Carly Fiorina.

February 13, 2005 12:10 PM

The feeding frenzy. Carly Fiorina has been attacked by the media. But, oh no, not because she was a woman. Those who sang her praises now chronicle her demise.
posted by nj_subgenius (49 comments total)

Poor Carly. Things are tough all over.
posted by 327.ca at 12:21 PM on February 13, 2005

Not like I care for her - no big deal as she has a $21MM payday. Still, the hypocrisy of the so-called business press outshines.
posted by nj_subgenius at 12:25 PM on February 13, 2005

The tide really began turning against Fiorina following HP's massive profit shortfall in the third quarter of last year. That marked HP's second miss in five quarters and further damaged the company's credibility on Wall Street -- a major issue, since HP's stock has long traded at multiples well below those of its competitors. Although Fiorina fired three top sales executives for the miss, the board's doubts about its CEO grew. At the same time, the board's proddings of Fiorina to bolster HP's operations talent went largely unheeded.

This is really what did her in, not the fact that she's a woman. She's not the only female CEO out there, and the board of any corporation expects a CEO to deliver expected profit to the shareholders.

A more useful critique from the media would be to ask why female CEOs are not compensated at the same level as male CEOs, however.
posted by AlexReynolds at 12:29 PM on February 13, 2005

Fiorina's insistence that there's no such thing as a glass ceiling and refusal to answer questions about gender in interviews was not exactly a high point either.
posted by 327.ca at 12:31 PM on February 13, 2005

This is really what did her in, not the fact that she's a woman. She's not the only female CEO out there, and the board of any corporation expects a CEO to deliver expected profit to the shareholders.

From the first link...

From the day she took the top job at HP five years ago, Fiorina was steadfast in her refusal to discuss her gender as it related to her job. She declared there "was no glass ceiling" -- something that had the female masses of Corporate America murmuring in disbelief. She turned away any and all interview requests for stories related to her membership in a club so tiny -- the one of female CEOs of Top 500 companies -- that you could barely make two golf foursomes out of it.

She may not have been the only female CEO out there, but in terms of the Fortune 500...
posted by 327.ca at 12:36 PM on February 13, 2005

I love all the talk about Carly being a woman as the reason for her being ousted.

Nevermind that she sacrificed an HP business with high margins in order to acquire Compaq, which, with its low margins and drawn out losing war with Dell caused HP shares to decline consistently. Nevermind that the company missed earnings repeatedly. Nevermind that her answer for everything was to churn employees.

No.. it's because she's a woman.

Please.

The only surprising thing about the move was that it took as long as it did.
posted by AspectRatio at 12:46 PM on February 13, 2005

When it comes to promoting women, two seemingly contradictory trends are at work. On the one hand, companies are often reluctant to put women in challenging senior positions for fear that they might fail in full public view. Yet, with so few women in the senior ranks, companies also have a tendency to pluck the hard-charging stars and plop them squarely in the spotlight before they're ready...

For Fiorina, a stronger footing in operations might have helped to raise her performance on the job at HP. Instead, for years, she steadfastly refused to even consider hiring a COO, questioning why her critics wanted her to have one while male CEOs at other big tech companies didn't. It was a convenient defense. Unfortunately it belied the evidence: HP had recurrent operational problems, and those other companies did not.

That first link is great; thanks. This bit from last Thursday's NYT is also revealing:

Today, employees recalled Ms. Fiorina's penchant for holding pep rallies for employees, where she would frequently take over sporting venues and make appearances complete with light shows and celebrities like former pro basketball star Magic Johnson or Jeffrey Katzenberg, the Hollywood luminary.

"They were like political rallies and they were totally foreign to H.P.'s culture," said one employee.

The most recent event was in San Diego in December...Ms. Fiorina filled the San Diego Convention Center with 1,600 employees and broadcast the event around the world on satellite television, while executives back at corporate headquarters in Palo Alto, fretted about a day of lost productivity.

A rockstar manager with limited operations experience at a company with recurring operational problems. She probably lasted longer than she should have.
posted by mediareport at 12:49 PM on February 13, 2005

Perhaps she was trying to prove a point, that gender should prove no distraction to running a great company to make large profits. Unfortunately, she did not make the profits, and so her experiment failed.

