What Defines a Modern Brand? HPE's CMCO Jennifer Temple on Marketing's New Mandate with AI

Brand strategy at the enterprise level has moved past the awareness-and-reach model. The CMO role now requires simultaneous fluency in customer experience, data infrastructure, technology, and trust, and the organizations that separate those disciplines pay a coordination cost that compounds as AI accelerates the buying cycle.

At HPE Discover 2026 in Las Vegas, Patrick Moorhead and Daniel Newman sat down with Jennifer Temple, EVP and Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, to examine what is driving HPE's brand strategy, how the CMO mandate has expanded, and what Temple sees as the most consequential shift in customer behavior that marketers are underweighting.

The conversation covers how Temple repositioned Discover around customer outcomes rather than product messaging, how she governs AI adoption across marketing workflows, and what will separate brands that build durable customer relationships from those competing on reach and volume.
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Key Takeaways:

🔹 Brand has shifted from an awareness function to a confidence signal. Temple argues that customers are taking bigger risks and experimenting with new technology at a pace that demands brands project trust and credibility, not just visibility. The question HPE is now answering is what would the world lose if HPE were not here.

🔹 Discover 2026 was redesigned around proof, not promise. HPE put 107 customers on stage and structured the event floor around verified customer outcomes rather than roadmap pitches, reflecting Temple's view that the consumer shift marketers most need to track is a growing expectation that stated commitments will be visibly delivered.

🔹 The CMO role now spans brand, experience, data, and technology under a single mandate. Temple describes the evolution from awareness generation and sales support into a function that owns micro-segmentation, full-funnel customer experience, and measurable pipeline impact, including knowing exactly what pipeline walks into Discover and how those relationships mature afterward.

🔹 AI governance in marketing starts with a workflow question, not a content question. Temple's principle is to identify what humans genuinely need to do first, then re-engineer workflows around that answer. Her framing: AI is a great intern and a terrible CEO. The risk is using AI to accelerate an inefficient process rather than redesigning the process so human judgment operates at a higher level.

🔹 Durable customer relationships require peer-to-peer proof, not brand-to-customer messaging alone. Temple points to Discover's peer conversation density as a strategic asset, where customers articulate possibilities to each other that HPE alone could not credibly claim.

🔹 Sponsorships and partnerships carry brand weight only when grounded in mutual trust and shared technology stakes. Temple's framing of the HPE-Mercedes F1 partnership centers on the fact that the team relies on HPE technology to operate, making the association a proof point rather than a logo placement.
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The brands that win the next phase of enterprise marketing will be the ones that can show proof, not just describe potential. Temple's approach at HPE puts customer outcomes at the center of that story and treats AI as the tool that frees humans to make better decisions, not the system that makes decisions for them.
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PATRICK MOORHEAD:
Welcome back, Six Five  is On the Road here in Las Vegas at HPE Discover 2026. It's been a great show. It's interesting, the headline was all about networking and AI, but not to put out the full stack that HPE brings to the table. We've got compute, storage, networking, security, full stack software. Daniel, it's been a great show.

DANIEL NEWMAN: 

It has, it's been a great couple of days. We got to hear from CEO Antonio Neri. We heard from Rami Rahim. you know, networking has been in focus. But look, this is a company that's been very intentional about that, right? A year ago, we sat here, this stage, talked with Antonio, and he told us, you know, actually, this is right before the close of the Juniper deal. He said, we're going to do this differently. We're, you know, we of course have a compute portfolio, we're going to lead with networking and security. and I think it took a little while for the market o fully get it, but if you watch what's been happening over the last couple of quarters, where they put guidance six quarters out, and they pulled numbers two years in, clearly, it's being well-received.

JENNIFER TEMPLE: 

Yeah, so Daniel, we cover on the Six Five a lot of different AI impacts, investments, things like that, and one of those is clearly marketing, communication, sales enablement, basically growth strategies, right? all the CRM companies, everybody who's in it, and all the people building the tools. But we also talk with CMOs about what they're doing in this age of AI and brand transformation. And it is my pleasure to introduce Jennifer Temple. the CMCO of HPE Enterprise. Jennifer, great to see you. I was struck by the color matching of your jacket to the surroundings that we're in. Good to see you.

PATRICK MOORHEAD: 

I like it. Well, I couldn't help myself in being a branded figure. I mean, you need to be. Yes. So, thanks.

