Evolving to change

Gary Tierney, managing director, HP Ireland

Gary Tierney talks to Business & Finance about reinventing and adapting to a fast-paced industry.

Gary Tierney’s leadership style has evolved during his 27 years as a HP company veteran. And according to the head of HP in Ireland, as the company changes so too must he reinvent himself and modify his approach for each role and corporate milestone, such as when the business separated last year and he became MD for HP in Ireland.

“HP is reinventing the technologies for what tomorrow holds, and that keeps me on my toes, demands that I am agile and open to new ideas,” he says. “I value enthusiasm, uncompromising integrity and ownership of responsibility and I encourage my team to focus on our partners, customers, and the communities that we serve.”

According to Tierney it’s an exciting time to be heading up HP in Ireland. “We’re in a unique position at HP, building a new company with the heart and energy of a start-up and the brains and muscle of a Fortune 100 corporation, which challenges me to bring leadership that has many facets.

Tierney is acutely aware of the pace of change and global competitiveness in the tech industry. “At HP, our aim is to amaze – through the people we hire, the experiences we enable through technology and the way we treat our customers. For HP, team is everything. We achieve excellence through collaboration; our partners are at the heart of what we do and our partner community is a critical component of the team.”

In order to serve its customers with innovative solutions and to retain market-leading position, in 2010 in partnership with the HR team, HP developed the Ireland Employee Engagement Model.

The objective of the model was to build a framework that fosters a motivational environment and ultimately make HP a great place to work. This model enables every employee to drive their own success through empowerment.

“When you work for a company that maintains a forward thinking outlook, whose core vision is to create technology that makes life better for everyone, everywhere, it is not hard to motivate your team,”

Tierney says. “We are coming from a very strong and positive position and all our employees want to be part of it. In our hearts, we are recapturing HP’s entrepreneurial spirit and unleashing energy, creativity and innovation.”

When asked what the challenges facing the industry are, Tierney is quick to point out that the speed with which the world is changing in terms of how, when and where people want to work and consume technology, requires HP to constantly reinvent their products to meet those changes.

However, according to Tierney, HP is in a perfect position to meet the challenges of this evolving world. “One the main benefits of the separation of the company is we can now invest all of our R&D into our own product areas and that combined with 75 years of experience and innovation, is enabling us to create new product categories that truly address the changing needs of our customers.”

Tierney explains further: “There’s a mantra we have at HP, ‘if you want to predict the future you need to create it’, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.”

According to Jim Dowdall, CEO of GloHealth: “In an ever changing, connected world, HP is the master of reinvention.” We are delighted to support this month’s View from the Boardroom interview. HP continues to successfully facilitate how individuals and industries operate so that they can become more successful.”