I assume everybody must have heard of Carly Fiorina the former female CEO of Hewlet Packard.
This is my review and analysis about her.
Cara Carleton “Carly” Fiorina (born Cara Carleton Sneed; September 6, 1954 in Austin, Texas) is an American business executive, best known as former CEO (1999–2005) and Chairman of the Board (2000–2005) of Hewlett-Packard (HP). She is also a contributor on the Fox Business Network.
EARLY LIFE
· Fiorina attended Charles E. Jordan High School in Durham, North Carolina, only for her Senior year due to her father’s frequent relocations during this time.
· Attended law school at University of California, Los Angeles but dropped out after one semester.
· Worked various secretarial positions including at HP as a temp working for Kelly Services (then Kelly Girls)
· Worked as a receptionist at Marcus & Millichap and was a broker briefly. During her speech at the 2006 ICSC convention in Las Vegas, Ms. Fiorina noted that her time at Marcus & Millichap helped her learn how to navigate the business world.
· Taught English in Italy (her first husband’s career had taken them to that country)
Curriculum Vitae
· BA in philosophy and medieval history, Stanford University, California, 1976
· MBA in marketing, Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park, 1980
· SM (Scientiæ Magister) in management, MIT Sloan School of Management under the Sloan Fellows program, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1989
AT&T (1980-1995)
Fiorina joined AT&T in 1980 as a management trainee and rose to become a Senior Vice President.
LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES (1995-1999)
· On November 20, 1995, promoted by AT&T to Executive Vice President for corporate operations for the future Lucent spinoff, reporting to Henry B. Schacht.
· On February 5, 1996, Lucent Technologies was spun off from AT&T. Fiorina played a key role in planning and implementing the initial public offering of stock and launch activities.
· On October 15, 1996, appointed President of Lucent consumer products business, reporting to Rich McGinn, President and COO of Lucent.
· On October 1, 1997, appointed Chairman of Philips Consumer Communications, a US$2.5 billion joint venture in corded/cordless phones and answering machines. Philips Consumer Communications was dissolved in 1998.
· On October 23, 1997, appointed Group President of Lucent global service provider business, with global marketing responsibility for Lucent’s largest customer segment.
· In October 1998, Fiorina was ranked #1 in Fortune magazine’s first listing of the most powerful women in business. She remained at the top until 2004 and was listed near the top in the following years. On first being listed, she remarked that the idea of this list is inappropriate.
· On July 19, 1999, Fiorina joined Hewlett-Packard.
Hewlett-Packared (1999-2005)
Fiorina joined Hewlett-Packard Company on July 19, 1999 as CEO, succeeding Lewis Platt.] She was not involved in the decision to spin-off Agilent Technologies but she presided over the process of implementing this decision. She often referred to her efforts as an attempt to “Reinvent HP.” During the general business downturn in 2001, Fiorina opted for 7,000 layoffs.
Throughout her career at HP, Fiorina was a very visible CEO. Her business travel included interactions with Hollywood entertainers and politicians. Her actions prompted the San Jose Mercury News to speculate that she might later run for election to public office.
In 2001 she was named one of the 30 most powerful women in America by Ladies Home Journal.
Compaq merger
In 2002, in the wake of the bursting of the Tech Bubble, Fiorina proposed a controversial merger with rival company Compaq. She campaigned for this plan and it was implemented amid public clashes with board member Walter Hewlett, the son of HP founder William Hewlett. The merger temporarily put HP in the top spot in the PC business ahead of Dell Computer Corp (now Dell, Inc.). After the merger, quarterly results were inconsistent and the share price stayed stagnant. HP saw an exodus of top managerial talent, mostly from the Compaq side, including Michael Capellas, Jeff Clarke, Mary McDowell, and the forced resignation of Peter Blackmore. HP’s services continued to lose market share to IBM, and HP continued to rely on its lucrative printer division to remain profitable.
On January 7, 2004, at a meeting with Congressional members, Fiorina said, “There is no job that is America’s God-given right anymore. We have to compete for jobs as a nation.” Her statements angered Bay Area workers who felt that low wages overseas encouraged corporations to use less-qualified offshore workers instead of well-qualified locals. Fiorina responded to this criticism by publishing a clarifying op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal.
Fiorina was named in the Time 100 for 2004.
Departure
As HP’s performance slowed, the Board of Directors became increasingly concerned. In early January 2005, the HP Board of Directors presented Fiorina with a four-page list of issues the board had with Fiorina’s performance. A week after the meeting, the plan was leaked to the Wall Street Journal. The board proposed a plan to shift her authority to HP division heads, which Fiorina resisted.
On 9 February 2005, Carly Fiorina was dismissed as chairman and chief executive officer of HP. “While I regret the board and I have differences about how to execute HP’s strategy, I respect their decision,” Fiorina said in a statement. “HP is a great company and I wish all the people of HP much success in the future.” She was replaced by Patricia C. Dunn as chairman and CFO Robert Wayman as CEO. Hewlett-Packard’s stock jumped 7% on news of her departure.
