Top HP Execs Bradley, Donatelli Set to Leave

Two of Hewlett-Packard’s (HPQ) long-tenured, high-profile veterans in its Enterprise and PC and Printing divisions will leave the company within the next two months, after being back-handed to the sidelines by chief executive Meg Whitman’s management shuffle last summer, according to a Reuters report.

Todd Bradley, formerly HP’s PC and Printing Division chief, and Dave Donatelli, the vendor’s Enterprise boss—both of whom pre-date Whitman's takeover of the company’s helm—were removed from their positions last summer in the wake of disappointing quarterly results in which the vendor recorded significant losses in both units.

Bradley, who joined HP from Palm in 2005, at one point ran businesses at HP that accounted for some $65 billion in annual revenue, or nearly half of HP’s overall sales. But as the global PC business continue to erode, so did Bradley’s profile.

Donatelli, who moved to HP in 2009 after a 22-year stint at EMC (EMC), ran the Enterprise Division for a year starting in August, 2012. Under his direction, HP kicked off its much-ballyhooed Project Moonshot, a new server line consuming less power and space than traditional machines.

Soon after their demotions both executives made deals with HP to leave, accepting new stock options as a tradeoff for keeping their plans quiet, the report said. HP apparently believed it had enough to handle trying to stem its losses without the negative publicity Bradley’s and Donatelli’s exits might generate.

Both executives agreed to delay their departures but now they plan to formally leave once the restricted stock in the agreements fully vests. Each currently is interviewing for a new job, the report said, although at this point there’s no word about where they might land.

Bradley is planning to exit at the end of this month with some $12 million from his vesting deal, while Donatelli is targeting leaving in March, pocketing $8 million to $10 million in his goodbye package, sources cited in the report said.

An HP spokesperson told Reuters "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."

Last June, in the aftermath of HP relinquishing its worldwide PC leadership position to rival Lenovo and a 20 percent tumble in PC sales, Whitman removed Bradley as Printing and Personal Systems executive vice president and assigned him to build the company’s business in China and create more channel partner relationships worldwide.

Dion Weisler, formerly HP’s Asia Pacific and Japan Printing and PC operations senior vice president who came on board in January 2012, took over Bradley’s job.

Two months later, in the wake of continuing revenue declines in all of HP’s divisions, including a 9 percent slide in Donatelli’s enterprise unit, Whitman named chief operating officer Bill Veghte as its new Enterprise chief and shuttled Donatelli off to a backroom job identifying startups creating new technologies to help with server, storage and networking solutions.