Meg Whitman, who oversaw the breakup of one of Silicon Valley’s pioneering companies, is stepping down as CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co (HPE).
HPE on Tuesday said that Whitman would hand over the reins of the company to its president, Antonio Neri, on Feb. 1.
Whitman, 61, in 2011 took over at Hewlett-Packard Co, which was founded in 1939 and was a tech bellwether for years. However, it had struggled to keep up with industry trends toward mobile and cloud computing, shedding thousands of jobs in the process.
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In 2015, Hewlett-Packard was split in two: one company, HP Inc, sells PCs and printers. The other, HPE, led by Whitman, is focused on selling data center hardware and other commercial tech gear to other big organizations.
Since the breakup, Palo Alto, California-based HPE has furthered its transformation, last year spinning off a big chunk of its business software lineup in an US$8.8 billion deal with Micro Focus International PLC.
Whitman and Neri, 50, are both to serve on HPE’s board.
Whitman on Tuesday said she plans on taking “a little bit of downtime” after a 35-year career.
She also ruled out working for a competitor.
“I’ve become quite loyal to Hewlett-Packard and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise,” Whitman said. “I love this company and I wouldn’t ever go to a competitor.”
She was in the running to replace Travis Kalanick as the chief executive of Uber Technologies Inc, but that job went to Dara Khosrowshahi in August.
Before Hewlett-Packard, Whitman served as CEO of eBay Inc, a company she steered from a fledgling start-up with just 30 employees into a household name from 1998 to 2008.
Forbes recently listed her net worth at US$3.2 billion.
HPE’s stock dropped 6.5 percent in after-hours trading on Tuesday following the announcement.
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