Mr. Antonio Neri is to take over the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) position from Meg Whitman at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (
HPE), the company announced recently. Mr. Neri currently holds the position of President of HPE and he will take his new role February 1, 2018. He will also join the HPE Board of Directors alongside Ms. Whitman, who will retain her board position.
Mr. Neri joined Hewlett Packard (HP) in 1995 in the position of Customer Service Engineer at the company’s EMEA call center. He held a number of positions at the company including roles in HP’s Printing business, and HP’s Personal Systems unit, where he was in charge of customer service. He was in charge of its ‘Technology Services’ business from 2011, overseeing the Server and Networking business units. In 2015 he was in charge of the entire Enterprise Group. He became HPE’s President in June 2017. Mr. Neri’s move comes against a backdrop of reports that HPE is to cut 5,000 jobs in a new round of layoffs.
Mr. Neri takes over from Ms. Whitman who became HP’s President and CEO in September 2011. She was in charge of restructuring HP into its current divisions, and oversaw substantial downsizing as the company laid off thousands of staff to regain profitability. Her five-year turnaround strategy repositioned the company to enable it to better compete in the ‘cloud’ era. She was in charge of spinning off HPE’s Enterprise Services and Software businesses and oversaw the company’s strategic acquisitions. With Ms. Whitman as leader the company generated shareholder value of nearly $18 billion in share repurchases and dividends. HPE, which was formed in November, 2015, has returned an 89% total shareholder return to date.
“I’m incredibly proud of all we’ve accomplished since I joined HP in 2011,” explained Ms.Whitman in a press release. “Today, Hewlett Packard moves forward as four industry-leading companies that are each well positioned to win in their respective markets. Now is the right time for Antonio and a new generation of leaders to take the reins of HPE. I have tremendous confidence that they will continue to build a great company that will thrive well into the future.”
“The world of technology is changing fast, and we’ve architected HPE to take advantage of where we see the markets heading,” added Mr. Neri in the same release. “HPE is in a tremendous position to win, and we remain focused on executing our strategy, driving our innovation agenda, and delivering the next wave of shareholder value.”
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