‘It’s About Relationships’

(Photo by Amy Randall Photography)

Reyna Thompson spent the first couple of years of her career as a lobbyist, working for the Family Foundation before realizing the political world just wasn’t for her.

Information technology might not have been the expected next step on Thompson’s career trajectory, but it turned out to be a good fit, and she’s worked in the field for more than three decades.

Thompson is TD SYNNEX’s president for North America, a role she stepped into last year, succeeding Peter Larocque, who had spent more than 40 years with the company. Thompson joined the company in 1993, advancing through many roles, most recently as head of the North American Advanced Solutions business unit, which focuses on cloud, security, data/AI, and data center solutions.

But those years of lobbying weren’t in vain. She developed skills then that still serve her today.

“Lobbying is about relationships,” Thompson said recently, chatting in a conference room at TD SYNNEX’s Greenville office. “It’s completely about relationships. So that’s something that I brought back here. And a mentor once told me, and I completely agree, that the lobbying, the relationship building, the negotiation, it’s less about being right and more about how you define winning. And I think I’ve taken that experience and that lesson with me in business today.”

While people often focus on the outcome of a discussion, feeling they’ve lost if they don’t get what they want, it’s more nuanced than that, Thompson said.

“The outcome may be as simple as, ‘I really want to maintain that relationship. I might have to give this up to maintain this relationship.’ … So just redefining winning and redefining what negotiation looks like,” she said.

TD SYNNEX, which is headquartered in Fremont, California, and Clearwater, Florida, has approximately 1,000 employees in Greenville. Thompson has been with the company since its 1993 acquisition and has worked in the Greenville office for 32 years. “There’s a joke going around that I come with the building,” she said with a smile.

TD SYNNEX works with various technology vendors, ranging from hardware equipment manufacturers and providers to software companies that deal with cybersecurity, cloud storage, and more.

The company is also known for its signature charitable endeavor, Share the Magic, which has raised more than $30 million for programs that help children and families since its inception in 2011.

Thompson became president last year upon Larocque’s retirement.

“I couldn't be more confident in her appointment as North America President,” Larocque said. “Having worked very closely with Reyna, I can say definitively that she's ready to lead our North American operations. This transition represents exactly how we operate at TD SYNNEX – we actively manage our succession planning and develop our leaders from within. Reyna has the best team in the world supporting her, and she brings the deep industry knowledge and strategic vision that our partners need. She understands the complexities of our business and the evolving technology landscape, particularly in emerging areas like AI where she was deeply involved in building our specialized capabilities."

Thompson, the daughter of immigrant parents from Iran and Mexico, has a distinctive perspective on what her role means, both for shareholders and for the people who work at TD SYNNEX.

As a woman leading a multi-billion-dollar corporation, Thompson is still in rarified company. According to McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace 2024 report, women make up 29 percent of the C-suite positions in the U.S., up from 17 percent in 2015.

But Thompson prefers to think of things more in terms of diversity and authenticity than as a strictly gender-based issue.

“I think there is a huge opportunity in the IT market, and there’s a lot of space for diverse talent. And that, I think, I would like to be the headline more than anything else. I don’t think the headline is, I’m a woman in this role leading this very large company. I think that the organization works very hard to build diversity in their talent,” she said.

“We’ve got significant diverse talent that is leading major aspects of our business, who also happen to be women. I’m fortunate that I belong to a company that allows, as I mentioned, opportunity for a lot of coworkers and really pays very close attention to a diverse, talented workforce.”

She encourages everyone to “be your authentic self,” recalling an incident earlier in her career when she felt the need to emulate her male peers, especially in the way she dressed.

“I remember being onstage, suited up, and I had male peers who were onstage with me, and … someone turned to me and said, ‘Reyna, you should wear tennis shoes and jeans like us.’ And I immediately thought, ‘Yeah, I should get sneakers.’ It stopped me in my tracks. I realized, ‘Oh, this is the wrong way, this is the wrong direction to go.’… What I realized is, I tended to look outside and emulate, maybe a little bit more than I was comfortable with. So at that point, I started paying really close attention to how I wanted to dress, how I wanted to represent myself.”

If you’re not being true to yourself, “it’s very difficult to win hearts and minds of staff because you won’t be authentic, and they’ll find you out,” Thompson said.

That desire for authenticity carries over to the way she relates to the other team members at TD SYNNEX. Thompson and her husband Ron have two daughters, Anna, a dental student at Augusta Dental College, and Julia, who is in grad school in Arizona.

She said she struggled with empty nest syndrome after her daughters left for college, so she adopted two dogs, Bailey, a golden doodle, and Jack, a La adoodle, to help her cope.

Thompson has a busy life outside of the office, working with Carolina Ballet, Make-a-Wish, and various animal rescue groups, and staying involved with her church, Our Lady of the Rosary. And she said that heading up Share the Magic is an especially rewarding experience.

“At my heart, at my core, I’m a caregiver. … You’re never done mothering, you’re never done caring, so you just pivot, and it evolves. I think that is the single most important thing I can do for this organization is unify the organization and pay very close attention to the large group of coworkers who care and love being a part of TD SYNNEX.”

It’s a changing world, thanks in large part to the AI revolution, and Thompson said this is a great time to lead an IT organization.

As she nears her one-year anniversary as president, Thompson shared a bit of her vision for TD SYNNEX’s future.

“We’re an innovator at heart. Our organization, even if you go back to early days, we are innovating in the way we reach our partners,” she said.

“We’re innovating in the way that we bring programs to market that are relevant. We’re innovating in the way that we build service, service capability, to surround a lot of our offerings. So that is something that we’re going to continue to do, and for that we need to make sure that we’re continuing to attract talent and continue to focus on that area.”