Meg Whitman has stepped down as the chairwoman of the HP Inc board of directors.
The decision will become effective immediately and will see the role passed on to Chip Bergh, who was elected as Independent Board Chairman to replace Whitman.
Bergh has only held his position as the company’s Lead Independent Director since March 2017, but he also remains President and CEO of Levi Strauss & Co since September 2011.
“I have deep respect for Meg, Dion and the entire HP board and leadership team and am honoured by this important role as HP accelerates its innovation agenda,” said Bergh.
Meg Whitman was the former CEO of HP prior to the split of HPE and HP Inc in 2015. The split led to HP becoming wholly focused on its computer and printer business, while HPE became focused on the enterprise-facing hardware and cloud side of the business.
Read more: HPE sales, revenues, profits decline – but it’s all part of the plan, says CEO Meg Whitman
After the split, Dion Weisler became the CEO of HP while Meg Whitman stayed on the board of directors as chairman. Whitman remains CEO of HPE.
In a statement, Whitman said: “HP has now been a standalone company for almost two years and I’m proud to have helped get the company off to a great start. The HP board is among the most diverse in our industry, and the company has established a proven track record of successfully delivering on its commitments.
Content from our partners
“I’m very confident in Dion’s continued vision and leadership as well as Chip’s ability to help guide the organisation.”
Following reports from Bloomberg citing sources that Whitman is amongst those shortlisted to take on the role as CEO of Uber, it has also been rumoured that stepping down from the HP Inc board may the first step of her moving away from the company, according to The Register.
There have not yet been any comments from Whitman following the rumours which was reported yesterday, although a HPE spokesperson told Bloomberg that: “As Meg has said several times before, she is fully committed to HPE and plans to stay with the company until her work is done.”
Despite the decline in HPE’s second quarter results, CEO of the company, Meg Whitman still saw a positive side to it in which she stated that progress had been made “to compete and win well into the future.”
