As businesses navigate rapid technological change and shifting workplace expectations, local-level leadership is increasingly shaping how global strategies land. Over the past few months, Fortune has been speaking with senior leaders across HP to better understand how the company is evolving—across innovation to culture, customer engagement, and the future of work.
In this latest installment of our year-in-the-life series, Ruth Patterson, VP and managing director for HP in the U.K. and Ireland, discusses her priorities for 2026, the importance of balancing speed and perfection, and how she’s keeping people and outcomes central to her strategy.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Priorities: What’s your big focus for 2026?
My year so far has been focused on two areas. First, working closely with our channel partners and our customers to lead our strategic focus areas. I always say their success is our success, so it’s about delivering the right support and solutions and advancing our future of work strategy. A key part of this is elevating the employee experience in the workplace, particularly in the U.K. and Ireland.
On the other side, my priority as a leader at HP is our people. This involves setting a clear vision and priorities, and ensuring our employees feel energized and have the support and tools they need. Inclusivity and culture are also a high priority. When employees are engaged and motivated, the outcome follows, creating a win-win.
Pep talks and preparation: How did you motivate your team at the beginning of the year?
Active communication is huge. So many of our communication forums have focused on reinforcing what we shared at the start of the year and the progress we have made. I’m participative in my style—I’m very collaborative and enjoy working with my team. As I gather insights from customers and partners, I share them with the team to ensure they have firsthand information on what’s going on, what I’m hearing, and what subject matter experts in the industry, such as silicon providers and technology leaders, are sharing.
Continuous learning and insights are key to keeping the team motivated. Communication with team members is a priority, and I get energized by being with the team. I attend roundtable lunches and various forums to get insights into what’s important to them and what they’re hearing. It’s similar to a reverse-mentoring forum I have with various team members.
Worries: What’s keeping you up at night?
There’s a huge amount of turbulence from the macro environment. We’re a global company, and the U.K. is a key part of the broader organization, so making sure we’re up to date with what’s happening, whether locally or globally, is critical.
Those are things it would be remiss of me not to recognize, alongside factors such as the extreme heat we’re experiencing at the moment. The other side is fast-moving innovation. My background is in technology innovation and bringing new solutions to market. Ensuring we’re moving fast—and helping our customers and partners move fast—is a big priority. Doing all of that quicker is the key focus.
Tradeoffs: What’s one compromise you’ve made this year to reach a more strategic goal?
I’ll talk specifically about speed versus perfection. We’ve had internal conversations around this—there are things you have to say we’re not going to do, or we’ll stop doing, because of the implication for the customer and the outcome. Does everything have to be perfect? No. What’s really important is that the customer experience is clear, the solution is strong, the quality is excellent, and we’re delivering the right outcome. At the same time, we need to move fast.
So the trade-off has been around some of the earlier testing and longer sales cycles. We’ve worked closely with customers to accelerate those cycles and remove elements of the process. For example, with component shortages in the industry, we’ve collaborated with customers to make alternate choices, which meant accelerating some qualification processes. Stepping back, it comes down to speed versus perfection as the overall guidance, and focusing on what you can control to drive outcomes.
Magic metrics: What is one number you’re looking for at the end of this month to signal it’s been a success?
The big one for me is external engagement with customers, partners, and subject matter experts. I want to understand the problems customers are facing and how I can bring that knowledge back to influence our global business units from an innovation and technology development perspective.
The main metric I’m focused on is how many times I get to see a customer, attend a forum, or am invited as a subject matter expert—whether that’s with government or industry. It’s that external factor to make sure I’m staying current, learning, growing, and bringing information back to help build our strategic focus areas and continue to grow as an organization.
