Celebrating Irv Rothman’s remarkable career, and announcing Gerri Gold as CEO of HPE Financial Services

Close to 21 years ago, Hewlett-Packard completed its merger with Compaq. What became HPE Financial Services was founded, and Irv Rothman was appointed as its leader. After more than two decades dedicating himself to the success of HPE Financial Services and HPE, Irv has decided to step down from his leadership role to enjoy a well-deserved retirement.

At HPE, our financial services business is known as “the Swiss watch of HPE,” rarely, if ever, missing a beat in meeting commitments. This affectionate nickname was coined by our CFO Tarek Robbiati and says a lot about Irv and his team’s focus on execution. In fact, Irv even wrote a book about this topic¹.

For someone with an impressive 40-year career in the financial services industry – and who is a fan of the New York Yankees – that “execution homerun” is an achievement to be celebrated.

But as a leader myself, I know that building such a well-oiled organization requires more than a strong dedication to disciplined execution. It requires leadership.

Along with his corporate drive, Irv prioritizes culture and value-based leadership. He once said in a interview “Culture is absolutely the CEO’s job,” and I could not agree more. Running his business, Irv certainly struck a balance: Culture, strategy, and execution.

Irv has worked alongside five HP and HPE CEOs. He has been a great partner and counselor to me personally. I observed how he enables his teams to grow with confidence, knowing what is expected of them, and to embrace change almost constantly.  He has cultivated the next level of leaders in his organization.

One of those leaders is Gerri, who becomes the new CEO of HPE Financial Services today. Irv and Gerri will work together to ensure a smooth transition over the next few weeks.

Previously as HPEFS SVP and Chief Operating Officer, Gerri scaled our Asset Management unit, which is now a core component of HPE’s edge-to-cloud strategy. That business now processes more than 3.6 million IT assets per year that are deemed to have reached “end of use.” More than 82% of these assets are successfully upcycled, going back into the economy for reuse and enabling us to return more than $1.3 million in “trapped capital” back to customers every working day in 2022. 

All who have worked with Gerri appreciate her strategic mind and contagious energy.  I’m thrilled to welcome Gerri to our HPE Executive Committee.

These are exciting times for all of us: congratulations to Irv on an impressive career and legacy, and I look forward to working with Gerri as our HPEFS team accelerates momentum and brings even more value to customers and partners.

¹ Out-Executing the Competition (Wiley, 2012) – all personal royalties from the sales of Irv’s book are donated to Room To Read, an international charity dedicated to promoting children’s literacy