HP shifts to solutions; CTO Rajendra Sitompoel flags AI safety

HP's slide down the Fortune 500 frames the interview. In 2006 the company sat 11th on Fortune's list of the largest U.S. companies by revenue and was vying with IBM for the title of biggest tech company in the country; this year it came in at No. 84, overtaken by Apple, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft. Sitompoel's stated shift from hardware to solutions and experiences is presented as HP's way to gain ground on those tech competitors.

That transition shapes how he spends his own time. His role expanded to cover the Nordics about six months ago, so he is balancing the internal shift with retaining his Benelux focus, while still talking to clients and other CIOs and CTOs. To chase a more strategic goal, HP postponed some IT investments and changes to the team structure, on the logic that it is better not to shift too many things at once during a period of change.

On his teams, Sitompoel says he gives people the freedom to operate and to stress-test the security of technology without crossing boundaries, and that he has almost never had to stop anyone. His stated gauge of whether he is leaning in the right direction is the ratio of client meetings to internal meetings.