In April 2009, Laurent Abadie was appointed CEO and Chairman of Panasonic Europe, becoming the first non-Japanese head of Europe to take up this post in the groups history. Laurent began his career at Sony France in 1981, joining the marketing department in 1988, and moving into the corporate management division in 1991. In 1997, he joined the management team of Sonys consumer products division, and two years later became the managing director and European sales manager covering mass distribution. He left Sony in 2003 to become a consultant at Integrated Device Technology, Inc. Laurent first joined the organisation in 2004 as deputy managing director for Panasonic France, moving up to managing director in the following year.
Since his appointment as CEO of Panasonic Europe, Laurent has implemented a major transformation in Panasonics European organisation to ensure all business areas create customer value. This has included the companys diversification into new markets in Europe, such as major domestic appliances and energy solutions. In April 2008, Laurent became a member of the Panasonic Corporation management as executive officer and on 1 April 2011, he was promoted to managing executive officer within the Panasonic Corporation.
While Laurent has worked with Panasonic to diversify the companys operations and footprint, this growth has only been possible with the assistance of external suppliers and partners. We work closely with external partners, but at the same time, we invest more in R&D and software development. We are moving from a pure hardware manufacturer centric, which used to be our core business, to a more solution type of company, which includes new competencies around software development. In terms of suppliers, its mainly hardware suppliers. We tend to delegate more and more, and ask more from external suppliers