Zorawar "Biri" Singh, senior vice president and general manager of HP Cloud Services, is leaving the company after a two-year stint serving as the public face for Hewlett-Packard's cloud strategy.
As first reported by All Things Digital, former HP CEO Leo Apotheker hired Singh away from IBM in 2011 and tasked him with building a cloud services platform to establish HP in the marketplace. Since then, Singh has been leading HP's global cloud computing business.
The timing of Singh's departure is intriguing. Last week, when HP launched its Converged Cloud business unit, a cross-divisional group that unifies all its cloud efforts, it appointed Saar Gillai, former vice president and general manager of Cloud Networking and CTO of HP Networking, as general manager.
[Related: HP Internal Memo Outlines Cloud Group Reorganization]
When Singh first announced the creation of the Converged Cloud unit last September in an internal memo, general manager was not part of Gillai's title. Singh also indicated at the time that Gillai would lead the unit but report to him. As it turns out, Gillai is reporting instead to HP COO Bill Veghte.
It is unclear if Singh quit because he was given a diminished role in the new unit or whether he left to take a position with another company.
An HP spokesperson declined to comment on the circumstances surrounding Singh's departure but said it won't impact the company's strategy for the new unit.
"HP remains committed to our Converged Cloud portfolio. In particular, HP Cloud Services is critical to HP’s efforts to deliver superior public cloud infrastructure, services and solutions to our customers," the spokesperson said in an email.
Roger Levy, vice president, Technology and Customer Operations of HP Cloud Services, will serve as the interim leader for HP Cloud Services, the HP spokesperson said.
In May, Singh presided over the launch of HP Cloud Services, a public cloud offering with HP infrastructure, computing and storage components that's designed to compete with Amazon and Google.
PUBLISHED JAN. 17, 2013