Under Hewlett-Packard’s severance agreement, Carly Fiorina received US $21 million in cash, which was 2.5 times her base annual salary. On March 8, 2006, two large institutional investors filed suit against Hewlett-Packard for violating its own severance cap when it doled out a multimillion-dollar payment to Fiorina as part of her termination agreement.
Post-HP activities
In a commencement address at the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University on May 7, 2005, Fiorina said about HP: “The worst thing I could have imagined happened. I lost my job in the most public way possible, and the press had a field day with it all over the world. And guess what? I’m still here. I am at peace and my soul is intact. I could have given it away and the story would be different.”
In an 10 October 2007 article in Daily Variety, it was reported that Fiorina had signed with Fox Business Network to become a frequent business commentator on the newly-formed cable network, intended to be a competitor to the CNBC cable network.
Fiorina holds positions on the board of trustees of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum. She is an Honorary Fellow of the London Business School.
In early September 2005, Fiorina was named a director at Revolution Health Group, a venture formed by Steve Case. In October 2005, Fiorina joined the board of computer security company Cybertrust. In April 2006, Fiorina joined the board of directors for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. Fiorina is an independent Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company board member and serves on the audit and compensation committees.
On 9 October 2006, Fiorina released her book, Tough Choices: A Memoir, about her career and her views on such issues as what constitutes a leader, how women can thrive in business and the role technology will continue to play in reshaping our world. She then launched a book tour, with several appearances scheduled for Silicon Valley locations. On 10 October 2006 while she was interviewed on the Charlie Rose Show, Fiorina asserted that her leadership was strong throughout, and that the Compaq merger was well conceived, but misunderstood by the Board.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal during her book tour, Fiorina said she is considering a political career or some form of “public service.” She is also open to becoming CEO of another public company.
Fiorina has been floated in some sources as a potential Vice President in a McCain administration. She endorsed Senator John McCain as the Republican nominee in the 2008 Presidential elections and campaigned with him. At an economic round-table with the senator in January 2008, Fiorina praised Senator McCain, claiming that “John McCain is a man who understands what the role of government should be, and what the role of government should not be.”
On March 7, 2008 Fiorina was named “Chair of Victory, 2008,” an RNC coordinated group to raise money and conduct get out the vote activities, by the Republican National Committee. She also stated then that she would additionally be a point person for the McCain campaign as related to business and economic affairs, as well as publicly advocating the Republican Party. Ms. Fiorina has along with Bill Gates been actively promoting expansion of H-1b guest worker visas.
PERSONAL LIFE
· Fiorina’s father, Joseph T. Sneed III, was a constitutional law scholar and later a federal judge. Her mother Madelon Juergens Sneed was a portrait and abstract artist, and she has two siblings.
· Married first husband Todd Bartlem, a Stanford classmate, in June 1977.
· In 1985, she married AT&T executive Frank J. Fiorina (he opted for early retirement in 1998). It was the second marriage for both. She helped to raise her two stepdaughters Traci and Lori Ann. They attempted to have children together but, as Fiorina puts it: “that wasn’t God’s plan.”]
· Lives in Washington, D.C. and Los Altos Hills, California.
RESOURCES: http:en.wikipedia.org.wiki/carly_fiorina ,
MY ANALYSIS
Carly Fiorina has high Internal locus of control because :
-C Carly Fiorina always has showed her capabilities to People that doubt her capabilities. Carly Fiorina has great endurance to face problems and she is also a hardworker. She responded to their doubts positively.
My statement can be found in her speech
“When people have stereotypes of what you can’t do, show them what you can do. When they have stereotypes of what you won’t do, show them what you will do. Every time you resist someone else’s smaller notion of who you really are, you test your courage and your endurance. Each time you endure, and stay true to yourself, you become stronger and better.”
—from a speech by Carly Fiorina, May 2005
At first Carly Fiorina used Force style to execute HP’s strategy
- S she insisted on buying Compag without The son of Hp founder’s approval (walter hewlett).
Carly Fiorina’s FIRO B :
- Carly fiorina took charge and influenced people
- She got close and personal with people as she tried to influence key people and employees in order to execute the strategy to buying Compaq (management by walking around).
- Carli Fiorina joined other people and included others. We can see it as She tried to approach key people.
But much has been said about she had strayed from HP way” The old HP was very collegial with open offices, open collars and open lines of communications between management and employees. Some have suggested that co-founders William Hewlett and David Packard would have frowned at Fiorina’s management style and, perhaps they would have (http:www.cbsnews.com)
From this perspective, I analyse that Carli Fiorina’s FIRO B
- S she takes charge and influences people (High control)
- S she does not get close and personal with employees (affection)
- S she does not really join employees and does not include employees (inclusion)
Potential conflict between management and employees could emerge if employees want to be included and employees wanted management to get close with employees (interchange compability). Employees sometimes want to give advice (try toinfluence) to management , but based on Fiorina’s management style , originator compability could emerge. Resiprocal compability could emerge between management and employees as management does not really join employees.
Carli Fiorina’s leadership style is authority leadership style because of Low involvement from employees.
Michael capellas resigned from HP as he is not satisfied with his position to be number 2 after carly fiorina. Then HP said it won’t hire another president. The operating executives of the company who previously reported to Capellas will now report directly to Fiorina.
