Ever since the massive 2015 split of the original tech giant, people have been a little confused about who actually runs things. You've got HP Inc., which sells the printers and laptops you probably use at home, and then you have the heavy hitter: Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). Since 2018, the person at the helm of the latter has been Antonio Neri.
He’s not just a corporate suit.
🔗 Read more: McHenry County IL Tax Bill: What Most People Get Wrong
Neri actually started at the company back in 1995 as a customer service engineer in a call center. Think about that for a second. He climbed every single rung of the ladder over nearly three decades. It’s the kind of "started from the bottom" story you don't see much in Silicon Valley anymore, where external hires and "disruptor" CEOs are the norm. Honestly, that ground-level perspective is exactly why he’s managed to pivot a legacy hardware company into a cloud and AI powerhouse without the wheels falling off.
The CEO Hewlett Packard Enterprise and the GreenLake Gamble
When Neri took over from Meg Whitman, HPE was in a weird spot. It was basically a hardware box company in a world that was moving toward subscriptions and the cloud. Neri made a bold call early on. He promised that by 2022, everything HPE sold would be available as a service.
It was called HPE GreenLake.
At the time, analysts were skeptical. How do you turn a server or a massive storage array into a monthly subscription? But Neri saw that companies didn't want to manage data centers; they wanted the "cloud experience" but on their own terms, usually for security or compliance reasons. This hybrid approach is basically his legacy. Under his leadership, the CEO Hewlett Packard Enterprise role has become synonymous with "Hybrid Cloud." It’s about giving you the speed of AWS or Azure but keeping the hardware in your own building where you can see it.
The numbers don't lie. By late 2024 and heading into 2025, GreenLake's Annualized Revenue Run-Rate (ARR) had surged past the $1.5 billion mark.
Why the Juniper Networks Acquisition Changes Everything
If you follow tech news, you know Neri pulled the trigger on a massive $14 billion deal to buy Juniper Networks. This isn't just a boring networking play. It's about AI.
Neri has been very vocal about the fact that AI is the most "consequential technology" of our lifetime. But here’s the thing: AI requires a ridiculous amount of networking power to move data between GPUs. By bringing Juniper’s Mist AI and networking fabric into the HPE fold, Neri is essentially trying to own the plumbing of the AI revolution.
It’s a massive risk.
Integrating two giants is always messy. However, Neri’s history of internal promotions and deep technical knowledge gives him a bit more credibility than a typical financial CEO. He actually understands how the routers work. He gets the latency issues. He’s not just looking at a spreadsheet; he’s looking at the architecture.
A Different Kind of Leadership Style
You’ll often see Neri talking about "culture" in a way that doesn't feel like corporate fluff. Because he spent years in the trenches, he has this weirdly deep connection to the workforce. He’s known for being approachable, often engaging with employees on internal platforms in a way that feels surprisingly human for a guy running a Fortune 500 company.
He’s also an artist.
No, really. Neri is a classically trained painter. He’s mentioned in interviews that painting helps him with "visionary thinking." It’s a bit of a cliché, sure, but when you look at how he’s restructured HPE into distinct segments like Intelligent Edge, High Performance Computing (HPC), and AI, you can see a sort of "big picture" design at work.
✨ Don't miss: 10 Thousand Euros in Dollars: Why the Exchange Rate is Doing Weird Things Right Now
- He moved the company headquarters from California to Texas (Spring, specifically).
- He pushed for the "Edge-to-Cloud" strategy before "Edge" was a buzzword.
- He survived the supply chain nightmares of the early 2020s by diversifying manufacturing.
What Most People Get Wrong About HPE
A lot of folks still think of HPE as just "the server guys." That’s a mistake. Under Neri, the company has become the secret engine behind some of the world's most powerful supercomputers. If you look at the Frontier supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory—the first to break the exascale barrier—that’s HPE Cray technology.
Neri didn't just maintain the status quo. He doubled down on high-end compute.
While companies like Dell or Lenovo are fighting for the mid-market, Neri has positioned HPE to handle the most complex scientific simulations on the planet. Whether it’s weather modeling or discovering new drugs, Neri’s HPE is usually the one providing the raw horsepower.
The AI Pivot: It's Not Just About GPUs
In recent keynotes, Neri has been hammering home a specific point: AI is useless if you can't get your data to it. Most companies have "data silos" scattered everywhere. Neri’s strategy is to use the CEO Hewlett Packard Enterprise platform to unify that data.
He's basically saying, "Don't move your data to the AI; bring the AI to your data."
It’s a smart move. Moving petabytes of data to the public cloud is expensive and slow. Neri is betting that enterprises will prefer to run their AI models locally on HPE servers, managed via the GreenLake cloud. This is the "Sovereign AI" trend he’s been championing lately—the idea that nations and companies want to own their own AI intelligence without relying on a handful of "Hyper-scalers" in Seattle or Silicon Valley.
Navigating the Critics
Is everything perfect? Of course not. The stock price has had its share of volatility, and some investors worry that the Juniper deal is too expensive. There's also the constant pressure from the public cloud. If Amazon and Microsoft keep getting better at hybrid setups, does HPE lose its edge?
Neri’s answer is usually centered on "choice." He wants HPE to be the open alternative. He’s avoided the "vendor lock-in" trap that many of his predecessors fell into. By making HPE software work with almost any hardware or cloud provider, he’s gambling that being the "Switzerland of Tech" is the most sustainable long-term play.
Lessons from Neri’s Tenure
If you’re looking at Neri’s career for leadership insights, the biggest takeaway is his commitment to long-term transformation over short-term "sugar rushes." He could have easily cut R&D to boost the stock price for a few quarters. Instead, he spent years and billions building out GreenLake when nobody quite understood what it was.
📖 Related: Why We Had a Little Real Estate Problem and What it Actually Means for You
He’s a marathon runner, not a sprinter.
For the average business leader or tech enthusiast, Neri represents the "Steady Hand" approach. In an industry obsessed with 22-year-old founders and overnight disruptions, there’s something to be said for a CEO who knows exactly how the server rack is bolted to the floor because he’s the one who used to do it.
Actionable Steps for Business Leaders Based on Neri's Strategy:
- Audit Your Data Gravity: Before jumping into a "cloud-first" AI strategy, determine where your data actually lives. As Neri suggests, moving the AI to the data is often cheaper and more secure than the reverse.
- Move Toward Consumption Models: If you are still buying hardware via massive upfront CapEx, look into "as-a-service" models like GreenLake. This keeps your cash flow flexible, especially when AI hardware is evolving so fast it becomes obsolete in 24 months.
- Prioritize the "Edge": Data is increasingly generated outside of the data center—at factory floors, in hospitals, and in retail stores. Invest in "Edge" compute power to process that information in real-time rather than sending it all back to a central hub.
- Balance Technical Depth with Vision: If you’re in a leadership role, don't lose touch with the technical "roots" of your business. Neri’s ability to talk shop with engineers is a primary reason he can make big bets on networking and AI without getting fooled by hype.
- Evaluate Hybridity: Don't feel forced to choose between "All-Cloud" or "All-On-Prem." The most successful modern enterprises, according to HPE’s current trajectory, are those that use a mix of both to balance cost and control.
Ultimately, the story of the CEO Hewlett Packard Enterprise isn't just about corporate maneuvers. It’s a case study in how a legacy giant can reinvent itself by leaning into its engineering roots while simultaneously pivoting to a future dominated by AI and subscriptions. Neri has proven that you don't have to be a "new" company to lead the "new" tech world. You just have to be willing to change everything about how you sell, while staying true to what you build.