'We're in other conversations right now': Houston recruitment efforts continue after HPE HQ win

The Houston metro region won big with San Jose, California-based Hewlett Packard Enterprise's (NYSE: HPE) decision to make its Springwoods Village campus the company's global headquarters. But work to recruit corporate headquarters into the area continues for the city and local business advocacy groups.

At the virtual Houston City Council meeting Dec. 2, Mayor Sylvester Turner expressed delight at HPE's headquarters decision.

"We've talked about boosting our digital tech presence, and I'm pleased to say that we're starting to see some positive signs," Turner said.

In October, leaders from the city, Rice University and the Greater Houston Partnership, an economic development group composed of more than 1,000 local companies, made a virtual trade mission to Silicon Valley. The Houston delegation, which included Mayor Turner, Rice President David Leebron and Bob Harvey, president and CEO of the GHP, met with HPE CEO Antonio Neri.

Harvey told the Houston Business Journal that it was an incredibly good discussion with HPE — but the Houston delegation left the virtual meeting with no hint that HPE would choose the Houston region for its headquarters relocation.

"It was a really in-depth discussion with Antonio about Houston, our strategy, our strategy on energy transition, our strategy on racial equity," Harvey said. "It was like a due diligence almost — we didn't see it at the time, but it was a really in-depth discussion."

expand

Greater Houston Partnership

City leaders have taken numerous recruitment missions to Silicon Valley to try to sell technology companies on moving to or expanding their footprints into the Bayou City region. In 2019, after numerous discussions with various Houston stakeholders, Palo Alto-based fintech firm Bill.com announced it would open its second office in Houston.

Many of those pitches to Silicon Valley tech firms have centered around Houston's prowess in sales and customer support functions over the availability of high-tech talent, Harvey said. He said focusing on sales allows Houston to differentiate itself from its tech-heavy neighbor, Austin.

"We chose to put forward sales, which implicitly brought up talent and differentiated Houston from other major cities we know they're considering," Harvey said. "We know it's real, and you want to lead with something substantive and real."

During HPE's fiscal Q4 earnings call Dec. 2, Neri acknowledged that the firm's Springwoods Village headquarters will serve as its non-technical employment hub. HPE's "technological hub for innovation" will be in San Jose, said Neri, who spent years as a Hewlett-Packard Co. executive in Houston prior to the former company's split into HPE and HP Inc. (NYSE: HPQ) in 2015.

But HPE run research and development plus other high-tech functions out of its new Springwoods Village campus. Mark Potter, the former Houston-based chief technology officer of HPE who retired this summer, told the HBJ in 2018 that the new campus will feature over 100,000 square feet of lab space. Construction on the 440,000-square-foot campus began earlier in 2020 and topped out in October.

For the city and the GHP, recruitment work continues. Amid an exodus of companies and talent leaving the coasts during the coronavirus pandemic, there's more interest in Texas than ever before, Harvey said. One of the GHP's jobs is to ensure the Houston region gets more than its fair share of the relocation action, he said.

"We're in other conversations right now," Harvey said. "This is not the only headquarters conversation we're having."

When Hewlett-Packard Co. split in 2015, HP Inc. became the consumer tech giant, while HPE focuses on business-to-business technology services. HPE recorded $29.1 billion in revenue during fiscal year 2019, which would vault the tech firm up to No. 8 on the HBJ's 2020 Largest Houston-Based Public Companies List.