At the start of the year, Bill Wohl, former communications executive at software firm SAP, joined Hewlett-Packard to assume the newly created role of CCO, taking a seat at the C-suite table and reporting directly into new CEO Léo Apotheker - a first-of-its-kind reporting structure for the IT giant.

The former SAP colleagues Apotheker and Wohl, joining in September 2010 and January 2011, respectively, took on the high-profile roles at one of the world's largest IT companies, which has been ...