HPE Headquarters Move To Houston Creates ‘Two Very Strong’ Hubs

‘Houston is the largest hub in the United States,’ says HPE CEO Antonio Neri. ‘It is the most diverse city in the United States. It has a great college system. But the reality is the vast majority of innovation happens in Silicon Valley. I am very proud of the San Jose headquarters. Now we are going to create a similar [headquarters], but probably three to four times bigger in Houston because the number of employees there is much bigger.’

Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Antonio Neri says moving HPE’s headquarters to Houston is not a retreat from Silicon Valley, but rather a creation of “two very strong” hubs for the edge-to-cloud Platform-as-a-Service powerhouse.

Neri—who will make the move to Houston—said HPE remains committed to Silicon Valley with a plan to consolidate all of its technology talent from three separate sites into its current San Jose, Calif., headquarters site. That San Jose “technology hub” will house HPE’s top software talent including the Aruba team, said Neri. “That is where a lot of the innovation takes place,” he said.

The Houston headquarters hub, meanwhile, will be “non-technology jobs”—essentially the corporate functions. “I will be located in Houston, Texas,” said Neri. “This creates two very strong sites for us, which is the right thing to do.”

The headquarters move is a recognition of the new workplace model that has taken hold in the midst of the pandemic, said Neri. “This is the right thing to do as we think about the future and the new way to work,” he said. “We have listened to our employees.”

Neri stressed that there is no workforce reduction associated with the headquarters move. The move to Houston will be “voluntary” for employees, said Neri.

The headquarters move represents a homecoming of sorts for Neri, who first moved to Houston with his family in 2004 to take a job to fix the services issues in the PC business. Neri moved to Silicon Valley in 2015 when he became HPE executive vice president.

Neri said he sees the Houston headquarters as a chance to attract and retain top talent, while at the same time keeping the innovation engine firing on all cylinders in Silicon Valley.

“Remember, Houston is the largest hub in the United States,” he said. ”It is the most diverse city in the United States. It has a great college system. But the reality is the vast majority of innovation happens in Silicon Valley. I am very proud of the San Jose headquarters. Now we are going to create a similar [headquarters], but probably three to four times bigger in Houston because the number of employees there is much bigger.”

Neri said these are times that require tough decisions. “The pandemic has changed everything,” he said. “To me, it is an acceleration of what we are doing.”

Ultimately, Neri said he sees the move as a chance to strengthen HPE for employees, partners and customers. “I feel very strongly about this,” he said.

Worth Davis, president of solution provider business at Computex Technology Solutions, an HPE enterprise partner in Houston, said he couldn’t be more excited about the HPE headquarters move to Houston.

“That is awesome,” exclaimed Davis. “This is wonderful news. HPE has a huge campus here. We have seen HPE grow in Houston. We are welcoming this headquarters move with open arms. This is great for Texas and it’s going to be great for HPE, which has had its server business here for many years.”

Houston has some of the top technology talent in the country, said Davis. “We have always had great success recruiting strong technical talent in the Houston area,” he said.

HPE continues to innovate, said Davis, particularly with the HPE GreenLake pay-per-use cloud model. “We love the innovation that HPE GreenLake is bringing to the industry,” he said. “HPE has done a great job developing that pay-per-use, on-premises cloud model with the channel.”