Joseph Eckroth and Steven Bandrowczak Take New Jobs

Hertz tapped Joseph Eckroth to restructure the Park Ridge, N.J.-based rental car company’s IT operations. Eckroth left his post as EVP and COO of New Century Financial Corp. to join Hertz yesterday as its SVP and CIO. Eckroth had worked for New Century since July 2005, when he was hired as its new CIO. He was promoted to COO just six months after joining the Irvine, Calif.-based real estate investment trust.

Prior to New Century, Eckroth spent five years with Mattel during the time the toy company was going through its big turnaround. Eckroth received his turnaround training at GE, where he served as CIO of its Medical Systems and Industrial Systems business units from 1996 through 2000. Earlier in his career he worked for Northrop Grumman from 1985 to 1996. He has an MBA from Pepperdine University and a bachelor of science degree from the University of La Verne.

To learn more about Eckroth’s management style and his approach to turnarounds, read the profile of him my colleague Stephanie Overby wrote while he was at Mattel.

Steven Bandrowczak is joining Nortel on July 16. He is taking over the CIO post at the Toronto-based company from Bill Donovan, who has served as interim CIO since May 15, 2007. (Donovan will continue in his other role as a senior vice president in the company’s business transformation office.)  Bandrowczak will report to Nortel’s EVP of corporate operations, Dennis Carey.

He most recently worked for Lenovo as its CIO, having joined the Chinese PC-maker in September 2005. Last summer, he spoke with Stephanie Overby about the opportunities and challenges associated with working in China.