Analysis: HP Reorganization Elevates Ex-Poly CEO’s Role In Growth Strategy

By leading the expanded and rebranded HP Solutions group, former Poly CEO Dave Shull is set to play a bigger role in the PC and print giant’s growth strategy, which includes its growing portfolios of AI development solutions and videoconferencing products.

A reorganization at HP Inc. has given the leader of its software and services business an elevated role in the PC and print giant’s growth strategy by giving him responsibilities over two additional divisions, including the Poly business he previously led.

HP leader Dave Shull (pictured) said on LinkedIn last Friday that he will lead an expanded organization called HP Solutions that combines the Workforce Solutions group he has overseen since 2022 with the Hybrid Systems and Poly collaboration business as well as the Advanced Compute Solutions division, which includes HP’s AI development software.

As a result, Division President of Hybrid Systems Helen Sheirbon and Division President of Advance Compute Solutions Jim Nottingham have joined Shull’s HP Solutions group.

The reorganization was disclosed a little more than a week after HP announced that print leader Tuan Tran will take on the new role as president of technology and innovation while 30-year HP veteran Anneliese Olson will move into his previous role.

In his LinkedIn post, Shull said the new name of his division “reflects a bigger vision and a step forward to expand our capabilities and how we support the future of work.”

“This strategic shift supports HP’s vision for innovative solutions, AI-driven data science, and seamless collaboration, all aimed at making not only work—but life—easier for our customers,” he wrote.

The reorganization represents a reunion of sorts for Shull, who was CEO of Poly for two years prior to the videoconferencing giant’s $3.3 billion sale to HP in 2022. Before joining Poly in 2020, Shull held CEO roles at TiVo and The Weather Channel after serving in top executive roles at Dish Network for more than six years.

How Shull Will Play A Bigger Role In HP’s Growth Businesses

The reorganization means that Shull is set to play a bigger role in HP’s growth strategy, which was first outlined in CEO Enrique Lores’ Future Ready Plan two years ago.

While the plan called for a major reduction in spending—including making up to 6,000 job cuts—by 2025, it also directed HP to invest in businesses the company expected to grow faster than its core PC and print businesses.

Those key growth areas, as HP calls them, include the software solutions and services that have been under Shull’s purview since 2022 as well as the Hybrid Systems business, which includes Poly solutions and now also falls under Shull’s watch.

HP’s Advance Compute Solutions business may not have been identified as a key growth area in the Future Ready Plan, but the company certainly expects it to drive revenue growth in the future, as evidenced by multiple announcements over the past year.

Most recently, the Advance Compute Solutions division announced at the HP Imagine 2024 event in October a new proprietary software solution called Z by HP Boost, which gives data scientists and AI developers a way to sharing GPU resources across workstation PCs.

Part of the Z by HP workstation PC brand, the solution is set to launch in early 2025 and will complement the division’s recently launched AI Studio software, which the company has called the “world’s most comprehensive workstation solution for AI development.”

The Advance Compute Solutions business also released an add-on for AI Studio called Gen AI Lab, which HP has said will enable developers to build trustworthy generative AI models by providing a trust layer that can detect and correct bias.

In an interview with CRN in July, Nottingham, the head of Advance Compute Solutions, said he has big ambitions for what HP can do in the AI software development space, where the company hopes to expand beyond its footprint of HP-branded workstation PCs.

“It's changing and there are new capabilities that nobody's supporting today. And we see that as just a great opportunity,” he said.

‘All I Care About Is Business Growth’

When CRN checked in with Shull at the HP Imagine 2024 event in September, he said his group is going “all in on” improving employee experience. At the center of this effort is the Workforce Experience Platform, which will consolidate 64 existing management services and introduce new capabilities for tracking worker satisfaction.

“Candidly, from a [profit and loss] point of view, all I care about is business growth, and so whether it's the channel partners selling it, or whether we're selling it, it actually doesn't matter to me. It's growth that HP is trying to generate on behalf of our customers,” he said.

The leader of a major U.S. solution provider said HP is making a smart move by reorganizing the Hybrid Systems and Advance Compute Solutions businesses under Shull’s rebranded and expanded HP Solutions group.

“If there's one thing I've learned in 28 years of doing this, if you become stagnant, you die, so you need to be understanding what the market’s doing, what the technology trends are, and then make adjustments in the organization to support that,” said Bob Venero, CEO of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Future Tech Enterprise.