Enrique Lores (HP): "The key to innovation is understanding customers, pushing technology to the limit and generating new imaginative solutions"

Enrique Lores, President of Imaging, Printing and Solutions at HP, was given the ESADE 2017 Award at the 22nd ESADE Alumni Annual Conference. The award was given to Lores in recognition of the key role he played in leading one of the largest and most complex corporate separation processes in history: the splitting of the Hewlett-Packard Company into two new Fortune 100 companies, HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Since 2015, Lores has also led the company’s printing business. Hewlett-Packard first entered the printing business in the 1970s and it has led the market for the last thirty years.

In his speech, Lores recalled his own time at ESADE, where he earned his MBA between 1990 and 1993, allowing him to pursue a career in product marketing, leaving behind the purely technical positions he had held until then. ‘I soon realised it was one of my passions. What I learned in those early years in the product marketing department fundamentally shaped my approach to business’, he explained.

Referring to the company he leads, Lores stressed that ‘the goal is to make the printing business grow again’, which requires a commitment to innovation. For the executive, ‘The key to innovation is understanding customers, pushing technology to the limit, and generating new imaginative solutions.’ ‘What matters is not the printers, but what we do with them, because when we print something, we forge a special connection with what we have printed’, Lores said in his acceptance speech. He went on to describe some of his company’s current projects, such as the design of a prototype printer for NASA to be used in space, or the new HP campaign, focused on the emotional value of paper.

Experience and training

Also speaking at the ESADE Alumni Annual Conference was Eugenia Bieto, Director General of ESADE, who highlighted the reboot of ESADE’s learning model, within the framework of the institution’s strategic priorities as set out in the Student First project. Bieto also noted the launch of programmes tailored to emerging demands, ‘such as the new Master in Business Analytics, to meet the demand for professionals with training in big data, or the new MBA for executives, geared towards the Asian market, with sessions in Shanghai, Singapore and Vietnam, which is the best way to understand the new innovation processes coming out of Asia’.

The director general of ESADE also highlighted the implementation of the Rambla of Innovation on ESADE’s international campus in Sant Cugat, noting that ‘it represents a new experiential learning environment and transforms the educational experience, combining the reality of the business world with the expertise of our faculty and the global talent of our students’.

Jonathan Wareham, a professor in the Department of Operations, Innovation and Data Sciences and Dean of Faculty and Research at ESADE, also spoke at the event, stressing ‘the importance of innovation when it comes to changing the world’, as well as ‘the importance of play, socialization and being creative as children, in addition to breaking the rules’.

Joaquín Uriach, president of ESADE Alumni, and Xavier Sánchez, the association’s director, also participated in the 22nd ESADE Alumni Annual Conference.