A year in the life at HP: what matters to its Northern European chief in April 2026? 

As a business founded in 1939, HP is no stranger to wartime turbulence and geopolitical volatility. But the recent conflicts and their resulting economic uncertainty pose challenges for every business. In this first installment of a new series, we check in with Neil Sawyer, HP’s managing director for Northern Europe, on how he’s leading his team through an unsettled period.  

Priorities: What’s your big focus for 2026? 

Navigating our business—as well as our clients—through a lot of macroeconomic conditions. This sort of disturbance can create a lot of new opportunities for us, but we also need to make sure that we manage the status quo within our business. 

It’s an interesting time, technology is forming a big part of the investment envelope for our customers, so our second priority is understanding our customers’ objectives more as technology transitions into being their primary cost.  

The third point is making sure that, from a prioritization point of view, we continue to diversify our business into longer-term solutions and services-oriented value propositions. We’re looking at that from a supply chain perspective, in terms of where we produce, but also making sure we deliver on the security criteria that many of our customers need.  

Pep talks and preparation: How did you motivate your team at the beginning of the year? 

I seem to give a motivational speech almost on a daily basis at the moment! 

84HP’s rank on Fortune 500

My current pep talk........

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