Dell 2008 Annual Report Download - page 14

Table of Contents
had formerly served on GE's corporate audit staff for five years. Mr. Gladden earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration and
Finance from Millersville University in Millersville, PA.
• Erin Nelson — Ms. Nelson currently serves as Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer ("CMO"). In this role she is responsible for customer
relationship management, communications, brand strategy, core research and analytics, and overall marketing agency management. Before
becoming CMO in January 2009, Ms. Nelson spent three years in Europe, most recently as Vice President of Marketing for Dell's business in
Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Since joining Dell in 1999, she has held progressive leadership positions in U.S. consumer marketing,
U.S. public sales, EMEA home and small-business marketing, as well as eBusiness. Prior to joining Dell, Ms. Nelson held positions in brand
management at Procter & Gamble, corporate strategy at PepsiCo, and as a management consultant with A.T. Kearney. Ms. Nelson earned a
Bachelor's degree in Business Administration with a concentration in International Business and Marketing from the University of Texas at Austin.
• Stephen F. Schuckenbrock — Mr. Schuckenbrock currently serves as President, Global Large Enterprise, leading the delivery of innovative and
globally consistent Dell solutions and services to the world's largest corporate IT users. Mr. Schuckenbrock joined us in January 2007 as Senior
Vice President and President, Global Services. In September 2007, he assumed the additional role of Chief Information Officer, and served in those
roles until January 2009. In those roles, he was responsible for all aspects of our services business, with worldwide responsibility for Dell
enterprise service offerings, and was also responsible for our global information systems and technology structure. Prior to joining us,
Mr. Schuckenbrock served as Co-Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President of Global Sales and Services for Electronic Data Systems
Corporation ("EDS"). Before joining EDS in 2003, he was Chief Operating Officer of The Feld Group, an information technology consulting
organization. Mr. Schuckenbrock served as Global Chief Information Officer for PepsiCo from 1998 to 2000. Mr. Schuckenbrock earned a
Bachelor's degree in Business Administration from Elon University.
• Lawrence P. Tu — Mr. Tu joined us as Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary in July 2004, and is responsible for overseeing Dell's
global legal department, governmental affairs and ethics department. Before joining Dell, Mr. Tu served as Executive Vice President and General
Counsel at NBC Universal for three years. Prior to his position at NBC, he was a partner with the law firm of O'Melveny & Myers LLP, where he
focused on energy, technology, internet, and media related transactions. He also served five years as managing partner of the firm's Hong Kong
office. Mr. Tu's prior experience also includes serving as General Counsel Asia-Pacific for Goldman Sachs, attorney for the U.S. State Department,
and law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Mr. Tu holds Juris Doctor and Bachelor of Arts degrees from Harvard
University, as well as a Master's degree from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.
ITEM 1A — RISK FACTORS
There are many risk factors that affect our business and results of operations, some of which are beyond our control. The following is a description
of some of the important risk factors that may cause our actual results in future periods to differ substantially from those we currently expect or
desire.
• Weakening global economic conditions and instability in financial markets could harm our business and result in reduced net revenue and
profitability. We are a global company with customers in virtually every business and industry. There has been an erosion of global consumer
confidence amidst concerns over declining asset values, fluctuating energy costs, geopolitical issues, the availability and cost of credit, rising
unemployment, and the stability and solvency of financial institutions, financial markets, businesses, and sovereign nations. These concerns have
slowed global economic growth and have resulted in recessions in many countries, including the U.S. While these global economic issues persist,
there are likely to be a number of follow-on effects on our business, including customers or potential customers reducing or delaying their
technology investments, insolvency of key suppliers resulting in product delays, counterparty failures negatively impacting our treasury operations,
the inability of customers to obtain credit to finance purchases of our products, and customer insolvencies, all of which could reduce demand for
our product and services, impact our ability to effectively manage inventory levels and collect customer receivables, lengthen our cash conversion
cycle and negatively impact liquidity, and ultimately decrease our net revenue and profitability.
• Weakening economic conditions and instability in financial markets could harm our financial services activities. Our financial services activities
are negatively affected in four major ways by the current economic environment — spending softness, increasing loan delinquencies and defaults,
increasing funding costs, and reduced availability of funding through securitizations. Decreased customer spending directly reduces the potential
sales revenue that we can seek to finance. Loan delinquencies and defaults impact our net credit losses and have been increasing for more than a
year. If this trend continues, we may need to increase our reserves in our customer receivables in the future. The debt and securitization markets
have been experiencing and may continue to experience
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