“Sustainability is a business priority. Our goal is not only to be a fairer, more sustainable company in the future, but to spread this sustainability amongst as many people as possible and create a common movement,” explained Inés Bermejo, director general of HP Iberia, in the latest session of Esade Matins entitled “School of Talent.”
    
During her talk, the director outlined the reinvention of the company since its inception in 1939 with an audio oscillator that they sold to Walt Disney – their first client. “HP began as a start-up in a garage, where the values and enthusiasm of its two founders, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, came together,” explained Bermejo. She went on, “It’s a company that quickly grew to be an icon, one of the seeds of Silicon Valley as we know it today, and that reinvented business culture and grew into a movement to change the world.”

A benchmark in business culture: HP Way

“Just as HP has been a benchmark in innovation, the HP Way consolidated in 1957 is also a benchmark in business culture that positions the employee as the protagonist on the basis of integrity, ethics and ability to contribute. We firmly believe that any idea can change the world,” said Bermejo. The director explained that this involves four factors: the ambition to go further and be customer-oriented; the open-door policy, meaning no restricted offices and that anyone can talk to anyone; masterfully structured teamwork with an international and national mindset; and personal balance, with a commitment to flexibility, work-life balance and goal-oriented work.

Inés Bermejo also emphasized HP’s arrival in Barcelona in 1981 under Juan Soto who seized the reins of HP in Spain and positioned the company as a benchmark in that country. “Today we employ more than 2,300 people in Catalonia where we are pushing the boundaries of global innovation in large-format printing, with more than thirty nationalities of employees.”

Esade Matins are gatherings where the leaders of foremost companies and institutions address their own challenges and aims, and share their thoughts about their career experience in them. On this occasion, Inés Bermejo, director general of HP Iberia, was accompanied by Patricia Valentí, director of Esade Alumni, and Xavier Mendoza, director general of Esade.