Posted on 09/16/2015 6:40:09 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Earlier this week, someone who had read my piece about Donald Trump’s less-than-A+ record in business asked me if I’d write something about Carly Fiorina’s business record and why I think despite Democratic and Trumpette knocks on it, it actually indicates that she would do a good job as President (full disclosure: I have worked with and consulted for Carly Fiorina in the past). With that in mind, here goes nothing.
First, let’s start broad brush, with the basic recognition that Carly Fiorina is a self-made woman. Unlike Trump, she comes from a family of academic types, not business people—let alone already wealthy business people, as Trump did. She has not had the privilege of inheriting an existing business to run and expand. In fact, she has worked her way up from secretary to CEO, giving her reams of business and human experience that both many business leaders and many professional politicians do not have.
Yes, Carly knows what it’s like to be a bigshot in the board room, desperately sought after as a guest by cable business news channels and a featured speaker by big name business leadership conferences. She also knows what it’s like to be the receptionist who takes crap on her boss’ behalf from angry people all day long, who pulls down a meager paycheck, probably is subjected to rudeness if not harassment routinely, and who has had to use every tool in her arsenal to get ahead.
That matters, for several reasons.
First, Carly is more likely to have empathy for those working at the bottom of the totem pole than do those whose personal, familial circumstances have made and kept them remote from average workers and their concerns. She is more likely to understand the challenges facing them and how government can act—or get out of the way—and make their lives better.
Second, she is capable of taking on big challenges and rising to meet them—with zero safety net underneath her.
Third, she has ideas as to how American workers can get ahead that are cultural and practical, not merely policy-based. This matters, since a significant amount of the President’s power is exerted through use of the bully pulpit on issues that may never be legislated or regulated, and since it’s been demonstrated that when it comes to addressing, say, compensation increase issues in the workplace, discrimination, flex-time opportunities or lack thereof, and other challenges that too many Americans face, legislation and litigation may help less than certain direct actions that employees can take themselves. Wouldn’t it be great to have a president who understands this, from personal experience, and can help people deal with very real challenges without seeing an executive order as a panacea?
Fourth, Carly knows how to turn nothing, or nothing much, into something—a trait America could use in a leader right now as various indicators ranging from the pure economic to reputational as concerns the international stage suggest we’re backsliding, and becoming a shadow of the amazing, powerhouse nation, the best in the world, that we have previously been and desperately want to be again. Unlike a lot of leaders—in politics, or elsewhere—when Carly sees a challenge, she runs directly at it. That may be risky and disadvantageous from a self-preservation perspective; it also means she may stand a better chance of fixing really major problems, such as those plaguing the Veterans Administration, simply by having a different approach to problem-solving and being more of a risk-taker.
Next, let’s look at some of the specific challenges Carly has dealt with, bearing in mind the current trajectory of the U.S. which for too many Americans is one that seems inevitably to involve backslide. Remember, according to data released last month by Haven Life/YouGov, “barely more than one in 10 (13%) American adults believe their children will be better off financially than they were when their career reached its peak” and “just 20% of Americans believe their children will have a better quality of life when they reach their age.”
As CEO of Hewlett-Packard, Carly inherited a company that was deeply troubled and whose trajectory looked very bleak to many analysts (I can recall negative outlooks conveyed in business reporting I read back in those days). The tech sector was a tough environment (much as it is today); it got tougher while Carly was CEO, thanks to the bursting of the tech bubble and 9/11; and let’s remember, for as well-known a brand as HP is, she was not running Apple.
In many quarters, corporate thinking at the time was that HP was destined for the trash heap of history, if not quite at the point of hovering by a thread over the dumpster quite yet. As Bill Mutell, Former Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing and Global Lead for Government, Health and Education at HP, has put it, “When Carly took the helm at HP, it was well known in the technology industry that, without new leadership that shook up its stagnating culture, the company would have lost its competitive edge and might even have become obsolete.”
Yet HP exists today, and very arguably one of the reasons that it does—though it continues to face challenges being addressed by current CEO Meg Whitman, who incidentally has defended Carly’s tenure—is because Carly was willing to undertake controversial moves and ruffle feathers, including of HP people stuck in the past, and board members whose leadership instincts were so off-base and corrupted that they literally thought that spying on fellow HP personnel’s email and phone records (including Carly’s) was kosher. (By the way, being fired by such people may read as a compliment in some quarters).
