CEO, HPE – 2018-present
Few people in this countdown can rival the loyalty and length of service of Antonio Neri, who was handed the top job at HPE some 27 years after joining HP in its customer service department.
The Argentina-born executive won plaudits from our panel for “rejuvenating” one of the IT channel’s most important vendors over the last six years. Neri’s tenure has included big strategic bets, including investing in HPE’s GreenLake hybrid cloud and developing a portfolio of NVIDIA-infused AI technology, not to mention its pending acquisition of Juniper.
Four of the 60 channel leaders we questioned put Neri in their top five, with one ranking him top.
Leadership style
In a blog post in 2021, Neri – whose parents are both Sicilian – wrote that his first call centre role taught him something fundamental to his leadership style, namely that “diverse teams are better teams”. He also stressed the importance of working in a constructive, collaborative way .
Low points
There’s no getting away from the fact that HPE has been through a tough last 18 months as customers applied the brakes to hardware sales. It returned to growth in its latest quarter.
Killer quote
“From a go-to-market perspective, we are going to show up as one company, not two companies, in front of a customer. We’re going to show up as one company selling the same thing.” (Neri on HPE’s recent AI partnership with NVIDA, taken from this interview with theCUBE)
What our panellists said about Neri
Brian Dunleavy, CCO, Viadex
“Antonio has rejuvenated the HPE brand by evolving the portfolio of solutions and services to suit the future needs of our customers. When watching him present on stage, he seems to genuinely want to make a difference. I have spoken to a few senior global execs who meet with him regularly and they confirm this. He pays attention to detail and actively listens to suggestions and recommendations which in my view is a great trait of a leader.”
How did IT Channel Oxygen compile The Century’s Greatest Vendor Leaders? See here
