A Changing Of The Guard

Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman, who partners credit with an impressive turnaround of the company, says HPE President Antonio Neri, who will take the CEO job effective Feb. 1, is "exactly the right person at the right time" to lead HPE into the future.

"I think Antonio is super capable of taking this company to the next level.," Whitman told CRN. "Antonio is as committed, if not more so, than I am to the partners and the channel. He wants to do exactly what is right for the partners and our joint end customers."

Whitman credited Neri -- a technology visionary who has been the driving force behind HPE's software defined data center strategy -- with "being as committed, if not more" so than she has been to the channel.

"Antonio was right there at the beginning encouraging that pivot back to the channel," said Whitman. "He has lots of deep relationships. He knows not only the VARs, but the distributors, the SIs [systems integrators], the ISVs. It was an important criteria. We would never have picked a CEO who was not committed to the channel."