Applied Materials appoints Joe Flanagan as new senior VP

Applied Materials has appointed Joe Flanagan as new senior vice president of worldwide operations and supply chain. He returns to Applied Materials from Nortel Networks where he served as president of Nortel Business Services.

As the markets Applied Materials serves continue to undergo dramatic changes, the company has taken a number of steps to align processes and increase competitiveness. Adding Flanagan to lead global manufacturing, operations and supply chain will help reinforce Applied's commitment to re-engineering the company. He will be responsible for end-to-end supply chain and operations functions across the company.

Commenting on the appointment during Applied's most recent conference call with financial anlysts, George Davis,  Executive  VP and CFO said, "There is no connection really between our decision to hire an external party and the challenges we are having here. As you know, we are going to be building up our capability in Singapore to strengthen our Pan-Asia supply chain and really the recent hire is in connection with that. "

Mike Splinter, chairman and CEO  noted , "Joe brings a tremendous amount of experience in global operations management to Applied.Increasing efficiency and driving continuous improvement is critical to the long-term success of Applied Materials, and Joe's expertise will be invaluable as we work to become more agile and better able to innovate and seize global market share. "

"As Applied concentrates more of its supply chain activities closer to its customers who are primarily in Asia, it is an opportunity to drive increased profitability and sustainability across all its business practices ," commented Flanagan.  " This is a unique opportunity to implement the right systems and processes that will eliminate waste and enable the company to respond more quickly to customers."

Flanagan was named president of Nortel Business Services in 2009. He has held a number of positions at GE prior to joining Applied Materials as manager and business development Europe.