Arrow Electronics - Experts & Thought Leaders

Arrow Electronics, Inc. announces the appointment of Deidra C. (Dee) Merriwether to the new position of president and chief operating officer, effective Sept. 8, 2026, reporting to William F. Austen, interim chief executive officer. Merriwether will be responsible for leading Arrow’s global business segments and logistics organisations. With this announcement, the company augments its executive team and strengthens succession planning. “We are delighted that Dee is joining Arrow as president and chief operating officer. Her extensive experience in distribution combined with her successful track record leading commercial, operational, and financial teams make her an ideal leader to join Arrow at this time to support our terrific teams driving profitable growth and value creation for stakeholders,” said Steven H. Gunby, chairman of the Arrow board of directors. Optimised performance results Merriwether brings a robust background in broad-based business management and optimised performance results. Before joining Arrow and since 2021, she served as the senior vice president and chief financial officer of W.W. Grainger, Inc. and prior to that as the senior vice president and president, North American sales and services, and other roles of increasing responsibility since 2013. From 2002 to 2013, she held roles of increasing responsibility in general management and finance at Sears Holdings Corporation, departing as chief operating officer, retail formats, in 2013. She started her career as an engineer and production leader at Eli Lilly and Company and gained valuable accounting and mergers and acquisitions experience at PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited. Corporate responsibility committee “I am thrilled to welcome Dee to Arrow and our executive team. She brings exceptional depth with her more than two decades of substantive distribution, sales channel, operations, and finance experience, with a demonstrated talent for innovation, versatility, leadership, and performance results. Further, she has the qualities we seek in our leaders -- she is humble, approachable, transparent, and driven by purpose and values to deliver results for our suppliers, customers, employees, and investors,” said Austen. Merriwether holds a Master of Business Administration from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business and a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in chemical engineering from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. She currently serves on the board of Weyerhaeuser Company as an independent director and member of the audit committee and governance & corporate responsibility committee.

Global technology solutions provider Arrow Electronics announces it has earned the Frontier Distributor designation within the Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program. The Frontier Distributor designation recognizes distributors that consistently enable channel partner success through scale, readiness and execution. It reflects strong operational maturity, channel partner enablement capabilities and measurable customer impact. Digital distribution platform This achievement reflects Arrow’s role in supporting channel partners and customers with the infrastructure, programs and services required to deliver outcomes using Microsoft technologies. Arrow supports channel partners through ArrowSphere, its digital distribution platform, alongside regional technical, commercial and enablement teams across EMEA and North America. In November 2025, Microsoft named Arrow its 2025 Distribution Partner of the Year, recognizing ArrowSphere AI offerings, including ArrowSphere Assistant. The Frontier Distributor designation further strengthens Arrow’s ability to help channel partners build, deploy and scale Microsoft cloud and AI solutions across multiple markets and industries. Accelerating cloud solutions Sophie Daval, director, hyperscalers, global ArrowSphere at Arrow’s enterprise computing solutions business, said, “Microsoft’s Frontier Distributor designation reflects the investments we continue to make in cloud, AI and technical enablement across our channel ecosystem. Following our recognition as Microsoft’s 2025 Distribution Partner of the Year, this designation further reinforces our ability to help channel partners simplify cloud adoption, support AI deployments and build scalable services around Microsoft technologies.” “The Frontier Distributor designation recognizes leading Cloud Solution Provider distributors, such as Arrow, who help partners accelerate cloud solutions more effectively,” said Alex Zagury, CVP, global channel sales, Microsoft. “This recognition reflects their ability to drive differentiation at scale and deliver meaningful value to small and medium-sized businesses.”

Global technology solutions provider Arrow Electronics has announced a global network of experience centres, fortified to help channel partners define high-growth technology use and augment the skills and resources needed to bridge the gap between opportunity and implementation. The centres, located in Alpharetta, Georgia, United States, and in Stockholm, Sweden, serve as strategic hubs for vendors, channel partners and end customers across Europe and North America and are part of Arrow’s commitment to remain at the forefront of AI, cloud and security advancements. Networking “Our goal is to help organisations better understand how to harness the power of AI and cloud so our customers can securely and confidently use it and put it to work to address real-world challenges,” said Ben Klay, president of Arrow’s enterprise computing solutions business in North America. “By networking our centres globally, we are able to create the same experiences and environments, regardless of location, so our channel partners can immerse themselves and their customers in a solution before investing.” Core areas of support Arrow’s experience centres are designed to enable both vendors and channel partners to better understand the role of high-growth technologies such as AI within IT environments, including machine learning, modeling, data science, and more. Support at the experience centres is focused in three core areas: Hybrid infrastructure — creating and demonstrating multi-vendor hardware and software solutions, infused with vendor-focused capabilities, to meet the demands of organisations seeking secure, on-premise cloud and AI deployments. Cybersecurity, risk and resilience — aiding in the creation of solutions that protect critical systems, data and operations from an increasingly complex threat landscape, reduce risk and drive organisational resilience. Services and consultancy — providing training enablement, guidance and knowledge exchange to help identify potential gaps and opportunities with solution implementation. Adaptable AI use Within the centers, Arrow channel partners can access over 100 pre-built and tested solutions or create custom solutions with support from Arrow engineers and technicians. This helps ensure proven and adaptable AI use cases are suited to each channel partner’s or customer’s business. Arrow channel partners who have used experience centers to demonstrate their solutions have averaged a 90 percent close rate on their proposals. Unlocking the potential of AI “With many organisations still in the early stages of defining their AI strategies, Arrow has made the investment in the environment, technical support and tools needed to help us unlock the potential of AI with a vendor-agnostic approach to maximise innovation and ease of solutions deployment,” said Luiz Cordeiro, chief executive officer for SYSTECH, a global solutions provider and Arrow channel partner. “Our comprehensive solution encompassed compute, storage, networking, data protection and security, and Arrow did an unbelievable job with helping us create a demonstrable solution to meet our customers’ needs.” Arrow’s experience centers support high-growth technology areas including AI, cloud, security and multivendor solutions.