HP Reassigns Enterprise Group Chief Dave Donatelli, COO Bill Veghte Named Successor As Q3 Sales Drop

Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Group chief Dave Donatelli was reassigned by the company on Thursday, following the announcement of an 8 percent decline in revenue for the third quarter of the 2013 fiscal year.

AllThingsD reported on Wednesday that a major leadership reshuffling is on the verge of being completed, which was later confirmed by HP through a press release posted on their official website.

"Donatelli's new role will focus on identifying early-stage companies with new technologies, similar to HP Moonshot and HP StoreOnce, which he brought to market. This will help HP develop future server, storage and networking solutions. As part of this effort, he will work with select venture capital firms to explore targeted companies in their pipelines," HP announced in the release.

HP named now-former chief operating officer Bill Veghte as the new executive vice president and general manager of the HP Enterprise Group.

Following the shakeup, the Enterprise Group will also take on the role of developing the company's portfolio for cloud computing. Veghte previously handled the pan-HP cloud initiative, which will now merge with all cloud offerings of the company under Veghte's watch.

HP president and CEO Meg Whitman said she was confident that Veghte's vision of the company's future along with his deep enterprise experience make him suitable for his new position.

"Bill's vision for the future of IT, his breadth of experience in the industry and at HP, and his deep enterprise experience, make him the ideal candidate to help HP navigate a rapidly changing market. Dave succeeded in pioneering converged infrastructure, bridging servers, storage and networking. Looking forward, the software-defined data center and cloud computing offers us a great opportunity to extend HP's leadership in the technology infrastructure space," Whitman said.

The company said that they have no immediate plans to name a new COO after Veghte's reassignment.

On the other hand, HP also announced the merger of the company Marketing and Communications organizations, which will be handled by Chief Communications Officer Henry Gomez.

Gomez will also become the company's new Chief Marketing Officer, while current CMO Marty Homlish will take on a new role in HP's Chief Customer Experience office, and will be tasked to ensure consistency and quality of interaction between customers of all business units.

"One of the benefits of having a deep and talented executive bench is that you can put people with the right skills in the right jobs at the right moments. This is especially important when your industry is undergoing profound change and you need to rapidly respond with fresh ideas and bold execution. I'm confident that the changes we announced today will speed our journey to a successful turnaround," Whitman said.