I still think the pay disparity is a larger issue. Fact remains that there are fewer women in the corporate structure to begin with, which makes progression to CEO harder. That said, once at that level, I find it ironic that even at the very highest level, a woman can't be paid the same dollar as a man, for the same work.

I think the wider media will not cover this aspect of the story, because it might raise questiosn about the use of women at all levels of industry, from top to bottom, as lower-paid employees. This line of questioning would hurt the bottom line for a lot of companies.

People aren't usually fired for gender these days, because of expensive sex-discrimination lawsuits. Something that high-profile would hurt HP even more. Still, a few stories get put out about how Carly was fired for being a woman, or not fired because she was a woman. These stories are a good distraction from this other, more interesting (to me) issue.
posted by AlexReynolds at 12:52 PM on February 13, 2005

Aren't there plenty of bad male CEOs around tho? I don't see them getting fired (see Eisner, for just one example)
posted by amberglow at 12:55 PM on February 13, 2005

The thing about all of this that has struck me is the wave of coverage. I mean, a week of building media coverage because a troubled tech company dismissed an underperforming CEO? It seems echo-chambery to me.

All of the coverage has emphasized the gender issue, often with the hook of a leading question - "does this mean that life will be harder for female managers in hi-tech?"

Most stories then knock that straw man down, but I can't figure out why else the stories exist other than to develop the perception that, yes, it's a boy's club. It's not as if some of the articles were pitched in a vacuum, with writers and editors unaware of the other coverage.
posted by mwhybark at 12:56 PM on February 13, 2005

I thought the most interesting part was the suggestion that rather than there being a simple glass ceiling, another problem is that women managers tend to be confined to certain departments, like sales and HR. Which tends to give them a disadvantage at CEO level, since they don't have broad experience through the company.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 12:59 PM on February 13, 2005

I don't see them getting fired (see Eisner, for just one example)

His time may soon be up. It would be interesting to see how Steve Jobs would rebuild Disney.
posted by AlexReynolds at 1:02 PM on February 13, 2005

To people at HP, Carly's gender had nothing to do with their assessment of her as a CEO. Rather, it was pure dismay as she repeatedly oversaw decisions that reinforced her disregard for employees, while looking out for her and her friends.

People coming from DEC and Compaq, having already survived one merger, couldn't believe the hostile culture we found at HP. What was more amazing was that the HP employees said the same thing! Under Carly the cultures of three important tech companies were destroyed in one fell swoop.

Carly's vision for the company was to deliver an IBM quality service and product at a Dell price. I'm sure that most of you can see the difficulty in executing that strategy.

HP's logo with the word 'invent' is simply mocking the memory of three tech firms who held innovation as their first priority. HP is now a conflicted mess with no direction. Our new CEO has a tough job ahead of them.
posted by bangalla at 1:02 PM on February 13, 2005

If Carly had been a man, she would not have lasted this long after the Compaq debacle. HP has kept her far too long because they wanted to avoid just this kind of exposure.

Buying Compaq was a boneheaded move and hideously expensive.

The graph for HP stock since the Compaq purchase is all you need to see to understand why she was let go, not whether or not she has a penis.

The next CEO, male or female, will spin-off the profitable printer division as their first order of business, the stock will soar, and they will get to bask in the spotlight, at least for a while.
posted by Ynoxas at 1:06 PM on February 13, 2005

From the salon article this week:

To those who will inevitably say that Carly has been singled out for harsh treatment because she is a woman, nonsense. Anne Mulcahy of Xerox, Meg Whitman of eBay and Carol Bartz of Autodesk, among others, have all shown that a Y chromosome is no prerequisite to performing the CEO's role with quiet competetence. What these leaders share besides their gender is they don't make promises they can't possibly keep.

