Meet HP CEO Dion Weisler, The Man Behind The Hp Split-Off

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Meet HP CEO Dion Weisler, The Man Behind The Hp Split-Off
Meet HP split-off CEO Dion Weisler, who compares surfing to selling computers
Weisler, the executive vice president of HP’s printing and personal systems business, will lead HP Inc. as its president and CEO, Hewlett-Packard said.

Dion Weisler, the man set to lead the printer and personal computer business that Hewlett-Packard Co. is planning to split off, connects his aquatic days of youth in Australia to the market he’ll be navigating.

“I love the water,” the former competitive swimmer said on an analyst call in October 2013. “When I look at the ocean, I think about it as a dynamic environment. Waves are always rolling by.”

He went on to lay out a metaphor about some surfers playing in the first row of waves — the easy ones to catch. Some of the surfers are positioned to try for the next row of waves, he noted. Finally, there are the surfers staring at the horizon.

“The really astute ones are looking out for Big Wednesday — that massive wave,” he said. “When you think of the business in this way, you can think about how you can play for today and also the future.

Dion Weisler, the presumptive CEO of the printer and PC business that Hewlett-Packard may spin off,
advocates looking for the "Big Wednesday" waves.

It was a catchy metaphor for an executive who took over a PC and printer business line in June last year that in the previous quarter had posted a 1 percent drop in printer sales and a 20 percent hemorrhage in PC revenue.

Now he’s set to take over as CEO of that business, as Hewlett-Packard said Monday it is planning a corporate mitosis that will divide its printer and personal computer operations from its business-to-business company. HP said the printer and PC company will be named HP Inc., and the transaction splitting the two companies is expected to close by the end of HP's fiscal 2015.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the company's planned split Sunday.

Weisler, the executive vice president of HP’s printing and personal systems business, will lead HP Inc. as its president and CEO, Hewlett-Packard said.

“Since assuming responsibility for the Printing and Personal Systems Group, Dion and his leadership team have done an excellent job of building our relationships with customers and channel partners, segmenting the market and driving product innovation,” Whitman said in a news release. “The creation of HP Inc. will only accelerate the progress the team has made.”

Palo Alto-based HP’s current CEO, Meg Whitman, will retain leadership of the company’s enterprise business unit, which will be named Hewlett-Packard Enterprise. She will also serve as HP Inc.'s non-executive chairman, HP said.

Weisler had been at Palo Alto-based HP since January 2012, after having worked at Lenovo, where he was chief operating officer at the company’s product and digital-mobile-Internet units. Before that, he had spent 11 years at Acer, where he helped lead the company’s operations in the U.K., and Central and Eastern Europe.

Raised in Australia, the 47-year-old executive, whose previous title was executive vice president of printing and personal systems, pulled down $9.15 million in total compensation in the 2013 fiscal year, according to BusinessWeek.

He’s faced with a daunting task: Steering a formerly world-leading business that was just passed up by his former employer, Lenovo, in a world where research firm IDC expects PC shipments to fall 6 percent in 2014 and continue declining through 2018.

IDC noted in July that there may be some bright spots in that dim future, with business buoyed slightly by PC replacements and reviving interest in PCs by consumers who have in recent years been captivated by tablets and mobile phones.

HP's printer business is one area that may be poised for growth as 3-D printing technology propagates, said Rob Enderle, founder of research firm the Enderle Group.

"I think the weakness right now is in the printer business," he said. "If that comes on, though, it could be a powerful force for growth."

Weisler has posted some initial wins running the printer and PC businesses, with revenue rising in each of the last three quarters. In the three months ended July 31, the printing and personal computer group posted $14.24 billion in revenue, a 5 percent gain. That constituted 51 percent of the whole company’s revenue.

In terms of earnings before taxes, Weisler’s business hit $1.37 billion, or 50 percent of HP’s total earnings. The operating profit margin for the personal computer systems group at HP clocked in at 4 percent in the quarter ended July 31, while printing posted a much larger margin of 18.4 percent, according to the company’s earnings release.

When Weisler took over the printer and PC business, he laid out a product-development strategy that took account of his surfing analogy to current, emerging and future tech changes, according to CRN.com.

Weisler said that he’d preserve the research and development operations he inherited, telling CRN.com, “To take away from R&D is to cut your leg off.” He also emphasized how his business unit would work with HP Labs to translate their new technologies into new products.

Greg Baumann is editor in chief at the Silicon Valley Business Journal.

