2021
LATINO LEADERS
President & Chief Executive Officer
Worth Watching
TM
INTERNATIONAL
Education: Bachelor’s degree, electrical engineering, Polytechnic University of Valencia; MBA, ESADE Business School Company Name: HP Inc. Industry: Technology, consumer electronics, hardware Company CEO: Enrique Lores Company Headquarters Location: Palo Alto, California Number of Employees: ~51,000 worldwide What book are you reading? Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari; Stakeholder Capitalism by Klaus Schwab What was your first job? After a college internship with Hewlett-Packard Company in 1989, I was hired by the company full time and have been at HP ever since. Interests: Spending time at our home in Spain with family & friends; bicycling Family: My lovely wife and two adult sons
Embracing the New Post-Pandemic Workplace If last year clarified anything, it’s this: The 2020s will be a decade of consequence, and the pace of change is only going to accelerate. We are living through digital, geopolitical, and societal transformations the likes of which the world has never seen. Some experts have gone so far as to predict there will be more innovation over the next decade than there was over the course of the past century. At HP, we’re in the business of innovation. I first joined this company as an intern because it was a place where people dared to dream up a better future for everyone, everywhere, then worked together to turn their vision into reality. And that same mindset continues to unite our teams as we begin this new year. If you had asked me a year ago if we could manage HP while 95 percent of our company worked remotely, I would have said no way. But that’s exactly what we’ve done, and we’ve done it successfully. We’re far from alone. For millions of workers around the globe, the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed how and
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2021 First Quarter
where we work, and that impact will be felt for years to come. Employers now understand that many jobs can be done remotely, which gives us unprecedented flexibility regarding where we hire talent and how we use office space. Post-pandemic, offices are likely to function more as collaboration spaces where you exchange ideas and build the future, rather than places where you sit and work eight hours a day. This will require an accelerated digital transformation of our workforce, with new capabilities and skills needed from every member of every team. Of course, a more distributed workforce also creates more potential points of vulnerability, something bad actors are already trying to exploit. And as digital transformation reshapes industries, new cyber risks will inevitably emerge, particularly in specific verticals, such as education, industry, and health care. To stay one step ahead, companies can no longer rely simply on threat detection. Keeping sensitive data and information out
of the wrong hands will require significant investment in threat prevention. And as we focus on all these priorities, we can never lose sight of one of the most important: the need to continue finding new ways to bring people together. For years, in a traditional office setting, we took basic everyday interactions for granted: Grabbing lunch with a colleague to discuss a new idea; pulling together a small group to collaborate on solving a problem; or simply saying hi in the hallway. These are the little things that instill a sense of humanity and community in high-performing teams, and it’s essential that leaders find new ways to bring people together even when they’re apart. Because people are more than an email, and work is more than a transaction. One thing is certain in a year of uncertainty: the world around us is changing. And if we embrace change as an opportunity to become better companies, we can shape this new world—a world where we define ourselves not simply by what we make, but by what we make possible. www.diversityjournal.com
AWARD
Enrique Lores
