Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) CEO, Meg Whitman, has stepped into Dropbox’s boardroom, as the cloud storage company looks towards further growth and a possible initial public offering (IPO).
“I’m delighted to welcome Meg Whitman to our Board of Directors,” Dropbox CEO, Drew Houston, said in a blog post, in which he espoused Whitman’s career wins.
“Meg is a true business titan and has been a trusted friend and advisor to me for years. Her experience and judgment will be invaluable to Dropbox as we continue to grow and scale,” he said.
It is understood that Dropbox has been working toward an eventual IPO for some time, and taking on industry talent such as Whitman is likely to help the company win over investors on its path to going public.
For Houston, the move to bring Whitman into the fold comes roughly six years after the two first met when, according to Houston, Whitman immediately made an impression with her fly fishing analogies and her “knack for cutting to the heart of what’s important”.
“I knew right away she was someone I wanted to learn from. Last year, we had the chance to work together when Dropbox partnered with HPE to build our own cloud infrastructure,” Houston said in his blog post.
“And since HPE is a Dropbox customer, Meg knows our products well. We started discussing Meg taking on a more official role with Dropbox earlier this year, and I’m thrilled she’ll be joining the team.
“We’re fortunate to have such a world-class leader on our side, and I have no doubt that Meg will help Dropbox reach new heights,” he said.
The announcement comes two months after Whitman took to social media to quell rumours that she could be in line to head up troubled ridesharing company, Uber, confirming her continued commitment to HPE.
“Normally I do not comment on rumors, but the speculation about my future and Uber has become a distraction,” Whitman said in a LinkedIn post on 28 July. “So let me make this as clear as I can.
“I am fully committed to HPE and plan to remain the company's CEO. We have a lot of work still to do at HPE and I am not going anywhere. Uber's CEO will not be Meg Whitman,” she said.