HP’s acquisition of Compaq is the most frequently cited controversial thing that Carly did. Some Compaq loyalists bereave the loss of the Compaq brand. The fact is, however, that under Carly, HP did better in terms of its marketing to consumers and positioning in key areas. The company jumped from third to first, nationally, in the server market and from fourth to first, nationally, in the PC market. It maintained its dominance of the printer market, at #1. What does this tell us? Under a President Carly, America might just stop having our proverbial lunch eaten by the Chinese, the Indians, or any other nationality presenting us with stiff competition just now.
Under Carly, HP’s cash flow also quadrupled. Current assets increased by 60 percent. HP’s growth rate went up. That suggests Carly might have some inkling as to how to close the deficit and bring down the national debt, whereas most professional politicians struggle with this in practice.
Democrats and Trump have attacked Carly for having laid off workers post-acquisition, apparently in the mistaken belief that a company can function well, avoid infighting that brings the business to a standstill, and deliver on its duties to shareholders and entire employee pool by keeping two Chief Financial Officers, with equal responsibility, stature and pay; two Directors of Human Resources, again, with equal responsibility, stature and pay; two lawyers for every needed legal position, again, with equal responsibility, stature and pay; two project managers managing every job, with every underling unclear on which of the two to report to, and who gets final sign off if there’s a disagreement.
But the reality is that had Carly not dealt with duplication issues presented after Compaq, the business would have cratered dealing with basic organizational constraints, turf warfare, too little work for too many people, higher-than-needed costs, and minimized opportunities for promotion and pay rises for deserving employees. That would have been disastrous both for shareholders and for workers. Then, just like if Carly had not taken the decisions she did, including the Compaq acquisition, to push HP forward even if it meant trying something totally outside the box, something risky, and—yes—something since copycatted in the tech industry, you can bet 100,000 to 150,000 HP jobs would have been on the line, as opposed to the 30,000 that ultimately proved to be, and that the entire company would have been in jeopardy as opposed to, say, merely just continuing forward, still carrying some big challenges.
The truth is that Carly laid people off. The truth is also that she had no choice (and in fact, there’s an argument she should have laid off more—her successor, Mark Hurd, laid off a further 15,000 early in his tenure, and Meg Whitman has laid off 55,000), and that despite the layoffs, overall employee numbers still stayed the same or rose, throughout her tenure.
Ben Rosen, a former non-executive director of Compaq, writes of HP, post-Compaq, “[Hurd] took the pieces assembled by Fiorina, applied his management skills to them, and created a growing, profitable and increasingly valuable company.”
Bob Wayman, Former HP Board Member, CFO, and interim CEO after Carly’s departure said of Carly and HP, “I believe HP is better off today as a result of the Board’s decision to hire Carly Fiorina…she is very smart, a very quick study, an incredible communicator…she’s a leader. She focuses on what needs to be done and drives it.”
Deborah Dower, Former HP VP of U.S. Sales, Government, Education, and Medical, says the Compaq acquisition was, “The absolute best thing that could have ever happened to HP.”
Craig Barrett, Former CEO and Chairman of the Board at Intel has also attributed HP’s transformation into the largest computer manufacturer in the world to Carly’s leadership, and says she made the “right decisions.” Under Carly, he says, “What did change was a dramatic move to ensure HP’s future in a world where living in the past and refusing to move forward was a recipe for mediocrity or worse.”
What does this tell us about Carly? First off, that her priority is not going to be to take the “safe” route that does little to fulfill her responsibilities, but which does much to protect her personal reputation and brand (the kind of thing Americans are sick and tired of seeing out of career politicians).
Perhaps it also shows that to protect the vast majority long-term, financially, Carly would take tough decisions that result in vicious personal criticism of her. That could be the shrinking of the federal government, something that could greatly benefit the private sector and the vast majority of employees and taxpayers nationwide. It could be her pushing America to get out of its comfort zone and do really outside the box and scary, but necessary things where a range of competitiveness issues are concerned, whether that’s education, regulatory policy, taxation policy or trade policy.
