Hewlett-Packard on Monday reorganized its executive suite so key execs and the company’s biggest units report directly to CEO Leo Apotheker. In addition, Ann Livermore, who led HP’s enterprise services group is stepping down from day-to-day man
agement to become a board member amid a major shakeup at the company.
Among the moves, Livermore’s departure is probably the largest. Livermore has frequently been a CEO candidate, but never made the final cut. Throughout the CEO changes—Lew Platt, Carly Fiorina, Mark Hurd and Apotheker—Livermore continued to find key roles at HP. Livermore has been with HP for 29 years.
Livermore will remain leader of HP Enterprise Services until her replacement is named.
Ray Lane, HP’s non-executive chairman, said Livermore will bring “deep relationships with our most important customers, institutional knowledge of the company and its employees, and insights on the technology industry” to the company’s board.
The reorg is designed to get all customer-facing units reporting to Apotheker. Dave Donatelli, who leads HP’s critical servers, storage, networking and technology services unit; Bill Veghte, executive vice president of software; and Jan Zadak, head of sales, will all report to Apotheker. The HP CEO said that the new reporting structure should improve focus, agility and execution.
HP will also lose Randy Mott, chief information officer. Mott was highly regarded and the company only said that he was leaving “effective immediately.” Pete Bocian, chief administrative officer, is also leaving. HP will replace Mott, but not Bocian.
And finally, HP said Todd Bradley, who leads HP’s personal systems unit, will also focus on China market share expansion. Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president of HP’s printing unit, will aim to grow market share in India.
Worries about HP’s executive stability has been a recurring them of late. With its reorg announcement, HP appears to be trying to get all the moves out in one shot so it can move on.
Here’s a look at HP’s stock chart for the last year. Apotheker was named CEO in September.
Related:
They're jettisoning excess weight. The CEO wants people to report directly to him - that's battle stations, all hands on deck, Captain on the bridge. Twiddling one's thumbs does not require rerigging the corporation to place oneself at the heart of the action with real-time, unfilitered status reports and issuing direct orders on all aspects of the company's functioning. Apotheker's letting slip the dogs of war. 