So there.
posted by Space Coyote at 1:13 PM on February 13, 2005

Amen Space Coyote.
The Compaq buy was what {should have} sealed Fiorina's fate. She seemed so intent on this acquisition that you'd have to think back to Fred Brooks' "second system effect". Except as applied to business, not software. Lucent does not equal HP.
posted by nj_subgenius at 1:27 PM on February 13, 2005

"Prodded by corporate scandals and new federal law, corporate boards are ending the clubby practices of the past and showing a greater willingness to give top executives the boot." [San Franciscio Chronicle | February 13, 2005].

Examples of recent CEO terminations:

Charles Schwab's CEO David Pottruck
Computer Associates' Sanjay Kumar
Fannie Mae’s Franklin Raines
PeopleSoft's Craig Conway ;
Royal Dutch Shell's Philip Watts
Nortel’s Frank Dunn

" A study of CEO successions by the Booz Allen Hamilton consulting firm found that CEO dismissals increased by 170 percent from 1995 to 2003. Paul Hodgson with the Corporate Library, an independent governance research firm, said that, in a sample of 2,000 of the largest U.S. corporations, 55 had hired new chief executives in the first six weeks of 2005." [San Franciscio Chronicle | February 13, 2005].
posted by ericb at 1:29 PM on February 13, 2005

*San Francisco*
posted by ericb at 1:35 PM on February 13, 2005

I pity the rich. They have it hard.
posted by srboisvert at 1:38 PM on February 13, 2005

Anyone claming that this girl was fired for being a woman is an idiot. I mean, what should they have done, lefter her around to lose millions of dollars just to be nice?

The way she treated her employees, all I can say is good riddance.
posted by delmoi at 1:53 PM on February 13, 2005

I still think the pay disparity is a larger issue. Fact remains that there are fewer women in the corporate structure to begin with, which makes progression to CEO harder. That said, once at that level, I find it ironic that even at the very highest level, a woman can't be paid the same dollar as a man, for the same work.

Agreed on all points, but this particular woman CEO had her chance and blew it. So her ouster is not due to sexism, but some of the reaction to her ouster is, methinks.
posted by jonmc at 1:56 PM on February 13, 2005

Carl Fiorina? He'd Probably Be Out of Work, Too -
"If Carleton S. Fiorina were a man, would the outcome of her turbulent tenure as chief executive of Hewlett-Packard have been different?"
posted by ericb at 2:22 PM on February 13, 2005

Fiorina was a great charismatic face to put in front of stodgy old HP -- but it also needed someone with operations experience to run the business. This has nothing to do with gender, it has to do with running a business.

Dell would have never gotten to where it is if Michael Dell didn't hire Mort Topfer to get the operations side of the house in order. The "two in a box" style worked well since Michael could be rallying the troops, meeting customers and going on TV, while Mort was back in Austin making the manufacturing processes and operations something that HP and IBM couldn't touch.

If Fiorina would have realized this and found a strong ops person to be her number two [or better yet, share the office of CEO] things might have been different at HP.

HP remains a great company [except today with the inability to download Mac OS drivers for my scanner] and will continue to be. Although it might spin off its imaging business, I'm not sure of the remaining business to come close to competing in commodity PCs against Dell or services and big iron against IBM.
posted by birdherder at 2:23 PM on February 13, 2005

Perhaps it was Carly's stance on outsourcing that has left such a bad impression on people.

As a woman and a techie, I think that gender should be brought into the discussion. Fiorina wielded power the way a power-drunk man would, she did not exercise power from a traditional feminine perspective..

Maybe that is why she won't answer questions about gender...she felt to play with the boys she had to play like a boy. And to me...a woman working in an industry that is still very much male-dominated...that sort of attitude is the very antithesis of feminism.
posted by gminks at 2:27 PM on February 13, 2005

No, ericb, the firing of Franklin Raines was racial. Just like Fiorina's canning was all about gender.
posted by trharlan at 2:29 PM on February 13, 2005

This is what happens when they leave the kitchen.
posted by dios at 2:32 PM on February 13, 2005

"...the firing of Franklin Raines was racial. Just like Fiorina's canning was all about gender"

I, personally, don't have enough evidence that racism or gender bias were at play in the individual cases, respectively, of Raines and Fiorina, but am willing to learn more about such. Can you - or, others - point me in the right direction?
posted by ericb at 2:39 PM on February 13, 2005

