Meg Whitman to step down as CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Meg Whitman’s tenure as CEO of
Hewlett Packard Enterprise is coming to an end.
Whitman said Tuesday
that she would step down from the business technology giant after a six-year
stint, and described the reasons for her upcoming departure in a call with
analysts.
In Whitman’s view, HPE is in much
better shape than it was when she first arrived in 2011, prior to the
company’s split from personal computer and printer sibling HP Inc. in
2015. At that time, Hewlett-Packard “was an enormous conglomerate,” she said,
that confused customers because it sold too many disparate products—from servers
to software to printers.
Additionally, she explained that
the company’s size and management structure was an obstacle to staying current
with technology trends. HPE’s core data center hardware business has shrunk
over the years amid the rise of cloud computing, in which companies can
purchase computing resources in a pay-as-you-go model.
“This company was a slower
company than I would have liked to seen six years ago,” Whitman said.
Whitman’s tenure at HPE was
marked by a series of corporate restructurings she believed was necessary to
return the company to fighting weight. Even after its massive split from HP
Inc., HPE continued to shed off pieces of its business it deemed non-essential.
This included, as Whitman
detailed in the call, several complex deals like HPE spinning off its software
business to United Kingdom IT company Micro Focus, and spinning off and
merging its IT services business with IT company Computer
Sciences, thus creating a new company called DXC Technology. During Whitman’s
tenure, HPE also unloaded its Indian IT outsourcing unit Mphasis to
the Blackstone Group.
Now that HPE can put those
financial overhauls behind it, Whitman believes that the company needs a leader
with technology chops, which is something she lacked. Antonio Neri, a longtime
HPE executive who currently serves as president, will become CEO on Feb. 1.
“The next CEO needs to be a
deeper technologist,” Whitman said. “That is exactly what Antonio is.”
Whitman didn’t say what she plans
to do after, but insisted that one thing is certain: she will not join a
competitor. That means, Cisco (CSCO, +0.38%), IBM (IBM,
+0.95%), Amazon (AMZN, +1.18%), Microsoft (MSFT, +1.45%),
or any of the enterprise technology titans competing in the IT market.
“There is no chance I’m going to
a competitor, no chance,” Whitman said. “I love my company and I would never go
to a competitor.”
Still, despite Whitman saying
that HPE is better run today, investors were spooked about her exit.
HPE shares fell 6% in after-hours
trading Tuesday to $13.27.
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