HPE Veteran Heiko Meyer Named New Chief Sales Officer

Heiko Meyer is a 30-plus-year HPE veteran, and takes on the chief sales officer role currently held by Phil Davis, president of hybrid IT at HPE.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise on Wednesday said it has split the chief sales officer role into a separate position, and appointed veteran HPE executive Heiko Meyer to the role.

Meyer's appointment to chief sales officer is aimed at optimizing the company's efficiency and scale as it moves to help businesses advance their digital transformation activities, wrote Phil Davis, HPE's president of hybrid IT, in a Wednesday blog post.

Davis is currently also the chief sales officer for HPE. Meyer’s appointment is slated to officially begin Nov. 1.

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Meyer has over three decades of history with HPE's European operations, and has for the last 21 months served as managing director its German operations and senior vice president of global sales for the geography spanning Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Russia, Davis wrote.

Meyer has shown himself to be a "tremendously" effective leader, Davis wrote.

"Given his excellent performance, strong operational expertise and extensive knowledge of sales, I am confident he will bring fresh perspective and a new level of focus to the role," he wrote.

As Meyer transitions to the new chief sales officer role, HPE is shuffling several of its European executives to rebalance sales geographies there, Davis wrote. However, the North American geography, under Dan Belanger, managing director of North America, is remaining unchanged. Furthermore, he wrote, channel and alliances will continue to be led by Global Channel Chief Paul Hunter.

Chris Case, president of Sequel Data Systems, an Austin, Texas-based solution provider and long-time HPE channel partner, said he welcomes the appointment of Meyer to the chief sales officer role.

"From the channel perspective, we always hope when someone steps into a new role in a manufacturer, they understand the channel and the value we offer to the manufacturer," Case told CRN. "We hope they also get the message from the top-down to the people in the field."

It is also important that the chief sales officer understand the culture of the manufacturer, Case said.

"If someone at that level tries to be too disruptive, it can impact the entire sales organization as those disruptions trickle down to the field," he said.

Davis, in his blog, wrote that he expects business-as-usual at HPE after the executive change. "Our customers and partners should rest assured that they are at the center of these changes, and we remain more committed than ever to their success," he wrote.