HPE CEO Antonio Neri on Leading America’s Most Just Company for 2024

On Monday, JUST Capital and CNBC announced that Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) took the 2024 title for America’s Most Just Company. For HPE CEO Antonio Neri, the recognition is evidence of his team’s meticulous work to deliver positive outcomes on worker, environment, community, and other issues Americans care most about. Neri underscored it’s all about results. 

“Our job is to create value and my measure of value is not just shareholder value,” Neri said at JUST’s 2024 Leadership Summit on Monday at the NASDAQ. “It’s value for the people who participate in the ecosystem where we deliver business results or other types of outcomes for our customers and employees. Ultimately, stock price is a reflection of how you do things and what you deliver. One of the sayings we have at the company is ‘you have to win the right way.’”

HPE blazed past its peers and other industry leaders in JUST’s rankings of the Russell 1000 (approximately 937 companies when you account for mergers, acquisitions, and delistings). While HPE has been in the JUST 100 every year from 2018 through 2024, this is HPE’s first time in the top spot. 

The company’s standout leadership on issues like fair pay, climate change, and offering apprenticeship programs, such as its Cyber Career Reboot program, helped propel its performance. Other notable data points include the following: 

• HPE provides 26 weeks of paid maternity and paternity leave, tying for the longest paid parental leave among all Russell 1000 companies we assess. Additionally, HPE offers an unlimited sick leave policy.

• The company is among just 12% of Russell 1000 that releases the results of both its gender- and race-based pay equity analyses. The company exhibits leading performance as both women and people of color earn 100% of what similarly situated male and white colleagues, respectively, earn.

• HPE leads the Computer Services industry and overall Russell 1000 on the Environment. The company is one of 14% of companies within its industry to have a verified SBTi 1.5-degree Net Zero commitment in addition to a near-term goal of reducing scope 1 and 2 emissions by 70% by 2030. 

“I take great pride in HPE’s recognition as a leader by JUST Capital on the issues vital to Americans,” Neri said in a previous statement. “Our purpose is to advance the way people live and work, which is evidenced in our commitment to reducing environmental impacts throughout our value chain, supporting our team members with exceptional benefits and talent programs, and investing in our communities and supply chain.”

During a panel discussion on Monday, Neri and JUST Capital co-founder and chairman Paul Tudor Jones responded to questions about the recent pushback against ESG, and underscored that stakeholder issues aren’t about politics, but about promoting better long-term business practices. 

“I differentiate between just behavior and ESG, because they do overlap in part, but they are really different,” Jones said. “What we’re doing with our rankings is reflecting what the American public says.” 

Neri said he plans to continue investing in areas that JUST Capital ranks, saying it’s good for shareholders, as well as other stakeholders. 

That assumption is buoyed by real financial data. The JUST 100 Index has beaten the Russell 1000 Equal Weighted Index by 38.5% since inception and 3.1% YTD. And JUST’s worker-focused index – meaning companies that rank most highly on worker issues –  has outperformed the Russell 1000 Equal Weighted Index by 103.75% since 1/1/2018.  

“It starts with a purpose,” Neri said on Monday. “What is our purpose? Why do we come to work every day? That purpose is to enhance the way people live and work. And how do we do that? By engineering an experience that will unlock your full potential, whether you are a business, shareholder or employee.”