In an industry defined by rapid innovation and constant disruption, leaders are not only responsible for navigating the complex technology landscape of today but also shape the future of their business and the broader industry. Casey Taylor, Vice President and General Manager of HPE Nonstop, sat down with Charlie Higgins, HPE UKI Nonstop Specialist and Member of the New to Nonstop (N2NS) Committee, to offer valuable insights into her inspiring journey, leadership philosophy, and strategic vision for the next chapter of Nonstop. Her 20-year career at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) reflects a relentless pursuit of resilience, adaptability, and innovation.
From Real Estate to Tech Leadership: A Journey of Diversity and Discovery
Casey’s career path is not the traditional journey we see in the Nonstop space. She began her professional life in the real estate sector within the Asia-Pacific region, working for a global services outsourcing company. Her transition into technology came when the organisation was acquired by HPE. “That came with some uncertainty,” she recalls. “So that was an interesting journey, but in the end, I stayed with the group and travelled around and was able to spend time in Singapore, which was really interesting as a kind of a short-term assignment.”
Her appointment as Chief of Staff to CEO Antonio Neri marked a turning point. “The role really threw me in at the deep end. I learned a huge amount; it was like 5 MBAs in year. It was a privilege”. She shares that the role was a great vantage point, looking across the entire HPE portfolio of businesses and functions in a difficult time, having to navigate a pandemic and supply crunch.
Following her three years as Chief of Staff, Casey became COO of HPE’s Enterprise Storage division, establishing that business and transforming it into a hybrid cloud business, before joining HPE’s Nonstop Compute business.
Leadership Lessons: Embracing the Unknown and Fostering Growth
Throughout her diverse career, Casey has accumulated invaluable lessons. One principle she emphasizes is the importance of embracing discomfort. “One of the key things I’ve learned in my journey is to not be afraid of the unknown. And that means getting comfortable with being uncomfortable,” she asserts. “You get in a flow, and you feel you’ve found your sweet spot, but something you have blinkers on, [and] you might be missing opportunities, or might not be pushing yourself.”
She recalls instances where she was thrown into unfamiliar territories. “I have had several instances where I’ve been thrown in at the deep end and said yes to roles and thought ‘This is going to be super different, and I really don’t know whether I should have done this.’ But in each of those cases, it’s been so rewarding. When you finally find your flow again, you start to realise that discomfort you feel is what helps you learn and grow.”
Casey advocates for asking the ‘silly’ questions. “I’m not afraid [to do it], because I don’t know a space that I’ve just found myself in. I think that [it] drives personal development, but it also helps the people you’re working with think about things differently.”
Every Role as a Catalyst for Change
For Casey, each career move has served as a stepping stone, offering new insights and shaping her leadership style. She also highlights that every transition, whether into new markets, functions, or leadership positions, serves as a turning point. “It helps you reframe questions; it helps you think about things differently,” she explains. “It gives you that comfort in the discomfort to know that you’re going to get through it and that you’re going to rise to the challenge.”
Curiosity, Relationships, and Diversity: The Pillars of Success
Drawing from her leadership experience, Casey emphasizes three key qualities: curiosity, relationships, and diversity.
“Something I learned from Antonio [Neri] when I was working with him is to be curious,” she states. “Ask questions, be curious, find out why. That curiosity in finding out why is often what helps us answer some of the biggest problems or strategic challenges that we’re grappling with.”
She also underscores the importance of building strong networks. “We [used to talk] about relationships and networks as a soft skill,” she notes. “But I think that networking and relationships is a core skill. When you’re taking on a new challenge, whether that be a leadership role, moving into a new business group or starting at a new company, building a network of people that you can ask those ‘whys’ to is really important.” This focus on building networks and finding mentors to support you closely aligns with the goals of the N2NS Committee. Through the mentorship program, the Committee aims to create opportunities for newcomers to hear from experienced veterans, and begin to understand the nuances of Nonstop, whilst also finding the balance and creating space for people to bring new perspectives. Casey highlights that “people’s time is one of the most valuable resources, so if you can make a connection [with someone] and they invest their time in you whilst you’re coming up to speed, there’s nothing greater than that.”
This again highlights the narrative of needing fresh perspectives, and how a combination of old and new perspectives is what works best.
She echoes a famous leadership adage shared by Neri: “You hire 80% on attitude and 20% on capabilities. Experience doesn’t matter.” She advises that businesses should be hiring “people who are hungry to learn, to be curious, to make connections and networks, and who believe in the mission.” Casey adds that “you can teach culture, and your way of doing things, with technology being the subject matter, but [you can’t] necessarily teach the framework or capabilities that [someone new] can bring”.
Innovative Initiatives: Education and Empowerment
To be able to bring “new perspectives to a space”, we need to create environments that support those newcomers. Among Casey’s current priorities is transforming how HPE Nonstop educates and equips its teams and customers.
“We’re completely rethinking how we create education packets and how we deliver them,” she reveals. “[HPE wants] to provide real time agents that can help get the knowledge to the people who need it in the moment when they need it.”
It’s this focus that will help build the next generation of talent.
A Vision for Nonstop: Building Resilience and Relevance
Reflecting first on her time as the VP and GM of HPE Nonstop, Casey shares that she’s “incredibly proud of the progress” that’s been made, highlighting “a real reinvigoration with customers and partners,” and her excitement that the work being done “is starting to make a difference and is really creating noticeable change”.
Looking ahead, Casey envisions a bright future for HPE Nonstop, celebrating its 50th anniversary and aiming for a century of innovation. “We need to make sure that we are staying relevant, that we’re building resiliency,” she states.
“We are finding the workloads and opportunities in our markets that we operate where current technologies are being disrupted. It really comes back to disrupt or be disrupted.”
In particular, she highlights digital payments, real-time payments, the use of AI in digital payments and fraud detection. With 70% of Nonstop customers being financial institutions, everyone has a role to play in understanding the future of payments and where Nonstop can grow with the industry.
HPE CTO, Fidel Marusso, recently shared that the “buildout that is happening right now across enterprises for the adoption of AI is the biggest infrastructure buildout since the railroads”. Casey adds that this “really helps paints a clear picture about the huge disruption that’s going on not just in IT, but as a society.” It’s never been more crucial to help customers navigate this AI revolution.
“Nonstop needs to be able to keep pace with what’s going on. We need make sure that we are leveraging all of the innovation that is going to explode in the next few years in the AI space and ensure that we can participate and our customers can participate and take advantage of that.”
Keeping pace with the changes is important, but Nonstop must balance this with keeping the core fundamentals of the platform. She emphasizes that Nonstop’s core strength lies in providing highly available, secure, and reliable systems—attributes crucial in sectors like finance, government, and critical infrastructure. Casey stresses that “Nonstop is and needs to be AI adjacent”. The importance of sticking to the correct guardrails and using AI ethically and safely cannot be stressed enough. To take from the HPE mission statement, we can use Nonstop and AI together to “advance the way people live and work”, but to do this in the right way.
I loved selling Nonstop and anything after that was impossible for me to seriously tell a customer the product was better. no way! Jim Tribig brought it to the computing world and I never had a customer that did t bet their job on it! it was a great product and still is