Talented leaders create growth opportunities for HPE – and new roles for themselves

One of the most compelling aspects of HPE culture stems from our view that “We don’t wait to get invited to the room where it happens; we build the room and watch others become inspired to help.”  When a talented corps of leaders is empowered to live that culture – and season it with true customer focus – at least two things happen: the company and its customers benefit, and the proven leaders get bigger opportunities.  And that’s exactly what happened recently with HPE’s Living Progress team – the team charged with driving HPE’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) strategy.  

Monica Batchelder and Tiffani Jarnigan have been listening to stakeholders -- and building the room where HPE’s ESG strategy happens -- for more than 5 years, and I’m especially proud to announce the appointment of Monica as HPE’s Chief Sustainability Officer and Tiffani’s promotion to the newly-created role of Director of Sustainability Innovation and Partnerships within the Living Progress team.  These promotions – and the creation of the role that Tiffani will play – are noteworthy because they exemplify the many positive outcomes companies enjoy when culture, strategy, innovation, and leadership converge.

The story of Monica and Tiffani’s work appropriately starts with the latitude they were given by outgoing Chief Sustainability Officer, Brian Tippens, a 20-year veteran of HPE whose own ESG credentials were honed building groundbreaking supply chain responsibility programs and leading HPE’s DEI function before many companies even had one.  He recognized that his depth in the Social components of ESG created an opportunity for his team members to break their own ground in the environmental and climate world.  So, when they came forward with innovative work on how to transform those pieces from a “mere” sustainability strategy into a winning business strategy for the company, he encouraged more.

Monica and Tiffani took the lead in working with HPE’s top executives to re-imagine our approach to ESG – using ESG as a lens through which the company viewed a broad range of business decisions with a desired outcome of increasing our relevance to customers and investors and growing revenue by bringing to market technology solutions designed to help customers solve their own sustainability challenges.

Over the past year, they have proven themselves as trusted partners and bridge-builders, bringing new stakeholders to the ESG “table”. With the support of our incredibly capable Living Progress team, they’ve built the capabilities of our board and executives through targeted ESG trainings and engagements to drive alignment and accountability at the highest levels of the company; unified the company behind a comprehensive strategy to speed collaboration and deployment of measurable targets and initiatives; reimagined traditional roles to build an ESG team fit for purpose to deliver the highest value for the business; and partnered with technologists to invent new sustainability solutions that are poised for commercialization.

These promotions are only the beginning of remarkable journeys for these leaders, and I know this transformational work will enable us to position HPE as a market leader while providing further opportunities for the growth and development of the Living Progress team as we take on impactful new initiatives.