The Half She Chose

On May 5, 2026, the Flex board unanimously approved a plan to cut the company in two, and Revathi Advaithi, chief executive officer of Flex since February 2019, picked the half that does not yet have a name. She will run the business the filing calls SpinCo: power distribution, thermal management and integrated infrastructure systems sold into AI data centers. Michael Hartung, more than 20 years inside the company, will run Flex - $27.9 billion of fiscal 2026 net sales, more than 75 manufacturing and logistics sites across 30 countries, and the healthcare, automotive, industrial, communications and lifestyle customers that pay for them.

Operators usually keep the larger balance sheet. Advaithi kept the growth target: Flex is targeting SpinCo to generate roughly 65% to 75% revenue growth in fiscal 2027, accelerating past 80% in fiscal 2028. Those are the numbers she will be measured against.

The Electrical Sector Route

She arrived at Flex from Eaton, where she was president and chief operating officer of the Electrical Sector from 2015 to 2019 and president of Electrical Sector, Americas for the three years before that. Between 2002 and 2008 she held senior sourcing and supply-chain roles at Honeywell, including a general manager seat over its Field Solutions business. Power and supply chain, in other words - the two things the company she is leaving Flex to run actually sells.

Her opening statement in February 2019 made a claim about footprint rather than ambition: "With locations in 30 countries and expertise in a dozen industry verticals, Flex has the necessary breadth and depth to help companies develop and launch innovative products at global scale and intelligently manage a shifting business landscape."

The First Full Year Went Badly

The record does not show a clean ascent. In fiscal 2020, her first full year in the seat, Flex recognized $216.4 million of restructuring charges - $159.3 million in cash, predominantly severance, and $57.1 million non-cash, primarily asset impairments. The company's own annual report attributes the trigger to geopolitical developments affecting one customer in China and the resulting drop in demand, which pushed Flex to accelerate a decision to cut its exposure to high-volatility products in both China and India.

That year sits inside the seven she now describes as "a deliberate transformation." It is also the year the portfolio pruning that produced the current margin structure began in earnest.

Margin First, Then Growth

Fiscal 2026 closed at $27.9 billion in net sales, up 8%, with a full-year adjusted operating margin of 6.3% - a record for the company - and a sixth consecutive quarter at or above 6%. The growth arrived after the margin did. First-quarter fiscal 2027 net sales were $7.9 billion, up 21% year over year, with record adjusted earnings per share of $1.00, and full-year guidance of $33.7 billion to $35.2 billion, growth of 23% at the midpoint.

Advaithi's framing on July 29 put the two halves of that in one sentence: "From joining the S&P 500 to expanding our role in AI infrastructure, we've strengthened our position in attractive growth markets."

The Part She Keeps

She does not leave entirely. On completion she becomes chairman of the Flex board for a transitional period, which means Hartung reports to a board she chairs. The split is targeted to close in the first quarter of calendar 2027 and is intended to be tax-free to shareholders; Citi, PJT Partners and BofA Securities are advising.

The argument for the split is that focus is the scarce asset: "By creating two focused, independent companies, we are giving SpinCo the platform to build and scale the products and digital infrastructure that the world's most demanding AI workloads depend on." Flex has set an investor day for November 10, 2026. That is the first date on which both companies have to show their numbers apart from each other.