HPE Snatches Away HP CFO As Its New EVP/CFO

'Marie Myers’ appointment is vital given the importance of having a CFO that is more of a deal maker,’ says Advizex CEO C.R. Howdyshell.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise has hired away Marie Myers, the chief financial officer of its sister company HP, as its new executive vice president and chief financial officer.

Myers, a 25-year finance veteran of HP and Compaq who once worked with HPE CEO Antonio Neri at HP, will start at HPE effective Jan. 15.

C.R. Howdyshell, CEO of Advizex, a Fulcrum IT Partners company, said Myers’ appointment could open the door for HPE to accelerate its ability to scale and grow the business through the channel.

[RELATED: CEO Antonio Neri On ‘Massive Growth’ From AI Builders And The Difference Between HPE’s AI Public Cloud And Microsoft’s AI Strategy]

“Marie Myers’ appointment is vital given the importance of having a CFO that is more of a deal maker,” said Howdyshell. “A CFO that is a deal maker for an OEM will have the biggest impact on the partner community because it facilitates growth for everyone!”

As an example, Howdyshell singled out HPE HPC (High Performance Compute and AI) Vice President and CFO Stanley Palmer, who recently helped Advizex close a blockbuster AI deal with a high profile customer.

“Working with Stanley Palmer, Advizex, just completed a ground breaking HPE HPC AI deal,” said Howdyshell. “It was only because of Stanley’s knowledge of the channel and his experience on how to make a deal work with the channel that we were able to complete the deal.”

The big opportunity for Myers, said Howdyshell, is to approach the CFO role with that same channel deal maker mentality. “The opportunity for the new HPE CFO is to fully embrace the channel so HPE can scale its business for short and long term growth,” he said.

In a Linkedin post, Myers said moving to HPE “feels like a full circle, returning to where my journey began over 25 years ago in Houston with the Compaq Server and Storage team.”

CRN reached out to HPE to speak with Myers but had not heard back at press time.

Myers was CFO of HP’s Personal Systems Group from February 2009 to October 2011. Her tenure overlapped with Neri’s position as vice president of HP’s Personal Systems Group Customer Services from 2004 to 2011.

HPE and HP split into two separate companies in 2015 in a breakout move to provide each company with more focus and agility in an intensely competitive PC and enterprise computing market.

In a prepared statement, Neri called Myers a “strategic and visionary” CFO known for making financial decisions that “fuel innovation and performance.”

With Myers taking the top finance job, interim HPE CFO Jeremy Cox will return to his his position as senior vice president, corporate controller, and chief tax officer, reporting to Myers.

In a prepared statement, Neri thanked Cox for his for his “steady, thoughtful leadership” over the last several months “He is a trusted partner to our executive team and has ensured our consistent execution during this transition,” said Neri. “I am incredibly grateful for the collaborative approach he brings to everything he does, and he will continue to play a vital role in HPE’s ongoing success.”

In an interview with The CFO website earlier this year, Myers said it is critical for today’s CFOs to drive digital transformation both within the company and in the broader business.

“CFOs need to work on both – and they need a strategy in place. Today’s CFOs need to understand the business and how they can make the enterprise more successful,” Myers told The CFO.

“They provide the investment requirement for digitisation and need to understand the return on investment (RoI) it leads to. Digitisation involves a big capital outlay and CFOs need the right knowledge to achieve it,” Myers told The CFO.

Among the initiatives, Myers was responsible for at HP was implementing a new single ERP system which took some five years.

Under Neri, HPE has also moved from multiple ERP systems to a single ERP system as part of a massive transformation to become a cloud services company with HPE GreenLake.

Myers officially replaces former HPE CFO Tarek Robbiati, who left HPE in August to become CEO of unified communications provider RingCentral.

Ironically, Robbiati just this week “mutually agreed” to step aside as RingCentral CEO after just three months on the job.

Robbiati was replaced by RingCentral’s founder and former CEO Vlad Shmunis.

“I’m excited to drive HPE's next growth chapter and collaborate with the outstanding team there, including working closely with Antonio Neri,” said Myers in a LinkedIn post.

“Reflecting on my time at HP brings a mix of emotions – it's been an incredible ride, particularly with my Finance colleagues, who have been a constant source of inspiration and growth,” said Myers. “Here's to new beginnings and exciting challenges ahead!”