HPE Taps New General Counsel, Legal Chief Gets $9 Million Payday

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. has promoted David Antczak to general counsel and paid its top legal executive, John Schultz, more than $9.1 million in total compensation last year.

HPE disclosed both details in an annual proxy statement filed last week. Schultz was named general counsel in 2012 for predecessor Hewlett-Packard Co., a technology giant that split in 2015 to form HPE, an information technology company, and HP Inc., a computer hardware business.

Schultz subsequently became the top lawyer for HPE. In 2020, the company gave Schultz the additional duties of chief operating officer. His most recent pay package—an increase over the $7.9 million that Schultz earned from HPE in 2022—is comprised of $800,000 in base salary, nearly $1.5 million in nonequity incentive plan cash compensation, and about $6.8 million in stock awards.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based HP, now entirely separate from HPE, disclosed in its own proxy filing this month that its top lawyer, Julie Jacobs, had a pay package valued at about $6.2 million in 2023. That sum includes $2.9 million in stock and option awards and $3.3 million in cash in the form of a $2 million bonus, $700,000 in base salary, and $570,500 in nonequity incentive plan compensation.

Jacobs received nearly $9.1 million in 2022, almost all of which came in the form of a stock award given to hire her as legal chief from Yahoo Inc.

HPE, which in 2022 moved its headquarters from Silicon Valley to suburban Houston, agreed in January to acquire Juniper Networks Inc. in a $14 billion deal designed to bolster its device networking business. Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; Covington & Burling; and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer are advising HPE on that transaction, which is expected to close later this year or by early 2025. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom is serving as outside counsel to Juniper.

Schultz, a former partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, has oversight for HPE’s legal department and a variety of other functions, such as information technology and global workplace, the latter unit one that includes real estate strategy, facilities management, and physical security and protective services.

Antczak, a former partner at what is now Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath, was vice president of global workplace at HPE prior to his Jan. 29 promotion to general counsel and corporate secretary. An HPE spokesman confirmed Antczak was elevated to succeed Rishi Varma, who left the company last month to join agricultural conglomerate Cargill Inc. as its legal, ethics, and compliance chief.

HPE also promoted Kristin Major, a former Skadden labor and employment lawyer who went on to serve as a deputy general counsel and chief talent officer at the company, to chief people officer as of Feb. 1. Major’s new role will see her report to HPE’s chief executive, Antonio Neri, and work closely with other members of the company’s leadership on the integration of Juniper Networks.