DANIEL NEWMAN: 

If the person that leads marketing and communications for the company isn't on brand, doesn't feel the need to be on brand, what does that say? And of course we love comms and marketing. I'm pretty sure that anytime Six Five shows up anywhere, there's a comms person that has somehow supported that. And I'm pretty sure as two of the world's most important research firms, marketing funds a lot of the stuff that we do. So thank you for that, Jennifer.

JENNIFER TEMPLE: 

You're hired for the plug. Thank you.

DANIEL NEWMAN: 

You're in, you're in, you're in.

JENNIFER TEMPLE: 

We appreciate that you appreciate us.

DANIEL NEWMAN: 

So we launched into your brand a little bit and we talked about that, but like you've been through a brand evolution. Talk a little bit about how customer you know, demand and expectations continue to change and how that's sort of making you rethink and how you're modernizing the HPE brand.

PATRICK MOORHEAD: 

Yeah, absolutely. Well, first of all, I love that you guys are here. It just feels really fun and in the moment to have you reporting live and helping us. We are fun. Are we? We're super fun.

JENNIFER TEMPLE: 

If she says we're fun, we're fun.

PATRICK MOORHEAD: 

I only agree to do fun things, so that should be your sign. It's been a pivotal year, the brand moment for us. You were here when we launched the new brand last year, a year ago, and it was literally days before we closed the Juniper transaction. We were planned and ready to go with being able to talk about Juniper at the show, and then alas, it happened a few days later. That new brand opportunity really came because we looked at what this moment needed to be met with. And we had been a standalone company for 10 years, so hard to believe that we spun off in 2015, 2025, marked this 10-year anniversary. where we wanted to have this distinctive signal to the market that we have been here for 10 years but we're modern and we're fresh and we're new and we're bold. The moniker itself felt really new and yet with a nod to the element that we all know and love and what life inside the element can be. But to me, to answer your question on brand and what it means to this new expectation that customers have is not just a logo or a mark or a beautiful green color palette. It's really, to me, I feel like marketers used to think of ourselves as awareness generators. Like, we want you to know we're here. Now I feel like marketers need to generate confidence. I'm starting to do scary things as a customer. I'm taking risks. I'm experimenting. And I want to be associated with a brand that's trusted, that has experimented itself, has tried things, has dared to dream. And so that connection, I feel like brands should suggest confidence and should be something that people can feel like, I will take this next leap.

JENNIFER TEMPLE: 

I want to be part of that.

PATRICK MOORHEAD: 

Because I want to be part of it. And same with team members. Team members want to be proud and culturally attached to what this brand can mean for the future.

JENNIFER TEMPLE: 

Yeah, it's interesting. I've been in and around marketing for a long time. We're not going to say I'm old, maybe experienced.

PATRICK MOORHEAD: 

Wise.

JENNIFER TEMPLE: 

Wise. Thank you. But, but, but the evolution, right. You know, started off as sales support and the flyer people and to make everyone pretty. But here we are in 2026, it's about data, it's about technology, it's about micro-segmentation and reaching a multitude of audiences, not just awareness, but all the way down the funnel, really creating these experiences. So, how has the role of the CMO evolved to match that, or has it, it has evolved, but is it hitting it right now?

PATRICK MOORHEAD: 

Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, what customers don't need is more data, more flyers, more acknowledgments of speeds and feeds, because they're drowning in it. And so I think, you know, our job as marketeers and as communicators is to provide that clarity. So I do think our job has evolved from being solely awareness and trying to hit them from every possible angle and more the clarifying what sets us apart. I like to say what would the world lose if HPE suddenly were not here. And so everything should be around a problem we're solving, an outcome we're generating. Hopefully you notice as you spin around the floor that we made this Discover very customer-led. It's always been a customer event, but we actually put the customer as the hero of our story. You walk around through the neighborhoods, and every single neighborhood tells a customer outcome and shows a use case. We have 107 customers opining about what they're doing on the various stages, which we've never done. And then I would say that we actually had a focus group this morning, and customers told us that they come for the other conversations with peers. that's what they come for.

JENNIFER TEMPLE: 

It makes sense.

PATRICK MOORHEAD: 

So I think marketing is how can we host and bring together peer-to-peer conversations that allow you to unlock these possibilities in your own mind. It's not just us selling to you, it's us then scooping up what can be sold to you because you've articulated and learned and gotten inspired by other customers who've shared their stories.

