HP has appointed consumer health firm Kimberly-Clark's CIO Ramón F.Baez(pictured)as its new senior vice-president and global chief information officer.
Baez will start on 20 August and report to John Hinshaw,who is executive vice president of global technology and business processes at HP.
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According to his LinkedIn profile,Baez is still working as CIO at Kimberly-Clark.
He will be responsible for the global information technology strategy and all of HP's internal assets including architecture,applications,data management,technology,telecommunication networks,and support and operations,HP said.
"Ramón brings a vast amount of experience and leadership to HP,"said Hinshaw."As a skilled veteran who will truly transform IT for HP by helping to remove complexities and drive efficiencies,his No.1 focus will be to enable a better experience for our customers,partners and employees."
On his Twitter page,Baez said:"A new chapter begins and I will miss my K-C(Kimberly-Clark)colleagues very much".
Prior to his five year plus stint as Kimberly-Clark CIO,Baez occupied the role of CIO at manufacturing firm Fisher Scientific between 2005 and 2007 and at energy efficiency technology company Honeywell between 2002 and 2005.
For 25 years he worked at defence and aerospace company Northrop Grumman,where he eventually served as CIO,before leaving in May 2002.
The appointment of Baez shows that HP is listening to its customers as it has appointed from an end user,according to Ovum analyst Roy Illsley.
"It shows that HP is listening to its customers and has chosen someone to be the customers'voice in HP.
"Time will tell whether he will actually be listened to,and if they start to adopt some of his thinking and his ideas which could make HP's approach more appealing to customers,"he said.
Illsley said it was a bold move by HP as the technology giant had traditionally appointed from within the company or from other vendors as oppose to an end user such as Kimberly-Clark.
"I think they are trying to broaden their base to be more appealing and that is why they did not hire someone from IBM or VMware.Dell recently appointed John Swainson to head its software division and he had worked at CA Technologies and before that at IBM–and this is what usually happens at vendors.
"Swainson brought in people that he liked from CA and IBM to work with as well,but strategically Dell's decision was not really reaching out and getting someone different to change things but was more about hiring somebody who had been successful at another vendor,"he said.
