HP names former GSK chief Emma Walmsley as its next CEO

As of 2:25 p.m. ET, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026

HP Inc. said Wednesday, Nov. 4, that its board has unanimously appointed Emma Walmsley, the former chief executive of British drugmaker GSK, as its next CEO, effective Jan. 4, 2027.

Walmsley will succeed Bruce Broussard, who has been HP's interim CEO since February 2026, the company said. On the same date, Broussard will become chair of the board, succeeding Chip Bergh, who has been chair since 2017 and a director since 2015. Bergh will remain chair until then, HP said.

From drugs and cosmetics to PCs

Walmsley led GSK from April 2017 through December 2025, according to HP. She joined GSK in 2010 and became CEO of its consumer healthcare business in 2015 before being named group CEO. Before that, she spent 17 years at L'Oréal. She has also served on Microsoft's board of directors for seven years.

She was the first woman to lead GSK and oversaw the spin-off of its consumer healthcare arm, now Haleon, Reuters reported in a profile. Investors at times questioned the strength of GSK's drug pipeline during her tenure, Reuters said.

"HP is an iconic company with a defining role in shaping the future of work on a global scale," Walmsley said in HP's announcement. She said the company would focus on "harnessing the power of the AI era."

Broussard called Walmsley "a proven CEO with a track record of leading organizations at scale and guiding them through significant change." Bergh said her appointment followed "a comprehensive global search focused on what HP needs to win in its next chapter."

A tough market for PCs

Walmsley takes over as HP, like rivals Dell Technologies, Apple and Lenovo, contends with a global squeeze on memory chips as massive AI data center buildouts absorb much of the available supply, Reuters reported. The crunch has driven up prices and set off a steep industry downturn, according to Reuters.

In HP's third-quarter results in August, PC shipments fell 16% even as revenue from the unit rose 18% on a shift toward pricier, higher-margin products including AI PCs, Reuters reported. In a September filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, HP said it was not providing a financial outlook for fiscal 2027 and assumed industrywide PC unit volumes would decline by a mid-single-digit percentage next year, according to Reuters.

Walmsley has no prior experience in tech hardware, Reuters noted. "Walmsley has no background in hardware, but she has experience steering a large company through a major restructuring, including the separation of Haleon from GSK, and that is closer to what HP needs," Vitor Madeira, senior market specialist at Capital.com, told Reuters. The key test, he said, is whether she can protect profitability through the downturn and find growth beyond traditional PCs before memory costs ease.

HP shares rose after the announcement, Reuters reported.