Dive Brief:
- HP Inc. announced the departure of President and CEO Enrique Lores and the appointment of board member Bruce Broussard as interim CEO Tuesday. Lores left his post at the PC, print and IT services provider to replace Alex Chriss as President and CEO of PayPal.
- Lores held several leadership roles during his 36-year tenure at HP, culminating in his appointment as CEO in 2019. In addition to serving as president of the company’s printing, imaging and solutions business and SVP and GM of business personal systems, Lores held the role of separation leader in 2014, when HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise were created as separate entities from the former Hewlett-Packard Company.
- The HP board has retained an executive search firm and formed a CEO search committee to recruit its next chief executive, the company said in the Tuesday announcement. “I look forward to being an effective steward of the company’s strategic progress and providing stability and continuity as we run a CEO search process,” said Broussard, who joined the board of directors in 2021.
Dive Insight:
Lores leaves HP amid broad challenges and emerging opportunities in the PC industry, as manufacturers rush to roll out AI-enabled units amid a mounting memory chip shortage.
AI PCs accounted for nearly one-third of the company’s overall PC business in the final quarter of HP’s 2025 fiscal year, Lores said during an earnings call in November.
While global PC shipments increased 9% year over year during Q4, the silicon supply chain was already showing signs of strain. “Memory costs are currently 15% to 18% of the cost of a typical PC, and while an increase was expected, its rate has accelerated in the last few weeks,” he said.
The company moved swiftly to mitigate the impact, Lores added, by “qualifying lower-cost suppliers and redesigning the portfolio for reduced memory configurations, accelerating our AI-enabled transformation to drive further cost savings, and raising prices in close partnerships with our channel and direct customers.”
Broussard gained stewardship of a company that retained its position as the second largest PC supplier last year, with a 21.5% share of the global market, according to a January Gartner analysis. The company saw revenue increase 3.2% to $55.3 billion during the fiscal year, despite a 4% revenue decline in its print division.
“It has been an honor to lead HP through its evolution into an AI-driven technology company that is redefining workplace solutions and connecting with customers globally,” Lores said in the Tuesday announcement. “Over the last several years, our resilient team has successfully navigated the evolution of our world. We extended our leadership in Print and PCs, diversified our business with the addition of HP Solutions, and invested in our people.”