As a tech CEO, Fiorina was majorly lacking in tech savvy. Instead of owning new markets beyond printers and calculators, all the energy was focussed on borging Compaq. And they didn't even do it properly! One classic example is jumping on to Apple's iPod low-margin coat tails even while HP had acquired a major strategic and patent advantage in portable hard disk audio players (Compaq invented this product category way back in 1999) just demonstrated a fundamantal loss of nerve for a company with the word "Invent" as part of their brand. Not failing to recognise earlier the urgent need to bail out of the ongoing Itanium disaster was also terrible. And some of the marketing buzzword-laden "direction" speeches her and her acolytes got into the habit of giving were so cloying it was like 1999 all over again.
posted by meehawl at 2:43 PM on February 13, 2005

Regarding Raines: In late December 2004 the "...Securities & Exchange Commission's top accountant declared that mortgage giant Fannie misstated earnings for 3 1/2 years, leading to an estimated $9 billion restatement that will wipe out 40% of profits from 2001 to mid-2004.....Supporters of Raines, 55, insisted that he wasn't culpable for Fannie's misuse of obscure accounting standards. But that argument didn't wash. Raines was in charge in 2001, when Fannie chose to create what the SEC dryly called 'its own unique methodology' to calculate the earnings impact of its trillion-dollar portfolio of derivatives. Raines gave Chief Financial Officer J. Timothy Howard free rein and tolerated 'weak or nonexistent' financial controls, according to a scathing report issued in September by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, Fannie's regulator. Worse, the CEO failed to manage the scandal. When sibling Freddie Mac's accounting first came under fire in mid-2003, Raines's arrogant insistence that Fannie was above reproach spurred OFHEO to do a white-glove examination. And when that uncovered the improper bookkeeping, Raines insisted on an SEC review, which he maintained would vindicate Fannie. 'Frank was supposed to be the great political risk manager,' says independent banking analyst Bert Ely in Alexandria, Va. 'Instead, he compounded the problems. 'When Fannie's board balked over ousting Raines, OFHEO forced its hand. Raines described his exit as an "early retirement' that was self-initiated and says that it shows he was accountable for the SEC findings. Fittingly, Raines -- a man who built a $54 billion behemoth with his mastery of behind-the-scenes politicking -- went down spinning. [Business Week | January 10, 2005]
posted by ericb at 2:45 PM on February 13, 2005

On preview trharlan ... do I need to retune my "irony" meter?
posted by ericb at 2:50 PM on February 13, 2005

To be perfectly fair, Ms. Fiorina relied more than most on the business press having a darwinian attitude toward people who lose their jobs because someone on the board had a brainstorm.

As it turned out, her firing was a little more justified by actual results than the other not-quite-twenty thousand she presided over.

No-one cried too hard for them in the media either.

Sounds like the biter bit to me.
posted by jmhm at 2:54 PM on February 13, 2005

As the great Kinky Friedman said, she'd better occupy the kitchen; liberate the sink.
posted by dios at 2:57 PM on February 13, 2005

Bangalla: People coming from DEC and Compaq, having already survived one merger, couldn't believe the hostile culture we found at HP. What was more amazing was that the HP employees said the same thing! Under Carly the cultures of three important tech companies were destroyed in one fell swoop.

As an employee of the company, it's a great relief- almost justice- to see her gone.

Bangalla, you are close to the mark when you say the three cultures are destroyed. I remember when she was first hired on, and through the subsequent merger, that I was thinking the most damage she was going do to us as a company was that she would destroy our culture- through the merger- combining polar opposite cultures in these two very different companies. The hostility you mention doesn't surprise me, but I'm pissed that it's even there. I think there was a mentality in Compaq that they felt HP was taking over- that HP was going to be the new boss. When Capellas jumped after the merger, this seemed to be solidified. I think it has to do more with job-preservation than anything else- a lot of people in the company felt their jobs threatened, so now they create their own impediments to operational efficiency to justify themselves. The last two years have been a huge PITA.