Moreover, it tells us she has the toughness to pursue what she believes is right and will be most beneficial whether or not it is popular, and whether or not Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi or anyone else thinks it’s a good idea. Carly is well-positioned to stop the flow of jobs to other countries, who are currently better positioned than the U.S. in many respects to undertake particular types of work; as she said many times in her California Senate race, she knows why jobs come and go, and how government drives the process of their going in so many cases. In difficult industries, she will most likely save jobs.
While at HP, Carly kept the company’s debt below 50 percent of equity. Contrasted with, say, Donald Trump’s record which involves numerous bankruptcies and failures to make massive payments owed in respect of bonds, it seems likely that Carly would constrain the national debt whereas the other “business candidate” in the race has a record suggesting he’d vastly grow it.
Carly was also a driver of innovation at HP; patents tripled on her watch. This is a particularly important note: In order to dominate economically, the U.S. must continue to be a leader in innovation, and Carly knows how to do this, whether it is to do with the content of patent laws, education policy, or, again, using the bully pulpit and the most powerful position in the world to encourage young Americans to build, design, and create.
Finally, Carly’s experience as a business leader gives her qualifications relevant to the job of President in another way: Unlike any other candidate in the GOP field, she actually has personal relationships with a big chunk of major world leaders with whom the next president will need to interface. Whether it’s Bibi Netanyahu, King Abdullah of Jordan, or Vladimir Putin, she already knows these people (she had to, from her work as a CEO), knows how they work and think, and knows how to handle them. The same cannot be said of any other candidate in the Republican field. Carly also served on a key American intelligence board, giving her critical insight where the issue of our intelligence services and capabilities is concerned.
Like any person who has taken on big challenges and big fights in corporate America, Carly’s record isn’t perfect. But it contains many good aspects, including several that are highly germane to the job she is currently applying for, and many that are better indicators of her likely future success in the role than what we see with the man who has recently taken to attacking her appearance (presumably since he, too, knows that attacks on her business record—especially coming from him—have a good chance of falling flat).
The GOP is lucky that we have a tremendously good array of candidates from which to choose in 2016. But if voters are looking for a candidate who isn’t a politician, and who has business experience, Carly deserves attention.
UPDATE: Bloomberg reported yesterday that HP will be letting go a further 25,000-30,000 workers as part of a restructuring— which may serve to underline the point that HP has long faced tough challenges entailing job losses, and indeed continues to face them.
Her weird jag on what Islamic civilization supposedly was is a huge caution sign. We know what that kind of camel hoof licking did for Barack Obama’s policy.
Being fired doesn’t mean she did a great hob
And both of them started their business in a garage, by making a signal generator as their first product.
How many businesses today start out in a garage, or a basement?
How many manufacture a physical product, and not just contract out to a chinese supplier?
Is that even allowed by financiers in today's business climate, manufacturing items domestically? Do investors even consider domestic manufacturing? Or is off to china and mexico right off the bat?
Game, Set, Match. Well played.
Carly Fiorina turned a prestigious technology company into another vendor of commodity hardware and printer cartridges.
She let go a lot of engineering talent, and the soul of the company with it. Now that HP is trying to re-establish itself in the enterprise space, they are missing those engineers and developers.
The increased cash flow came from commodity products like printer cartridges and consumer PCs. HP traded its position as Lexus of technology, bumping off either Dell or e-Machines for #1 vendor of the $399 special. She replaced Vectra sales with Pavilion sales.
At the time Fiorina took over HP, Apple was actually in worse shape financially. Steve Jobs was back and the iMac was just released, but no iPod, no iPhone, gimpy laptops based on hot PowerPC chips. At the time, HP was in better shape than Apple. She didn’t have to be Steve Jobs, but she decided that she wanted to be Hammermill or Georgia Pacific. Hardly a growth strategy.
The business PCs were crap. HPs laptops were always kind of weird, but the desktops, workstations and servers were solid. No more. Itanium was a bust as well, but that was in motion before she took over.
This article was obviously written by a hack who is parsing words to obscure the truth. Those of us in IT have no problem with great women in IT. Some of us even have a portrait of Ada Lovelace on our wall. Grace Hopper is venerated, even if we don’t LIKE the language she invented (COBOL).