JENNIFER TEMPLE: 

Yes. It's really. Yeah, I was going to say some people say marketing is not difficult, but it's very difficult. Having been there, done that.

PATRICK MOORHEAD: 

Thank you.

DANIEL NEWMAN: 

Yes. At the time, it's also, you know, moving between sort of the ephemeral and the measurable.

JENNIFER TEMPLE: 

Yes.

DANIEL NEWMAN: 

Right. And by the way, you asked her how the role has changed of CMO. Well, first of all, you just give him another entire job. She also gets marketing and communication. That's right. Under one roof. And by the way, It's very different. I mean, can you even say that about companies that are more brand communications led versus companies that are more sort of hard, analytical, demand gen led? B2B is tricky, because we see you on the F1 car right now. And I mean, every one of those kinds of decisions, though, is made very analytically. But it also has a big impact on how the halo of the brand is carried, right? You know, with F1 cars, the Halo is very appropriate right now. And by the way, you guys are on the right car this year. Hey, hey, hey, I love it.

PATRICK MOORHEAD: 

The right color, too. You love our ad. I hope you've seen the ad. Oh, it's good. It's so fun.

DANIEL NEWMAN: 

I have, and Kimi is just crushing it this year.

PATRICK MOORHEAD: 

It's super fun. Oh, my goodness. But you know what I love about that? partnership is that it's not just us slapping our logo on their car, which, you know, I mean, would be dreamy in and of itself, I guess. It's us telling the technology story. I mean, they rely on our technology to power their garage, to make them who they are. And so all of our sponsorships, partnerships are grounded in this mutual trust we have with each other. We want to be affiliated with their brand. They want to be affiliated with our brand. They're trusting us to do the scary stuff.

DANIEL NEWMAN: 

By the way, was Juniper already with Mercedes?

PATRICK MOORHEAD:

No, that was ours. We were with Mercedes.

DANIEL NEWMAN: 

I know you were, but didn't Juniper, they didn't have a partnership?

PATRICK MOORHEAD: 

No, they did have a partnership and then they came over to our partnership.

DANIEL NEWMAN: 

Okay, we don't need to talk about where that was. I'm trying to remember, I'm trying to like place it on the car. So we talked a little, we were sort of insinuating this right now, like the way customers are discovering the brands they want to work with, the way they choose to engage, even how you mentioned they come here to engage, the way they evaluate, right? Patrick and I believe we were very disruptive from how historically B2B tech was evaluated purely on boxes or lines and drawings and diagrams, and that stuff still all matters, but now it's It's conversations, it's podcasts, there's lots of new ways. What are the shifts in behavior that you're seeing that marketers really need to be paying attention to as they try to, let's say, emulate some of the great things that you've been able to accomplish?

PATRICK MOORHEAD: 

Well, you named a bunch of the shifts. I know, I answered it before I asked it. It's fine, it's fine. It's because you guys are good marketers.

DANIEL NEWMAN: 

But was he right? I'm notorious, by the way, for long questions.

JENNIFER TEMPLE:

 I was born in a log cabin.

PATRICK MOORHEAD: 

The biggest shift I see, and you sort of put your finger on it, is one from just that awareness and understanding who we are down to that confidence and the trust. And so I do think that trust is built through anecdote, it's built through storytelling, it's built through proof. I gave everybody a challenge on my team when we were orchestrating Discover to say this has to be moving from promise to proof at Discover. So there's a lot of opining about what the promise of this technology can do, might do, will do. And you certainly come here to see the future, but you also want to see the proof. What's it doing right now? And so I do think what The consumer trend that I'm most paying attention to is this expectation that they want to trust that what they're promising will be delivered and that they can see that show up. And we do have to, you're absolutely right, we have to measure what we do. And I feel very good about the measurement that walks in this door. So when we've got 13,000 people coming to this event, More than 5,000 of those are direct customers, and then you add the partners and everybody to the mix, but we know what pipeline walks in the door with the accounts represented here, and we know what happens. How does that relationship mature? How does it evolve over time? So it's a really, it's important for us to be able to track and show how that's getting healthier and what we can do about it. If they're not doing more after they've come here, met with more people, heard the stories and the outcomes, if they're not doing more, why is that? Why is the choice not being made?

JENNIFER TEMPLE: 

Yeah. So we talked about trust.

PATRICK MOORHEAD: 

Yes.

JENNIFER TEMPLE: 

Now let's talk about AI.

