Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Barry / Presidential Politics A Cool (Springs) Reception
Posted by Bruce Barry on Tue, Jul 22, 2008 at 9:50 AM
Why so lame a turnout at McCain mouthpiece Carly Fiorina’s news conference in Cool Springs yesterday? The Tennessee Republican Party would have us believe that Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO, was one of the greatest business executives ever. She is, they assert sans attribution, “widely credited with laying the foundation for HP’s resurgence that has made it the world’s number one computer seller.” Gopflak Bill Hobbs says “she did quite well” as CEO.
That’s some pretty seriously revisionist history going down at TN GOP. Here are a few alternative views of Fiorina’s tenure at HP, and these aren’t exactly left-wing perspectives:
“One is hard-pressed to think of anything [Fiorina] did during her time at either Lucent or HP that wasn't designed to burnish her own image--at the sacrifice of anyone who got in her way....Her employees, her shareholders, industry analysts and her own board of directors repudiated Carly Fiorina's leadership of Hewlett-Packard....The truth is that, for all of her post facto justifications, Carly Fiorina was a failure at Hewlett-Packard.” (Michael Malone, author of Bill & Dave: How Hewlett and Packard Built the World's Greatest Company). “She had made an all-in bet on a 2002 merger with Compaq Computer, but the promised ‘synergies’ never materialized, earnings growth lagged, and H-P's stock price trailed those of its competitors." (Wall Street Journal editorial, 2/11/05). “Carly allowed HP to drift onto the wrong side of the defining divide in the global economy....Aside from chasing away shareholder capital, she chased away talent....Carly, globe-hopping in her Gulfstream, worked 100-hour weeks. But she was focused on too many tasks. Which is no focus at all." (Rich Karlgaard, publisher of Forbes, 2/11/05). “The [HP] board...let Fiorina make radical changes in the company with little benefit to the bottom line for years, and then capitulated in her egotistical, ill-fated campaign to purchase fading personal computer giant Compaq.” (Jon D. Markman, TheStreet.com )Fiorina, a poster child for the fundamental corruption of executive pay, walked away from this sparkling performance with a $21 million severance package after the HP board summarily fired her. One can only hope that McCain taps her for VP and has to spend the next three months defending her tarnished leadership brand.
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