Avnet Chief Technology Officer Bill Chapman Honored by CIO Magazine; Receives First 'CIO Ones to Watch' Award.

PHOENIX -- Bill Chapman, senior vice president and chief technology officer of Avnet Inc. (NYSE:AVT), has been selected by CIO magazine as a recipient of its first formal recognition of standout, up-and-coming leaders in the information technology (IT) arena. The "CIO Ones to Watch" award was created by the magazine to feature rising stars and future chief information officer (CIO) candidates. Judging was conducted by CIOs and nominees were required to be sponsored by their current CIO.

Chapman's experience and accomplishments over nearly three decades have prepared him well to lead the alignment of IT resources with strategic business initiatives, according to Avnet's CIO Ed Kamins, to whom Chapman reports. "Bill has an unusual combination of talents combined with humility, strong values and an open mind," Kamins said. "He is focused on improving his own effectiveness as well as Avnet's. Moreover, his leadership continues to produce a highly motivated, skilled and business-focused team of IT professionals."

Among his contributions, Chapman and his team developed an IT governance process. The process includes a return-on-investment calculator, which factors IT costs and revenue increases versus increased business costs, which are then measured against return on capital employed. This process reveals the true business value of IT, and led to an implementation that increased sales for one of Avnet's businesses by 750 percent.

He also implemented a "quote-to-order" system for an Avnet division that reduced research and process time from 4.5 hours to 20 minutes per transaction, increased gross profit per employee by 51 percent and processing efficiency by 33 percent.

In the 1990s Chapman was a major design contributor to SAP AG's APO application set, which is used throughout the high-technology sector. He also was awarded eight international patents.

Chapman and 32 other select IT professionals from businesses and government received the "CIO Ones to Watch" awards at a ceremony last night in Cambridge, Mass.

Avnet enables success from the center of the technology industry, providing cost-effective services and solutions vital to a broad base of more than 100,000 customers and 250 suppliers. The company markets, distributes and adds value to a wide variety of electronic components, enterprise computer products and embedded subsystems. Through its premier market position, Avnet brings a breadth and depth of capabilities that help its trading partners accelerate growth and realize cost efficiencies. Avnet generated more than $10 billion in revenue in fiscal 2004 (year ended July 3, 2004) through sales in 68 countries. Visit www.avnet.com/.