I think that HP is a very big Company. It is too big a company for one person to hold all of those positions.
Carly Fiorina also has her opinion why she got fired from HP. HP had a dysfunctional board with a couple members who were offended that she would not acquiesce to a set of ideas or pet projects that she did not think served the interests of the business. They were offended when she refused to cut corners on rules of good governance, simply because they wanted Carly Fiorina to.
She also reveals that the vote to dismiss her, and the vote just beforehand to readmit to the board her nemesis Tom Perkins, were the only two board votes during her chairmanship that were not unanimous.
The following extract from the company’s Corporate Objectives illustrates the main values underpinning the HP Way.
HP People:
· To help HP people share in the company’s success, which they make possible.
· To provide job security based on performance.
· To recognize their individual achievements.
· To help them gain a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment from their work.
· Relationships within the company depend upon a spirit of cooperation among both individuals and groups, and an attitude of trust and understanding on the part of the managers towards heir people. These relationships will be good only if employees have faith in the motives and integrity of their peers, supervisors and the company itself.
· Job security is an important HP objective . the company has achieved a steady growth in employment by consistently developing good new products, and by avoiding the type of contract business that requires hiring many people, then terminating them when the contract expires.
· To foster initiative and creativity by allowing the individual great freedom of action in attaining well-defined objectives.
· Insofar as possible, each individual at each level in the organization should make his or her own plans to achieve company objectives and goals. After receiving supervisory approval, each individual should be given a wide degree of freedom to work within the limitations imposed by these plans, and by our corporate policies.
Although Fiorina possesses a leadership style and strategic vision that has contributed to the success of previous companies that she held leadership HP wasn’t ready for the organizational change she thought would be necessary for the future of HP.
HP was not ready for the organizational change she thought would be necessary for the future of HP.
Although the initial intent in organizational change and new strategies for Hewlett Packard were for the better HP, Fiorina has faced increased criticism from business analysts, and worse, the family of the founders of Hewlett Packard.
Despite an industry wide economic downturn, Fiorina was determined to up the growth and profits of HP. In 2000, HP experienced a growth in revenues of 15% and earnings up 5.9% from the previous year . Fiorina was driven to increase the profits even more by trying radical changes.
The changes are highlighted as follows.
· Fiorina fostered a top-down approach to management. This approach conflicted with the old-style of HP: a completely decentralized management approach. Although changes sometimes can be good, when Fiorina did away with the companies decentralized approach, she did away with a 60 year tradition. Company employees were not happy about this.
· Carly fiorina took on too many revolutionary company projects at one time: wireless service, digital imaging, and commercial printing. The original founders of HP had continuously taken given product lines and made them better, not taking on unnecessary innovations.
· While Fiorina was at Lucent, she became frustrated with the buying process from HP. For this reason she created selling teams and completely changed the way the sales forces was compensated.
· HP employees no longer possess the job security that they had in the 80’s and 90’s when the economy and computer industry was lagging. By May, 2003, the company had cut nearly 20,000 jobs.
· Fiorina led the company to its most widely scrutinized strategy yet; the merging of HP with Compaq.
Since then, most of the rejection came from the side of HP management. Carly fiorina’s decision led to a bad response by David Packard Jr. that his father would never had countenanced the company’s growth through such a massive acquisition. Especially not with a culture so oddly alien and different from the HP Way
When the children of the founders of HP were notified of the possible merger with Compaq, they publicly stated that they would vote their shares (18%) against the merger. Fiorina responded to this by taking out full page advertisements and press releases denouncing the heir and most vocal family member, Walter Hewlett.
Fiorina and other top HP executives were able to get the deal done. In July 2002, HP-Compaq briefly became the top personal computer maker with more worldwide shipments of personal computers than it’s top rival, Dell Computers. By the end of the 3rd quarter in October, 2002, HP-Compaq saw its domination fall again to Dell who had a 23% market share compared to HP-Compaq’s 15.5% share.
The dual brand strategy of HP-Compaq makes things even more difficult for the company. Top executives had to be able to market both Hewlett Packard and Compaq products, as the company has no plans to do away with either brand.
Carly fiorina was known of being high-profile. Carly fiorina thought that there is no way that my arrival at HP was going to be dealt with in a low-profile way by the media. I had nothing to do with that other than to have to deal with it that first day. she was criticized endlessly in the media for not being available enough. She was criticized endlessly in the media for being too high-profile.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Because of the financial condition of HP in 1999, i think that changes were necessary.
I think that carly fiorina should make an attempt to restore a decentralized approach. Autocratic management that carly fiorina did was not even needed and completely went against a 63 year tradition of the HP way. Strategies for the company should be formulated by senior HP-Compaq management and carly fiorina’s plans should have been discussed thoroughly so as to the success of the strategies.
For HP It self i think that Everybody at HP focused on incrementalism and it had become a bureaucracy, HP had 87 different product lines that never talked to each other. This was not a customer-focused business. Now HP has at least 7 patents per day and HP should continoue on innovations and cutting costs as what the new CEO Mark Hurd does and what carly fiorina was planning to do.












