HP Enterprise Shuffles Senior Management -- WSJ

By Don Clark 

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. on Monday announced the planned retirement of its research chief along with other management and organizational changes, the latest signs the big technology company wants to streamline operations and speed up decision-making.

Executive Vice President Martin Fink will retire at the end of the year as chief technology officer and head of Hewlett Packard Labs, the company said. That organization will be transferred to the enterprise group, which is headed by Antonio Neri.

Chief Executive Meg Whitman, in an internal notice describing the changes, said the shift will help "further accelerate the time it takes to drive technology from research and development to commercialization."

An HP Enterprise spokeswoman said it would begin a search for a replacement for Mr. Fink, whom she said was unavailable to comment.

HP Enterprise was created in November as part of the division of Hewlett-Packard Co. into two companies. Ms. Whitman, who pushed for the breakup, in May announced a plan to spin off a 100,000-employee services business and merge it with Computer Sciences Corp.

Mr. Fink, 51 years old, joined H-P in 1985 and helped lead a series of high-profile technology development efforts, including the company's embrace of the Linux operating system and a public cloud service that was recently discontinued. He has been closely associated with a project called The Machine, an attempt to create a new computer design that places a higher priority on innovation in memory technology than traditional microprocessors.

"Our plans to preview The Machine prototype by the end of this year remain on track," Ms. Whitman said.

Among other changes, the company said John Hinshaw, its chief customer officer, will be leaving the company at the end of the year. His position had included responsibility for HP Enterprise's security business and internal information-technology operations. Those operations will now be supervised by Chief Operating Officer Chris Hsu, the company said.

The company also said it is folding separate sales teams into one global sales organization within its enterprise group. It will be led by Peter Ryan, who is currently a senior vice president and managing director for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

HP Enterprise also plans to create a single marketing organization under Henry Gomez, its chief marketing and communications officer. Besides product marketing, his responsibilities will now include e-commerce and customer advocacy, the company said.

Write to Don Clark at [e-mail]

Corrections & Amplifications: Mr. Fink, 51 years old, joined H-P in 1985. An earlier version of this article gave a wrong age and year of arrival at the company. (June 27)

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 28, 2016 02:48 ET (06:48 GMT)

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