For female CEOs, Marissa Mayer at Yahoo! is doing a good job with a much tougher company to steer than HP.
Don’t let Fiorina take her record off the table by people claiming that men don’t want girls in the IT sandbox.
Oh, and her attitude to the heroic Kim Davis is shameful.
You’d need to have something pretty special, and even then, you’d need to have some kind of plan for how to make it abroad.
HP went in as a Cadillac of technology and came out something between a Chevy and a Yugo.
As a former consumer of high end HP products, and an almost employee of Lucent... I wouldn’t trust her as far as I could spit, aiming for an inch beyond my big toe.
I had an HP laptop back in the day. You’re right, it sucked. The server division was solid fora while, but towards the end of her tenor they fell.
And all of the test equipment my fellow employees used to use to do their jobs, went bye bye. Equipment lines they’d used for decades.
What did we get? Cheap ass printers and expensive ink.
HP has A LOT of work ahead of them if they ever want my business again. I think it unlikely.
What bothers me about Carly is that she was chirping about Trump’s bankruptcy. Ok, fair enough. But what did Trump get out of it? A second chance after a failure. Carly, on the other hand, unquestionably failed as the CEO of HP. What did she get from her failure? She got to keep her stock and got a $21.1 Million severance package. While I have no problem with CEO pay, I do have a problem with failure and incompetence paying so handsomely.
Carly talks a very good game, but her job history does not match the rhetoric.
She is especially good when speaking about abortion. She must be truly passionate about it.
Her annoying and condescending manner is off-putting.
own children from the Board when they tried to stop her destructive moves and her massive payoff
A hateful creature . The HP heirs campaign against her in the Gop primary !
Well said.
She’s a vile screeching harpy
Her proper calling in the race is ripping up Hillary on a weekly basis. She did a good job against Barbara Boxer in CA (although she lost the race), and should simply fill this role for the next year or so.
So many people lost their jobs at HP to H1B visa holders. And on her watch.
23
http://nypost.com/2005/02/10/fiorina-flops-h-p-chiefs-ousted-amid-compaq-deal-backlash/
Her missteps:
* May 2002: Compaq deal, which failed to improve margins and boost profit
* Aug. 2002: H-P cited discounting costs as profit missed targets
* Aug. 2003: Fiorina fired three sales execs, as shares plunged 13% on what she called “unacceptable” profits.
* Pushing PC unit – with weak gross margins – while falling behind in the high-margin servers and storage businesses
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB110795431536149934
H-P’s Board Ousts Fiorina as CEO
Amid Languishing Stock, Computer Chief Resists Pressure to Delegate
EXCERPT
Three H-P directors — former H-P executive Richard Hackborn, George Keyworth, science adviser to President Reagan, and Ms. (Patricia) Dunn — met with Ms. Fiorina in early January and presented her with the four-page document outlining the board’s concerns, said a person familiar with the situation. The three directors read the contents of the document out to Ms. Fiorina, this person said. Ms. Fiorina “got the message pretty clearly,” said this person.
Perhaps we need a President with experience in bankruptcy since we are heading towards it.
WHAT A LOAD OF BUNK!
Here’s the simple truth about Carly... she should have never been given the CEO job, she was not capable or qualified for it, she had ZERO line experience and the board should have NEVER EVER offered her the position.... But they decided politics was more important and wanted a woman, so she got the job, and once she had the job, they couldn’t get rid of her no matter how bad she was because they were politically committed to it.
Carly was in over her head from the beginning, and her actions destroyed one of the greatest technologically innovative companies the world had ever seen... To this day HP has still not recovered from the fiasco that was the Carly years.
I am sure she did the best she could, but the reality was being fearless when you are utterly wrong just means you drive the bus into a wall.. but hey at least you were fearless enough to keep demanding you were right, even after the bus is a burned out charred carcass.
Anyone who thinks Carly was a great CEO, and did great work at HP is spinning a web of lies that the Clintons would be in awe of, nothing more.
“Fiorina is not going to be the President, so this is more of a thread to discuss her record at HP.”
Doesn’t matter . It should be shouted from the roof top that she loves islam every time her name comes up.
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