HP plonks newcomer into hot seat for EMEA Enterprise Group

But future role for HP EMEA MD unconfirmed in shakeup

HP has shuffled the management deck in EMEA in a restructure that's bagged big cheese Peter Ryan the top job at the Enterprise Group.

The vendor confirmed in March it was stitching together the PC and printer divisions and merging the Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking (ESSN) and Global Accounts and Technology Services units into the Enterprise Group.

Ryan only pitched up at HP last July to run EMEA as senior veep for ESSN, having been poached from Logica where he was chief client director.

An HP spokeswoman confirmed that Ryan is the new senior veep and general manager in the region for the Enterprise Group, reporting to global lead Dave Donatelli, but he refused to comment further at this point.

Maybe HP's reluctance to open up about the changes is that the next role of Yves de Talhouet, named last May as senior veep for the Enterprise Business and MD for HP EMEA, has yet to be finalised say sources close to the vendor.

The Global Accounts team had reported to Talhouet.

It is understood that Johan Deschuyffeleer, senior veep and general manager for Technology Services EMEA prior to the changes, will maintain a senior role in the subsumed unit. He was briefly a caretaker for ESSN prior to Ryan's appointment.

As a result of the exec restructure, ESSN UK boss Iain Stephen will now report to MD Nick Wilson, who said the overhaul is a positive move for both channel partners and customers.

"We are trying to streamline and be easier for clients to deal with," he told Channel Reg, adding that the move will speed decision making to the benefit of the channel. The move across HP will cut costs by reducing a layer of management and free up capacity to invest more cash into R&D, a point made by CEO Meg Whitman in February. ®