Chris Hsu took the helm as Chief Executive Officer of Micro Focus International Inc. on Sept. 1st 2017, after its $8.8 billion mega-deal to merge with the software unit of Palo Alto, Calif.-based Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company.
Hsu comes to Micro Focus with over 20 years of global experience and an exceptional track record in building, leading and managing teams. Most recently, the tech executive held the position as Executive Vice President and General Manager at HPE Software, as well serving as Chief Operating Officer at the information technology giant. Hsu graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, and later went on to receive his M.B.A. at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
Mr. Hsu will replace Micro Focus’ former CEO Stephen Murdoch, who will transition to the role of Chief Operating Officer at the global enterprise software business. As part of the deal, Executive Chairman Kevin Loosemore and Chief Financial Officer Mike Phillips will continue in their roles.
The newly formed entity will focus on DevOps, hybrid IT management, security and big data analytics products. The spin-merge, announced on Sept. 7th 2016, makes Micro Focus the world’s seventh largest pure-play software company.
Hsu plans to lead Micro Focus with a hyper awareness on customers and partners in order to minimize disruption. The new CEO says he has selected the cream of the crop from both management teams, while sorting through logistics including replanting the firm’s legal entity structure and consolidating it into the Micro Focus holding structure. As for IT products, Hsu says the firm is creating a completely fresh IT architecture from the ground up on the HPE side, with plans to later bring on Micro Focus' assets.
In order to differentiate itself against competitors, Hsu says Micro Focus seeks to provide customers with a “best-in-class portfolio of enterprise-grade, scalable software with big data analytics built in," offering management of infrastructure regardless of whether clients use mainframe, traditional IT, virtual private cloud, the public cloud, or a combination of them.
As far as product development, Hsu suggests, “you won’t see us act like a venture capital firm where we’re going out and funding all kinds of unproven ideas.” Instead, he says the new Micro Focus will put “SUSE [Linux], big data analytics and security on the front-end” of the company’s growth perspective.
