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 Todd Bradley and Dave Donatelli have been interviewing for potential
jobs for several months, four sources familiar with the situation
said.
The men accepted a deal of new stock options in exchange for a quiet
exit, two of the sources said.
The departures of two HP veterans who pre-dated Whitman may
strengthen her grip on the company, midway through a five-year plan
to try and turn around the once-dominant Silicon Valley computing
icon.
Former PC chief Bradley and ex-enterprise group chief Donatelli,
once rising stars at the computing giant, are now waiting for
restricted stock to vest under the undisclosed agreement.
Bradley is expected to leave HP at the end of February, with about
$12 million in hand as part of the vesting agreement, the sources
said. Donatelli is expected to remain with HP until March, receiving
$8 million to $10 million, the sources said.
The deals were struck last summer and one person said the delayed
departure was an attempt to minimize publicity.
Bradley and Donatelli, long considered by industry watchers as
contenders for top jobs at companies ranging from Dell to Juniper
Networks, are among the highest-profile casualties of a deep
restructuring kicked off by Whitman when she took the helm in 2011.
Bradley once headed HP's single largest division, personal computers
and devices, which has shrunk or stalled for years and was recently
deposed by Lenovo Inc as the largest PC maker. He was replaced in
June and charged with improving its China business.
In late summer, after Donatelli's enterprise division posted a
9-percent decline in fiscal third-quarter sales, Donatelli was
replaced and tasked with identifying early-stage technologies for
investment after Whitman blamed the enterprise business for HP's
poor quarterly results.
One of the sources said Donatelli argued for a spinoff of his
division, an idea Whitman scotched. HP declined to comment.
"The reason Todd and Dave were removed from their positions is
because they were not making progress fast enough on the turnaround,
and Meg wanted new leadership in those roles," HP spokesman Michael
Thacker said on Tuesday, for the first time publicly commenting on
the reason for their change in jobs.
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Thacker declined to confirm their departure or comment on whether
the men had received options in exchange for a quiet exit.
Neither executive responded to requests for comment.
Two sources who spoke to both executives said they disagreed with
aspects of Whitman's vision, which involved transforming HP into a
provider of servers, storage and networking to corporations, rather
than taking on Apple Inc. or Samsung in mobile computing.
When asked about such differences, Thacker said the board and
executive leadership, including Donatelli and Bradley, were aligned
with Whitman's strategy.
Both executives had stopped regularly going in to work at HP months
ago, two sources said. Thacker stressed they were still working for
HP.
It is unclear where the two executives will go, but both have been
actively interviewing with companies and headhunters in the past
months, the sources said.
Bradley oversaw the ill-fated and short-lived TouchPad tablet in
2011, a six-week effort that ranks as one of HP's most embarrassing
duds in the consumer electronics arena. At the time, under then-CEO
Leo Apotheker, the company was considering a spinoff of its PC
business.
"Meg retained a lot of the incumbents in place for a while," one of
the sources said, adding that the departures reflected the
executives' performance, not a general housecleaning.
(Editing by Peter Henderson and
Bernadette Baum)
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