February 10, 2005 09:32 AM
Fiorina's Confrontational Tenure at Hewlett Comes to a Close
Excerpt: In the end, her superstar status was also her undoing. The board concluded that she was spending too much time on the road, neglecting the nuts-and-bolts execution of her own strategic ideas. According to a person familiar with the board's decision, "It's all about performance."
It came as an icy moment in an already tense news conference last month during the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Asked to describe her relationship with her board, Carleton S. Fiorina, the Hewlett-Packard chief executive, replied with a single word: "Excellent."
Perhaps she was in denial, or just out of the loop, but Ms. Fiorina's confrontational tenure as chief executive of the world's second-largest computer company was unraveling.
Back in the United States, the company's board, which had brought Ms. Fiorina in with great fanfare in 1999, had begun discussing ways to limit her power and give more day-to-day authority to several of the operating executives. She was told point-blank by three directors at a Jan. 12 meeting in San Francisco that she had to change her style.
"The board told her in no uncertain terms that she needed to open up the office of chief executive and share operational responsibilities," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst with the Enderle Group, a research firm in San Jose and a longtime Hewlett observer. "She adamantly refused and drew a line in the sand."
Concerned about her refusal to budge, directors convened a special board meeting beginning on Sunday evening at a hotel near O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. At the meeting, Thomas Perkins, a former board member and a legendary Silicon Valley venture capitalist, was asked to rejoin the board after discussions with another candidate fell through.
The meeting continued into the next day. While she was staying nearby, Ms. Fiorina was excluded from the discussions. On Monday, the board told her that they wanted her to resign. She was stunned, according to one person familiar with the discussions.
"I think she made a calculated bet the board would not let her go, but the board was clearly adamant," Mr. Enderle said.
It was an ignominious end to a six-year run that began when Ms. Fiorina was made chief executive - and the first woman to head one of the nation's 20 largest public corporations - as part of an effort to shake up a slow-moving corporate culture.
Back then, she was the subject of frequent and flattering magazine cover stories, in which she was lauded as a supersaleswoman who had excellent communication skills, was tough as nails and understood technology to boot.
Her status blossomed to that of a rock star in the computer world. Ms. Fiorina became the public image of the company, starring in television advertisements showing her visiting the legendary garage in Palo Alto, Calif., where the company began.
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