Meg Whitman says she might have 'overloaded' HPE executives in Q1
After a "mixed quarter," Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman said the intensity of splitting her companies may have pushed the company to the edge.
"We probably loaded a bit too much on our senior people," Whitman said to CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" on Friday. "We might have just overloaded people. We had a lot of people in new jobs. I pride myself on execution, and it wasn't perfect this quarter. There's no question that I have pushed this organization to probably the limits."
Shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise tanked about 9 percent on Friday morning after the company reported lower-than-expected quarterly revenue and slashed its outlook for the year.
The company reduced its outlook for the year by 12 cents per share, citing investments to overcome challenges during the rest of the year, including pressure from foreign exchange rates, higher commodities pricing, and some "near-term execution issues."
Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which sells commercial computer systems, software and tech services, is half of the company formerly known as Hewlett-Packard. The other half, HP, sells personal computers and printers. The split, as well as a spinoff of some software assets, has meant a lot of changes for workers at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Whitman said.
"The good news is, when the dust settles, this makes us a much stronger company," Whitman said. "So it was absolutely the right thing to do."
Revenue was down 10 percent from the year-ago period, amid downticks in the company's software and enterprise services. Enterprise networking was a particularly sore spot for the company, with sales down 33 percent in the quarter.
"There were a couple of headwinds," Whitman said. "The market's a little bit soft, for sure, but secondarily, foreign exchange and commodity prices, and specifically memory."