We'll see what happens from here on out. Practically speaking, this is HP's 'mid 90s IBM-crisis'. It's going to take one hell of a CEO to get this company on the right track. I just hope the board uses a different executive consulting firm.
posted by id at 2:57 PM on February 13, 2005

I think there was a mentality in Compaq that they felt HP was taking over- that HP was going to be the new boss.

id, I know there was some of this, but there was also a lot of goodwill from many of the 'digits' who felt they were finally going to be part of an engerneering focussed comapny again.

When we arrived we found that was not the case. I think HP was already going in the wrong direction before the merger, but the merger made all of its ills more public.

Whenever any 'Red Team' people came up against stupid poicies or procedures that could not be circumvented and would not be explained we took to saying in frustration that it was obviously just 'The HP Way'. I'm sad that what used to be a comment about excellence has now been co-opted to describe stupid management and incoherrent strategy.

I fear the future if the people favouring spinning off Imaging and Printing have their way. It will destroy what little is left of the IT side of HP without the ink profits to keep us alive until we can fix the Itanium debacle. I think the rot set in when Agilent was spun off and HP stopped being an engineering company and became just another wall street watcher.

Indeed this will be HP's own crisis, hopefully we get a CEO like IBM got in Gerstner who realised that unifying the company and using its strengths to leverage the rest of the business was the best solution.

I'm proud of the history at DEC and Compaq and I'm committed to the excellent people I work with, I only hope we get a CEO who is willing to look to the employees and build the company rather than continueing to strip it bare as has been happening for the past 4 years.
posted by bangalla at 3:27 PM on February 13, 2005

Huh. I hadn't realized that the person most responsible for organizing HP's board of directors against Fiorina is also a woman, new non-executive chairman Patricia Dunn:

Dunn subsequently helped initiate and foster a series of ongoing informal conversations among board members about HP's problems, according to a person familiar with the situation. In early January, Dunn, in her quiet manner, helped draft a critique of the company's position that would serve as an agenda for an upcoming board meeting. The document outlined the problems the company was facing, including "chief executive performance and board and chief executive dialogue,' said this person. Three board members, including Dunn, presented the issues to Fiorina at a meeting Jan. 9...

The board chose Dunn to be the new non-executive chairman because of her insistence that all eight board members agree on every issue brought before Fiorina, said the person familiar with the board's deliberations. To many who have worked with her, Dunn is a quiet, unassuming, intelligent force.

Adds a bit of a twist to the story, I think.
posted by mediareport at 3:39 PM on February 13, 2005

yeah--now it comes off as a catfight? (kidding)

and i think the shareholders were probably thrilled with her position on outsourcing. I hear she wants to go into politics, too.
posted by amberglow at 3:44 PM on February 13, 2005

I agree of course that the firing was justified. But it sill seems to me that the media reaction is a bit more vitriolic than following the usual CEO dumping. Was Fiorina really that much more abrasive than other failed CEOs? Seems like the sheer volume of media reaction indicates that sexism is still alive and kicking.

Although thinking on it some more it might be more indicative of the media desire to create conflict to increase profits rather than genuine sexism in the media. Or maybe a little of both.
posted by dopeypanda at 3:45 PM on February 13, 2005

Disney: Eisner is already on his way out, he will retire in the next year or so, the big question now is whether the board will be his bitch and appoint Robert Iger as successor or stand up for shareholders and hire an outsider.

HP: I blame the board of directors for this mess. Not only did they hire her and then never require her to hire a decent COO, they let her pursue PriceWaterhouse to create a top consulting practice (which might have been a decent idea) and then flopped on their asses and agreed to the Compaq deal when that didn't go through. How different could two deals be? One wonders if Patricia Dunn, the new non-executive chairperson, will look to keep that position longterm while hiring a known quantity but one step down exec as CEO and President, maybe the guy who runs their printer division now.
posted by billsaysthis at 3:49 PM on February 13, 2005

On preview trharlan ... do I need to retune my "irony" meter?

Yes.
posted by trharlan at 4:02 PM on February 13, 2005

That was a nice article on Dunn. How often do you get to read little snippets like The daughter of a show girl and a vaudeville entertainer, Dunn grew up in Las Vegas.. There should be more sons and daughters of Vegas show girls in business!
posted by meehawl at 4:29 PM on February 13, 2005

On preview trharlan ... do I need to retune my "irony" meter?

