HPE Rising Star Justin Hotard Replaces Pete Ungaro As Head Of High Performance Compute

“Undoubtedly, Justin is the right person for the job—and at an ideal time in the evolution of our HPC, MCS and Labs business,” said HPE CEO Antonio Neri. “His customer- and market centric-mindset, technical background and collaborative leadership will ensure great continuity as we deliver on our Exascale commitments, execute on our strategy and roadmap and continue to extend our leadership in the market.”

Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Antonio Neri Tuesday named rising star Justin Hotard as the new general manager of the company’s high performance compute business, replacing former Cray CEO Pete Ungaro.

Ungaro joined HPE as senior president and general manager of high performance computing and mission critical solutions after HPE acquired supercomputer pioneer Cray for $1.3 billion in 2019.

HPE said Ungaro will step aside April 2 and continue to act as a special advisor to the company under a six-month consulting agreement. Ungaro will be paid $150,000 per month with the ability to earn a $315,000 incentive payout.

Hotard, who will report direclty to Neri and will also oversee the company’s research and development arm HPE Labs, joined HPE in 2015 and has played a key role in a number of critical areast, including most recently helping to accelerate HPE’s pivot to an everything-as-a-service model.

Hotard (pictured) also played a key role in driving the acquisiton of high performance compute powerhouse SGI in 2016. He is also credited with helping to transform the HPE Compute business, driving big improvements in growth and profitability of the x86 compute portfolio.

Finally, Hotard also served previously as president and managing director of HPE Japan, where he helped drive big wins in high performance compute and mission critical systems.

“Undoubtedly, Justin is the right person for the job—and at an ideal time in the evolution of our HPC, MCS and Labs business,” said Neri in a blog post. “His customer- and market centric-mindset, technical background, and collaborative leadership will ensure great continuity as we deliver on our Exascale commitments, execute on our strategy and roadmap and continue to extend our leadership in the market. Bringing Justin onto my leadership team will help us further our momentum and broaden our innovation engine as we deliver on our promise of becoming the edge-to-cloud platform-as-a-service company.”

Neri said Ungaro successfully integrated Cray into HPE. “He has made significant contributions that have positioned this business very well for continued performance and growth,” said Neri. “We will continue to benefit from his leadership for years to come.”