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Meg Whitman steps down as HPE CEO, shares tumble

Whitman's six-year tenure saw HP split into four separate businesses

The CEO of HPE, Meg Whitman, has announced that she will leave the firm after a turbulent six years, during which she led a four-way split of one of Silicon Valley's original companies. She says that she has achieved the performance turnaround target that she set when she joined the company in 2011.

Whitman was in charge of the original combined HP business until it was split into HP Inc (the declining PC and printer businesses) and HPE in 2015. The server and software divisions were later sold off.

Although she joined HPE as CEO, Whitman remained the chairperson of HP Inc. She left the role this year, with speculation mounting that she was going for the position of CEO at Uber. She missed out on that job, but it was an indication that she was getting ready to leave the HP umbrella.

In an analyst call, Whitman said that HPE is "far more nimble, far more agile, and frankly a much better company that it was six years ago." She added, "The next leader needs to be a deeper technologist."

The "next leader" will be HPE's president, Antonio Neri, who will take over as CEO in February, while Whitman will return to her former position as non-executive director.

HPE's shares fell more than six per cent after hours when Whitman made the announcement.

Earnings

As well as the leadership shakeup, HPE shared its earnings report on Tuesday. It posted earnings of 31 cents per share on revenue of $7.8 billion in fiscal Q4 - above analyst expectations of 28 cents on revenue of $7.7 billion.

Full-year earnings were $37.4 billion, including $28.9 billion from continuing operations and $8.5 billion from the Enterprises Services and Software divisions, which have since been sold off.

HPE's prediction for the next fiscal year put diluted earnings per share at $1.15 - $1.25 on an adjusted basis.

Meg Whitman steps down as HPE CEO, shares tumble

Whitman's six-year tenure saw HP split into four separate businesses

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