Yes.

Fumbling with the knobs, as we speak!
posted by ericb at 4:36 PM on February 13, 2005

Bangalla- When we arrived we found that was not the case. I think HP was already going in the wrong direction before the merger, but the merger made all of its ills more public.

I'd agree with you. When Carly was hired, was when HP actually had no direction at all- Lew Platt said he had wanted 'fresh blood' in Carly- someone who would shake things up at the company, who wasn't part of the culture that caused the stagnant conditions at the time. So, I think the combination of the 'competition' during the 'net era, the partially successful merger (it seems like an arranged marriage, doesn't it?), and a general culture change that goes with threats of outsourcing, stock market gloom and sweeping upper-level change was the blame.

It's funny that you mention the 'policies and procedures' bit, because unsurprisingly, it goes the other way around. Us 'blue' guys constantly run into very strange decisions and practices as we investigate how to support old 'red' hardware. It really all boils down to culture shock. We'll get over it in a few years. (=

If the board is stupid enough to spin off imaging and printing, then they deserve the consequences. According to this article, it was Carly that merged the desktop computer and printing group, which is good: desktops are the avenue to sell printers. The board doesn't like this apparently, and analysts want the company split. I don't see good long term prospects for the company if that happens- especially since it's all kneejerk reaction to the logistical slips that happened in the past 9 months.

The better split is between enterprise business vs consumer businesses (desktops and printers). This would create a services arm to compete against IBM and a consumer company that would be like Gateway, but could take on Dell.

What a strange time. My old boss had a saying that I heard a lot of, before he got WFR'd:

"It ain't your daddy's HP now."
posted by id at 4:53 PM on February 13, 2005

yeah--now it comes off as a catfight?

I had the same thought. :)

But I really don't think it applies, given the thoughtful way Dunn seems to have educated herself and presented the concerns.
posted by mediareport at 4:54 PM on February 13, 2005

But it sill seems to me that the media reaction is a bit more vitriolic than following the usual CEO dumping. Was Fiorina really that much more abrasive than other failed CEOs? Seems like the sheer volume of media reaction indicates that sexism is still alive and kicking.

I couldn't disagree more. This is a person that single handed ruined three of America's biggest and most innovative tech companies.

Carly managed to actually decrease by a statistically significant sum the net innovation and tech strength of an entire country.

Any other person that cultured that type of reputation would be equally reviled.

At my work, we used to use the Compaq DL series for all x86 servers and were seriously interested in the Alpha line for Unix services.

Now we use Dells, because they are better and cheaper.
posted by PissOnYourParade at 4:58 PM on February 13, 2005

Wanna know why Carly's fired, after all the double talk and agendas are gone?

Randy Newman put it best...
posted by jonmc at 5:58 PM on February 13, 2005

if they dump printers, they're toast.
posted by amberglow at 6:01 PM on February 13, 2005

Another thing that clouds HP's thinking at the moment is that the US is a good model for the rest of the company. Unfortunately it is not. The business climate in the US is not replicated elsewhere and neither is the fashion of doing business. Pushing solutions from the top down means that we often lack localised procedures to deal with common issues.

amberglow: Yes, without printers HP is toast. Long term the business needs to ween itself from that revenue and begin innovating in the Enterprise area. Hell, just properly selling some of the good products we do have would be a good start.
posted by bangalla at 6:46 PM on February 13, 2005

HP thinking that they can meet or beat IBM in the services arena is fairly sad considering a great deal of IBM's consulting strength comes from the fact that they vend a great deal of good enterprise software that requires supporting.

HPQ doesn't have that. They've managed to wedge themselves between a rock (IBM's strength in consulting) and a hard place (Dell's ability to sell commodity hardware.) What does HPQ do now? It's not engineering. It's not commodity. It's not services.

I hear they make nice printers though.
posted by fet at 11:19 PM on February 13, 2005

Fumbling with the knobs, as we speak!
Coincidentally, I'm doing the same thing with my HP laptop.
posted by wendell at 11:34 AM on February 14, 2005