PATRICK MOORHEAD: 

Okay.

JENNIFER TEMPLE: 

And it's fascinating. AI related to marketing or customer-centric type of things, it's a double-edged sword. On one hand, AI can personalize things that could never be personalized before. And on the other hand, there's a rejection. I'm looking at the mass audience, not necessarily the tech community that we're in. What principles are guiding you? How do I use it? When do I use it? When do I not use it?

PATRICK MOORHEAD: 

Yeah, it's a great question. And I feel like our team right now is right on the brink of moving from some really amazing pilots. We've had some terrific things in flight that have been more about individual use of generative AI. But what we're doing right now is moving that into total workflow re-imagination. Because for me, it's less about generating more content, and I often think that people can totally tell that content was generated by AI. So it's more about using it for research, insights, analysis, freeing up the humans to make the decisions. I told, I was giving a talk to interns last week, I hope this didn't offend them, but I said AI is a great intern. it's a terrible CEO. Because the interns are serving up everything you should be reading, understanding, diagnosing, analyzing, and then the decisions need to be made by marketeers. So the principle, I guess, is starting with the question of what do humans really need to do And when we answer that, then let's re-engineer the workflows that can do the work and make our work easier. Because if all we're doing is speeding up the process, then you could wind up making inefficiency faster.

JENNIFER TEMPLE: 

That's right.

PATRICK MOORHEAD: 

Instead of making our process better so that humans can be more creative and more directly accountable to the customer.

DANIEL NEWMAN: 

So AI does not replace human judgment.

PATRICK MOORHEAD: 

I like it. It's a great headline. Yeah.

DANIEL NEWMAN: 

I'm trying, though. I am genuinely trying to figure out where and when it can. And I do think the word of the era, I call this the abundance era, because we're in this era of just crazy growth. But we use the word or, and we should be using the word and, meaning human and AI, very, very powerful combination. Human or AI is going to, it's not going to do the type of disintermediating that people think. And I think we've been seeing that in the last few months. I joke, and we went from, you know, token maxing to token optimizing in two months like we did it was two months it was a two-month period from where we were like do everything you can with AI and then it's like do everything you can but don't spend a lot and make sure you're not using a model that's more expensive than you need and by the way I need humans to be looking at this stuff because the AI will let you swipe your credit card and go straight out of business I mean like 500 million bucks it was like And you're even seeing big tech companies sort of moderate because it's an and and it needs to be, it needs some human judgment.

PATRICK MOORHEAD: 

Exactly. If I would be shocked if when Antonio was with you, he didn't use his, everybody needs to have a minor in AI line because that's one of his principles is it's so don't think of it as an or this is going to replace the need for your judgment, your expertise, your training. Think of it as, if you don't get smart on this technology, then you're going to be less relevant and less able to help us.

DANIEL NEWMAN: 

It's like network for AI and AI for network.

PATRICK MOORHEAD: 

There you go. All right.

DANIEL NEWMAN: 

So let's wrap it up here. I'm tired. Thank you. So the brands that stand out, right? We would agree they use marketing to create deeper, more durable relationships with their customers.

PATRICK MOORHEAD: 

Yes.

DANIEL NEWMAN: 

What in the future, in your mind, is going to separate the winners and the losers in marketing and branding?

PATRICK MOORHEAD: 

We've talked about it a lot already, but I think it's the prove-it ones. I think it's the one that can show proof, experience, and articulate the possible made real, instead of just the ones that talk about potential and possibilities. So I, all of these tools in our toolbox are really exciting to me and I just think we can get deepened customer, putting customers at the center of that story, deepened human customer stories will make people more ready to take the next leap.

DANIEL NEWMAN: 

Jennifer Temple. Sage words. That's a great way to end the conversation.

PATRICK MOORHEAD: 

Wise words. Experienced words. Words. Old words?

DANIEL NEWMAN: 

Old, experienced, thoughtful and wise all at one time, Jennifer Temple. Glad you were able to sit with us this time instead of just stand over there where we had to run over there.

PATRICK MOORHEAD: 

I know. Thank you for having me. Thanks for coming on. Let's do it again soon. Appreciate it.

DANIEL NEWMAN:

Thank you, everybody, for being part of this Six Five On The Road. We're live here at HPE Discover 2026 in Las Vegas. Subscribe, check out all the content here, and of course, keep watching for more HPE Discover.

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