Former HPE Hybrid IT Chief Phil Davis Joins AWS

‘I am thrilled to join AWS and welcome the opportunity to lead the team,’ says Davis. ‘Having lived and worked in Singapore for almost a decade, I’m very happy to return to this dynamic region and look forward to working closely with our customers, helping them deliver significant value across those businesses.’

Phil Davis, who stepped aside on May 1 as president of Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s $23 billion Hybrid IT business, has taken a new job as managing director of Amazon Web Services’ Asia Pacific Japan business.

“Today marks the first day of my new journey as the head of AWS commercial sales in Asia Pacific and Japan,” wrote Davis in a LinkedIn post on Tuesday. “I am thrilled to join AWS and welcome the opportunity to lead the team. Having lived and worked in Singapore for almost a decade, I’m very happy to return to this dynamic region and look forward to working closely with our customers, helping them deliver significant value across those businesses.”

[Related: Phil Davis Is Stepping Aside As HPE Hybrid IT President]

In his LinkedIn job description, Davis said he will be working with businesses of all sizes from startups to the largest enterprises to support their move to the cloud.

Ironically, Davis’ new job comes just as the HPE GreenLake pay per use model is gaining momentum with the launch of GreenLake Central, said Paul Cohen, vice president of sales for New York-based PKA Technologies Inc., one of HPE’s top Platinum enterprise partners.

“We now have a competitive alternative to AWS with GreenLake and GreenLake Central which provides a cost optimization and recommended security compliance metrics across GreenLake, AWS and Microsoft Azure,” said Cohen. “Now the customer can see exactly what they are spending on prem and off prem. That’s a big advantage for HPE. GreenLake Central is the secret sauce and advantage HPE now has over AWS. It provides customers the tools they need to keep an eye on overspending and waste in public cloud.”

One of HPE’s biggest advantages in the battle against AWS is its unheralded next-generation software capabilities like GreenLake Central and AI based software like InfoSight, said Cohen.

Davis, who spent a little more than two years as the head of the HPE Hybrid IT business, informed HPE on April 23 of his decision to “voluntarily resign” as of May 1.

Davis, who spent nearly six years at HPE, decided to accept another job in order to relocate to Australia where his wife and two children have been living.

The return to Asia Pacific is a coming home for Davis who as vice president and general manager of enterprise solutions for Dell lived in Singapore.

On his LinkedIn page, Davis said he pushed a “180-degree turnaround” in the Dell Asia Pacific and Japan business. “Managed a P&L of $3.4 billion and led an extended team of 900 directs and 200 dotted line reports,” he wrote. “Took Dell from third place to its first-ever #1 spot in server, networking and storage space in Asia Pacific and Japan region within two years.”