Earlier this week, HP announced its next pick for CEO. Its choice was Emma Walmsley, the British executive who was the first woman to run a major pharma business.
The former GSK CEO will take over the tech company in January. She doesn’t have direct experience with hardware; before GSK, she spent 17 years at L’Oréal. Her CEO tenure at GSK lasted almost nine years, until she stepped down in December 2025. But she’s not brand new to the tech industry; she has served on the board of Microsoft since 2019 and will step down from that post ahead of taking over HP.
This won’t be Walmsley’s first time coming into a new industry. She faced down an activist at GSK that questioned her lack of a scientific background. But at GSK, she oversaw a complex business through intense transformation. The pandemic, the spinoff of its consumer business, you name it. My colleagues Claire Zillman and Erika Fry profiled Walmsley for the magazine in 2018; it’s worth revisiting their piece to understand just how deep her transformation expertise goes.
During her tenure at GSK, Walmsley often ranked No. 1 on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women International list. In October 2025, just before she left GSK, she joined us at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit and set the room abuzz with her hot takes on life as a CEO. “There are few things more obnoxious in life than CEOs complaining about how hard their life is,” she said. “I didn’t grow up thinking I would get even half a chance at this.”
With $55 billion in revenue, HP ranks No. 84 on the Fortune 500. There are fewer than a dozen female CEOs who lead Fortune 100 companies. There are even fewer among Britain’s FTSE 100, where Walmsley was counted among the group while at GSK.
In an era of complete AI upheaval, Walsmley’s transformation chops will likely be put to use at HP. “You just hope that in the time you are given the responsibility to do something like this,” she said in 2025, “you make it better than it was when you started.”
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world.
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