Michael Langeveld, UAE Country Director, Hewlett Packard Enterprise | The CEO Magazine

While the world was still preoccupied with ‘moving to the cloud’, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) already understood the need for a more balanced approach. Instead of taking  the commonly held cloud-only view, the tech giant adopted a hybrid cloud strategy.

As part of this evolution, it brought in Michael Langeveld – an executive with more than 20 years’ experience in the industry and whose resume was peppered with big names like Microsoft, Dell, IBM and Huawei.

“If you know anything about South Africans, we’re not afraid. We are always up for a new challenge,” he tells The CEO Magazine of his decision to come on board, initially as CTO for South Africa.

“I was asked to come and join HPE when we were driving this hybrid cloud strategy at a time when the entire world had this public cloud or cloud-only view going forward.

“I’ve worked for most of these hyperscalers. I understood the challenges in the market. And I knew that it’s not an either/or. I knew that hybrid was the way of the future.”

That was back in 2022 and Langeveld hasn’t looked back. The company’s pioneering approach quickly proved itself, thanks to its commitment to providing solutions that catered to the needs of its customers.

Then in June this year, he was appointed to the role of UAE Country Director.

“I was delighted that I got the opportunity to come and help shape some of that for our region,” he reveals.

Partner of choice

With well-established partners like the Commercial Bank of Dubai in its customer stable, HPE is embarking on its next chapter within the United Arab Emirates with clear goals in sight.

“We want to continue to be the partner of choice and the trusted digital foundation for the United Arab Emirates,” Langeveld stresses.

“What that means in HPE language is that we will help our customers solve three problems: we’ll help them in the domain of AI; we’re going to help them in the domain of this hybrid cloud world; but more importantly, we’re going to bring our networking assets, because we know that will be the glue that stitches all of this together.”

Last year saw HPE complete its acquisition of Juniper Networks, a United States-based provider of enterprise-grade networking and security products, in a deal valued at around US$14 billion.

Integrating this new addition at a country level is now one of Langeveld’s primary functions as HPE prioritizes its networking business.

“I get the privilege and honor of leading the team as it integrates this new capability into our entire sales force, helping our customers build a trusted digital platform from the ground up,” he says.

“That includes networking obviously, but also AI and our hybrid cloud businesses. We are in the infancy of that, but we’re already seeing some great results in the business and with our customers in this.”

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“HPE has been a long-standing partner of World Wide Technology, recently recognizing us as its Middle East AI Partner of the Year, a reflection of how closely our approaches align. HPE’s agility, collaborative approach and willingness to do whatever it takes for the customer mirror our own values, which is particularly important as we help customers navigate the region’s fast-moving AI agenda.” – Arkan Khedair, Regional Vice President, World Wide Technology

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With the necessary assets in place, Langeveld and his team will spend the next two-to-three years getting closer to HPE’s customers and partners across the region, such as World Wide Technology.

“We’re going to make sure that we create a value system or ecosystem where we can all add mutual value to drive the United Arab Emirates forward with all of the great objectives that we have,” he adds.

With generative AI recently highlighted as a key objective for the country’s public sector by its authorities, Langeveld sees great opportunity for HPE.

“We want to be a big contributor with all of the digital authorities in this country to help drive that forward,” he says.

“We think our values are aligned with the values of the country. Our vision is aligned with the vision that the United Arab Emirates has. And we believe we have the right technology, the right partners and the right people to help this country achieve its objectives.”

Customer mission

Meanwhile, many of HPE’s customers are facing intense cost pressures in light of geopolitical tensions and upheaval that Langeveld is determined to help them address. One particular area where he believes the company can deliver significant savings is around virtualization strategies, including using virtual machines (VM).

“We’ve taken a hard look at this and we think this is an area where we can help these businesses reduce their cost base while delivering value to them,” he explains.

“We call this the great VM reset, and we think we can add value as a technology company in that space.”

Another crucial trend is the growing complexity associated with IT operations as companies continue to shift toward the cloud and AI.

“We believe that we’ve made the right investment ahead of the curve to help customers simplify their IT operation,” Langeveld says. “To that end, we’ve made a big bet in the IT operations management space to integrate this with a lot of our technology.

“We’re not going to be all things to people, but we believe there are one or two very niche areas where we can help our customers as IT budgets shrink to still deliver value to the business at the end of the day.”

As other tech companies across the market downsize and reduce their workforces, HPE is taking a different tack.

“HPE continues to invest both in people and technology because we believe that as we develop and deploy ahead of the demand, we are going to position ourselves well to help our customers,” he explains.

“Those people who stay close to customers and help them during this difficult time will see the reward on the other side.

“We are not here for the short-term. We are taking a medium-to-long-term view. We will continue to invest in this country with our people and technology because we buy into the vision of where our customers want to go.”