La-Z-Boy Incorporated.

Darrow said, “Darrell has been the chief architect of the La-Z-Boy supply chain strategy. Under his leadership, every facet of our supply chain was realigned. In addition to establishing our Asian-based sourcing team, he played pivotal roles in the move to cellular production at our La-Z-Boy branded manufacturing plants and the formation of our cut-and-sew facility in Mexico. These initiatives, as well as countless others, drove significant effi ciencies and cost savings, in addition to further refining our mass customization and speed-to-market advantage in the industry. It is a natural progression for Darrell to oversee our international operations as we look to drive further optimization across our business.” Edwards serves on the Advisory Board for the Global Supply Chain Institute at the University of Tennessee and the Michigan State University Supply Chain Management Council. In 2018, he was selected as a Rainmaker Award recipient by DC Velocity Magazine. Edwards holds a Doctorate in Business Administration from the Fox School of Business at Temple University in Phil adelphia, an MBA from the University of Tennessee, and a Master’s in Global Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management.

Soraya Hakuziyaremye ’05 Minister of Trade and Industry, Rwanda

In October 2018, Minister Hakuziyaremye was appointed to serve as the Cabinet Minister of Trade and Industry in the Rwandan cabinet. Before her appointment as Minister of Trade and Industry, Soraya was Senior Vice President in Financial Institutions/Financial Markets Risk at ING Bank in London. She also worked in various senior positions at BNP Paribas Group in Paris, Fortis Bank and the Bank of New York Mellon in Brussels. Minister Hakuziyaremye also served as Senior Advisor to Rwanda’s Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2012 to 2014. She was a board member of Ngali Holdings as well as the Brussels-Africa Hub. She brings a rich experience in global banking and advisory as well as international exposure to help local businesses become more competitive.

She holds a postgraduate degree in International Management from the Thunderbird Graduate School of Global Management at Arizona State Univer sity in the United States and a master’s degree in Business Engineering (Ingénieur de Gestion) from the Solvay Business School at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium.

Wolfgang Koester ’91 Chief Evangelist, Kyriba

Wolfgang Koester became the Chief Evangelist at Kyriba, after entering an agreement with his company, FiREapps, the leader in enterprise currency man agement, and Kryiba, the global leader in cloud treasury and finance solutions. The deal creates the most advanced and effective solution for seamlessly managing the entire lifecycle of global foreign exchange (FX) risk.

The agreement will combine two global leaders in cloud treasury and risk management, and further enhance Kyriba’s capabilities for safeguarding its clients against the entire continuum of financial and operational risk, including FX exposures, payments fraud, regulatory risk and more.

The acquisition will create a highly advanced solution for managing global FX risk, including data gathering and con solidation, reporting, analytics, decision support, payments, hedge accounting and more. The combined result is a faster, more efficient way to manage FX exposures than using old school processes involving spreadsheets and manual data gathering across multiple systems.

In a published case study, treasury executives from a multibillion-dollar US consumer goods company shared the results of using Kyriba and FiREapps to better manage their cash, liquidity, payments and currency exposure across 38 ERP systems, 25 different business units and dozens of global banks. The initial result was a dramatic reduction in foreign currency net losses, from $90M (cumulative) in 2013-2015 down to $2M in 2016, and a near doubling of cash visibility to 95 percent.

“The market has been asking for a single-vendor solution to manage the entire breadth of FX currency exposure,” said Wolfgang Koester, founder, and CEO of FiREapps. “By joining with Kyriba, we fill that gap with a highly differenti ated solution, while also aligning with world-class capabilities for cash and risk management, payments, working capital optimization and more.”

Walid Badawi presents his credentials to Amp. Hon Monica Juma CS Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Photo: Andrew Kuria Muigai, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Intl. Trade

Walid Badawi ’92 Kenya Resident Representative, United Nations Development Program (UNDP)

Mr. Walid Badawi assumed the role of UNDP’s Kenya Resident Representative in June 2019 after serving as Country Director in South Africa. He has served UNDP for over 20 years, including previous work leading cross-cultural teams in Indonesia and Egypt as well as in the UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Arab States. Mr. Badawi holds a master’s degree in International Management (Finance and Marketing) from Thunderbird and a BA in Economics from Fordham University.