HP chief legal officer Kim Rivera has made the leap to business leader at the tech company, taking on a new role as president, strategy and business management.

Rivera will start the role on 1 January next year, taking over from retiring interim COO Cathie Lesjak.

HP described Rivera as a "proven leader who has spent her career working with Fortune 500 companies across multiple industries, managing an array of business, strategy, risk and legal disciplines".

"Since joining HP, Kim has proven herself time and again, not only as an expert in legal and policy areas but as an essential adviser to our business and regional leadership team and board of directors," said HP president and chief executive officer Dion Weisler. "Her understanding of the entire organisation, combined with her ability to thoughtfully navigate highly complex issues, have added tremendous value to our business."

Rivera joined Palo Alto, California-based HP in 2015 as CLO and since then has been responsible for the company's legal team, government relations, compliance and ethics. Earlier this year, Rivera told Corporate Counsel that HP's legal organisation had 375 employees in more than 30 global locations, about half of whom are lawyers.

She also has been a strong voice for increasing diversity in the legal industry. In 2017, she announced HP would withhold up to 10% of legal fees from firms that did not meet set diversity requirements.

Rivera required firms to have "at least one diverse firm relationship partner, regularly engaged with HP on billing and staffing issues", or "at least one woman and one racially/ethnically diverse lawyer, each performing or managing at least 10% of the billable hours worked on HP matters", to avoid cut fees.

"I sent a letter to firms on why diversity and inclusion matters to us," Rivera said at a Harvard Law School event last year. "I said: 'If you want to work with us, this is the condition. Give us partners and teams staffed with women and minorities and if you don't, we'll withhold 10% of your fees until you comply.' We didn't lose anybody."

Prior to joining HP, Rivera was chief legal officer and corporate secretary of DaVita HealthCare Partners. She has also served as chief compliance officer and head of international legal services at The Clorox Company, and chief litigation counsel for Rockwell Automation.

She began her legal career as a litigation associate at Jones Day, after graduating from Harvard Law School.