In May this year, Bhawna Agarwal was appointed Senior Vice President and Managing Director of Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) in India. 

Agarwal’s career spans over 25 years of leadership experience in digital startups, media houses, and large consumer tech companies. She joined HPE in 2019 to lead the Compute Business Unit and Growth team and has been leading account management and industry verticals for a year. 

Growing up in Delhi, Agarwal knew early on that she wanted to carve her own path. 

“While everybody expected you to either be a doctor or an engineer, I was clear that I want to do something where I'll fall in love with whatever I do,” she recalls. 

Agarwal holds an MBA from the Institute of Management Technology and completed the Senior Executive Leadership Program in Global Leadership, Strategy, and Innovation at Harvard Business School in 2018-19.

A career rooted in digital transformation

Agarwal has held leadership roles at companies like Rediff, Times Internet, NDTV Gadgets 360, Seventymm.com, and was the founding vice president of travel platform, Yatra.

She began her career at a time when the very concept of digital business was still taking shape.

While her colleagues were comfortable with the status quo, Agarwal saw potential in the unknown.

Her parents’ advice proved right. “They always told me that there is no limit to what you can do with your life, with the 24 hours you are given, unless you are comfortable with ambiguity.”

At Times Internet, she recalls how she and her team mooted the idea of ecommerce long before it became mainstream. 

“We explained how the world would eventually move in that direction and it was worth taking a calculated risk,” she says. 

One of their first initiatives was midnight flower deliveries at a time when most people didn’t even own credit cards and the idea of shopping online was unheard of. It was a roaring success, she says.

When Agarwal left Times to join Yatra, her parents were sceptical about her leaving a large organisation to be part of the founding team of a startup. 

“We launched the concept of digital travel for the first time. Yatra was an amazing experience, and closest to my heart,” she says. 

While navigating diverse roles, Agarwal’s approach has always been entrepreneurial. 

“I always had this mindset that it doesn't matter whether it’s your shareholder’s money or your own, you need to treat it in a manner that the money should fund the growth,” she notes.

In 2019, Agarwal joined HPE. It was her first foray into large-scale B2B business.

What impressed her was the company’s agility despite its size: “For a very large company to be this agile is very rare. I've seen that a lot of times, people or companies get very set in their ways and they don't want to change because they are willing to play in that comfort zone.”

The cultural fit was important for Agarwal. “I say this to teams all the time that I can't function if I don’t fall in love with what I do. I literally breathe my work because I love it.”

She observed a unique characteristic about HPE's workforce. “The culture was amazing and people would join and would stay,” she notes, contrasting this with other organisations where average tenures were five to seven years, while HPE had employees with 20-plus years of service.

She notes that the way people are buying and consuming technology has fundamentally changed. And if you take a product-driven or catalogue-driven approach, “you’ll never be able to run a long marathon.”

Under her guidance, HPE India is gravitating toward consultative selling, recognising that “people trust people that they like. People buy from people that they trust.” 

This approach focuses on “more insights-driven and meaningful conversations, which are more advisory-led. It is less about what I have to sell, but it's about what are your priorities and how we can add value."

Agarwal challenges a common perception about the Indian market: “People have this myth about India that it's very cost-sensitive. I always beg to differ. India is very value-sensitive. If you have the right value, people will buy. It is the same country where so many iPhones get sold,” she says.

Navigating gender dynamics

Throughout her journey, Agarwal admits she has had to prove herself time and again.

“I've had scenarios where people actually thought I was an intern. They did not know I was the co-founder. There was a time when I was not the only woman in the boardroom, but I was also the youngest,” she shares.

She emphasises the importance of staying authentic and focusing on merit. 

“I’m never going to command a presence because I'm their boss, but I've to earn my stripes. I was very clear that you need to earn your respect, not command it,” she says.

While a large number of women join the technology sector at the entry level, they somehow seem to drop off at mid-career. The “missing middle” is a huge concern. 

Embedding diversity into organisational DNA

Agarwal believes the solution lies in embedding diversity into organisational DNA rather than treating it as a programmatic initiative.

“If you incorporate that in the fabric of the organisation, in the sense that it’s not just one person’s responsibility or one function’s responsibility, it becomes a collective responsibility. We need diversity in thinking because it genuinely leads to better outcomes,” she explains.

At HPE, there is a strong focus every quarter on ensuring that employees’ careers continue to move forward. The company actively creates opportunities for people to connect through resource groups, where they can share best practices, discuss challenges, and support one another. 

There is also a consistent effort to build a culture where more role models emerge based on merit, helping others see what’s possible and inspiring them to grow.

She believes it’s important to create a climate where women feel safe to speak up. 

“Even if they don't, before we end a conversation or a meeting, it’s good to  pause for five minutes and ask everybody, ‘What's your point of view on this? Do you have anything different to add?’ This way they will slowly start opening up. They may say one sentence today, tomorrow that will become 10, but it's an equal ownership which we will have to drive.”

Mentorship plays a crucial role in Agarwal’s leadership philosophy. 

At HPE, she has created a cascading mentorship model: “We started a mentorship initiative last year where I handpicked some very talented folks. Next year, I want them to be the mentors and handpick others so that that baton is passed. It shouldn't be just me mentoring everybody.”

When it comes to AI and embracing future technologies, Agarwal offers some practical advice.

“If you were to spend just one hour a day learning, it becomes 30 hours at the end of the month. AI can positively impact our lives for the better, depending on what we do with it. We can leverage it to become more productive, it can give us an amazing edge,” she elaborates.

Does she have specific plans for the future?

Agrawal describes herself as a North Star kind of person, who doesn't get caught up in grand planning but focuses on daily execution toward larger transformation goals for people, businesses, and organisational culture.

“Every day, I wake up and I have one thought in my mind—what am I going to do in the next 24 hours? I have to take the company from point A to B and later to Z. When I end the day, I reflect on what I was able to accomplish and what I need to do tomorrow,” she says.