Meet HP CEO Dion Weisler, The Man Behind The Hp Split-Off
Meet HP split-off CEO Dion Weisler, who compares surfing to selling computers
Weisler, the executive vice president of HP’s printing and personal systems business, will lead HP Inc. as its president and CEO, Hewlett-Packard said.

Dion Weisler, the man set to lead the printer and personal computer business that Hewlett-Packard Co. is planning to split off, connects his aquatic days of youth in Australia to the market he’ll be navigating.

“I love the water,” the former competitive swimmer said on an analyst call in October 2013. “When I look at the ocean, I think about it as a dynamic environment. Waves are always rolling by.”

He went on to lay out a metaphor about some surfers playing in the first row of waves — the easy ones to catch. Some of the surfers are positioned to try for the next row of waves, he noted. Finally, there are the surfers staring at the horizon.

“The really astute ones are looking out for Big Wednesday — that massive wave,” he said. “When you think of the business in this way, you can think about how you can play for today and also the future.

Dion Weisler, the presumptive CEO of the printer and PC business that Hewlett-Packard may spin off,
advocates looking for the "Big Wednesday" waves.

It was a catchy metaphor for an executive who took over a PC and printer business line in June last year that in the previous quarter had posted a 1 percent drop in printer sales and a 20 percent hemorrhage in PC revenue.

Now he’s set to take over as CEO of that business, as Hewlett-Packard said Monday it is planning a corporate mitosis that will divide its printer and personal computer operations from its business-to-business company. HP said the printer and PC company will be named HP Inc., and the transaction splitting the two companies is expected to close by the end of HP's fiscal 2015.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the company's planned split Sunday.

Weisler, the executive vice president of HP’s printing and personal systems business, will lead HP Inc. as its president and CEO, Hewlett-Packard said.

“Since assuming responsibility for the Printing and Personal Systems Group, Dion and his leadership team have done an excellent job of building our relationships with customers and channel partners, segmenting the market and driving product innovation,” Whitman said in a news release. “The creation of HP Inc. will only accelerate the progress the team has made.”

Palo Alto-based HP’s current CEO, Meg Whitman, will retain leadership of the company’s enterprise business unit, which will be named Hewlett-Packard Enterprise. She will also serve as HP Inc.'s non-executive chairman, HP said.

Weisler had been at Palo Alto-based HP since January 2012, after having worked at Lenovo, where he was chief operating officer at the company’s product and digital-mobile-Internet units. Before that, he had spent 11 years at Acer, where he helped lead the company’s operations in the U.K., and Central and Eastern Europe.

Raised in Australia, the 47-year-old executive, whose previous title was executive vice president of printing and personal systems, pulled down $9.15 million in total compensation in the 2013 fiscal year, according to BusinessWeek.

He’s faced with a daunting task: Steering a formerly world-leading business that was just passed up by his former employer, Lenovo, in a world where research firm IDC expects PC shipments to fall 6 percent in 2014 and continue declining through 2018.

IDC noted in July that there may be some bright spots in that dim future, with business buoyed slightly by PC replacements and reviving interest in PCs by consumers who have in recent years been captivated by tablets and mobile phones.

HP's printer business is one area that may be poised for growth as 3-D printing technology propagates, said Rob Enderle, founder of research firm the Enderle Group.

"I think the weakness right now is in the printer business," he said. "If that comes on, though, it could be a powerful force for growth."

Weisler has posted some initial wins running the printer and PC businesses, with revenue rising in each of the last three quarters. In the three months ended July 31, the printing and personal computer group posted $14.24 billion in revenue, a 5 percent gain. That constituted 51 percent of the whole company’s revenue.

In terms of earnings before taxes, Weisler’s business hit $1.37 billion, or 50 percent of HP’s total earnings. The operating profit margin for the personal computer systems group at HP clocked in at 4 percent in the quarter ended July 31, while printing posted a much larger margin of 18.4 percent, according to the company’s earnings release.

When Weisler took over the printer and PC business, he laid out a product-development strategy that took account of his surfing analogy to current, emerging and future tech changes, according to CRN.com.

Weisler said that he’d preserve the research and development operations he inherited, telling CRN.com, “To take away from R&D is to cut your leg off.” He also emphasized how his business unit would work with HP Labs to translate their new technologies into new products.

Greg Baumann is editor in chief at the Silicon Valley Business Journal.

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October 7, 2014 at 12:56 PM