Get In The Game

Jason Chen has Acer refocused on PCs but aimed at consumers of higher-end hardware.

- Ralph Jennings

Jason Chen had spent 23 years in big global tech, but when Acer’s board of directors asked him how he would turn the ailing Taiwan icon around, he paused. “I said, ‘I’ve never done that,’ and the next question was, ‘How are you going to do it?’ ” Chen recalls.

Chen landed the job and over four years has turned the company around. Recent quarters have seen sizable jumps in revenue and profitability, to levels not seen since the PC maker was making Forbes Asia’s Fab 50 list of best companies in 2010. (In recent years it hasn’t even qualified for our Global 2000 ranking of biggest firms.)

Chen, 56, has accomplished this largely by getting Acer back to what made its name: personal computers. You know, those boxes you thought had been supplanted by smartphones. And he’s done it not by trying to undersell the many bottom fishers in the sector—Acer had acquired a rap as a low-cost brand— but by developing technology that appeals foremost to the most critical market for high-end hardware: gamers.

Chen came on as corporate president and CEO in 2014. He had just finished nine years as corporate development vice president at Taiwan Semiconductor, following 14 in sales and marketing jobs at Intel. Acer had lost money since 2011 as global PC sales slowed and Italian-born CEO Gianfranco Lanci suddenly quit over internal discord. Revenues in 2013 came to $11.8 billion, down 16% over the previous year, and net losses totaled $370 million. Acer founder Stan Shih, whose family owns a 5% stake in the company, called 2013 a year of “business under performance.”

Shih now consults with Chen and backs what he’s doing. The firm dropped its smartphone line two years ago because it was losing money. From 2014 Acer had peddled Iconia-brand phones, including a $270 handset designed for serial travelers with space for three SIM cards.