HPE Promotes Legal Exec John Schultz To Chief Operating Officer

‘John Schultz is a proven leader who has been instrumental in driving HPE’s transformation as a company. John’s new title is a reflection of his capabilities and effectiveness in designing and overseeing critical initiatives in support of our transformation, improving operations to optimize our performance, and championing our culture and beliefs -- John truly embraces the power of “yes we can” and he executes and leads boldly,’ says HPE in a statement provided to CRN.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise legal eagle John Schultz, who was heading up a transformation office initiative to accelerate HPE’s pivot to an everything-as-a-service company, has been promoted to chief operating officer.

Schultz was named chief legal and administrative officer and secretary for HPE in December 2017. He became general counsel of HPE when Hewlett Packard separated into two companies in 2015.

The Schultz appointment was announced in the form of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing dated July 24.

In a statement provided to CRN, HPE said: “John Schultz is a proven leader who has been instrumental in driving HPE’s transformation as a company. John’s new title is a reflection of his capabilities and effectiveness in designing and overseeing critical initiatives in support of our transformation, improving operations to optimize our performance, and championing our culture and beliefs -- John truly embraces the power of “yes we can” and he executes and leads boldly.”

As COO, John will continue to lead HPE’s Transformation Office and the Office of Legal and Administrative Affairs, HPE said.

The latest HPE executive change comes just two and a half months after HPE CEO Antonio Neri restructured the company for a “post COVID 19” world as a more agile organization with a new chief technology officer and head of software, Kumar Sreekanti, and a new GreenLake Cloud Services Business Group headed up by former Microsoft cloud superstar Keith White.

Under the new structure, all seven of HPE’s business group leaders (GreenLake Cloud Services: White, Storage: Tom Black, Pointnext Technology Services: Pradeep Kumar, Compute: Neil MacDonald, Intelligent Edge: Keerti Melkote, HPE Financial Services: Irv Rothman, and High Performance and Mission Critical Solutions: Pete Ungarro) report to Neri.

The HPE Executive Committee formed in the wake of the restructuring also included Schultz and the other four global function leaders who report to Neri: Chief Marketing Officer Jim Jackson, Chief People Officer Alan May, Chief Financial Officer Tarek Robbiati; and Chief Communications Officer Jennifer Temple.

Shultz’s appointment comes with HPE’s GreenLake pay-per-use model gaining momentum in the channel.

Over the past year, there has been a 47 percent increase in HPE GreenLake orders from partners with 700 HPE partners now selling the cloud service platform.

Kelly Ireland, founder and CEO of CBT, Orange, Calif., one of HPE’s top Platinum enterprise partners, said Schultz’s appointment is one more sign of just how fast HPE is moving into the future with its no holds barred everything as a service charge.

Ireland, whose company has worked closely with HPE on a “Refinery of the Future” internet of things (IoT) and operational technology initiative, said Neri is accelerating HPE’s technology leadership position.

“HPE already has a leg up in the IoT and OT convergence side of the business,” she said. “They are leaps and bounds ahead of everybody. This appointment continues Antonio’s everything as a service strategy.”

Ireland said HPE’s recent move from a bespoke, customized GreenLake pay per use model to a standardized group of 17 “building block” offerings for small, medium and large businesses is a big step forward for the everything as a service charge.

“We see all of this as HPE taking the everything as a service strategy to the next level,” said Ireland. “This is following the strategy that Antonio has layed out for everything as a service.”