Scott Morris set to exit as regional HPE channel chief

Scott Morris is preparing to vacate his role as vice president and general manager of channel across Asia Pacific at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), Channel Asia can confirm.

The industry executive will exit the technology giant at the end of April, coinciding with the vendor’s second quarter closure following a mutual decision between both parties. Channel Asia understands that Narinder Kapoor – managing director and senior vice president of Asia Pacific at HPE – will take over Morris’ channel responsibilities on an interim basis, until a successor can be found.

According to sources close to Channel Asia, Morris is currently interviewing with four different companies regarding Asia Pacific-related positions, amid plans to remain in a regionally focused role.

Channel Asia received confirmation of Morris’ upcoming departure from a spokesperson at HPE but Morris did not respond to request for comment at the time of publication.

Spanning almost six years at HPE, Morris was first vice president of Asia Pacific and Japan at Simplivity, starting out as employee number one in region for the hyper-converged infrastructure specialist in May 2014. Three years later, the business was acquired by HPE in an all-cash deal amounting to US$650 million, in a move designed to enhance hybrid IT solutions at enterprise level.

As a result, Morris transitioned into leading the storage product portfolio for six months at HPE, before assuming responsibilities for the regional channel in November 2017.

Holding a broad remit, Morris was tasked with shaping the go-to-market strategies of resellers, service providers and distributors, alongside alliance vendors, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), independent software vendors (ISVs) and inside sales.

In spending more than two and a half years in the role, Morris was responsible for simplifying channel operations across Asia Pacific through a host of new partnering initiatives, with the supply chain accounting for 85 per cent of revenue in the region.

Prior to joining Simplivity and then HPE, Morris spent more than nine years at NetApp, most recently as vice president and general manager of ASEAN, after holding the role of director of channel sales in Australia and New Zealand for almost three years.

Drawing on more than 25 years of market experience, Morris also held sales and channel director roles at Dell, Compaq – pre-Hewlett Packard acquisition – and Silicon Graphics.