Background and career
Cara Carleton "Carly" Fiorina (; née Sneed; born September 6, 1954) is an American businesswoman and politician, known primarily for her tenure as chief executive officer (CEO) of Hewlett-Packard (HP) from 1999 to 2005. Fiorina is the first woman to lead a Fortune Top-20 company. She is also known for her candidacies for U.S. Senate in California in 2010 and for president of the United States in 2016. Fiorina is a graduate of Stanford University (BA, 1976), University of Maryland, College Park (MBA, 1980) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MS, 1989). She joined AT&T as a management trainee in 1980. In 1990, she was named senior vice president and oversaw the company's hardware and systems division. In 1995, Fiorina led corporate operations for Lucent Technologies, Inc., a spin-off of AT&T's Western Electric and Bell Labs divisions. She played a key role in planning and implementing the 1996 initial public offering of a successful stock and company launch strategy. Later in 1996, Fiorina was appointed president of Lucent's consumer products sector. In 1997, she was named group president for Lucent's US$19 billion global service-provider business. That year, Fiorina chaired a US$2.5 billion joint venture between Lucent's consumer communications and Royal Philips Electronics, under the name Philips Consumer Communications (PCC). In the October 12, 1998 edition of Fortune, Fiorina was described as "The Most Powerful Woman in American Business". Fiorina was named chief executive officer of HP in July 1999. In 2002, Fiorina oversaw what was then the largest technology sector merger in history, in which HP acquired rival personal computer manufacturer, Compaq. The transaction made HP the world's largest seller of personal computers. HP subsequently laid off 30,000 U.S. employees. Nonetheless, the number of employees exceeded the pre-merger figure and grew to 150,000 during her tenure. In February 2005, she was forced to resign as CEO and chair following a boardroom disagreement. She subsequently served as chair of the philanthropic organization Good360. Fiorina was an adviser to Republican senator John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. In 2010, she won the Republican nomination for the United States Senate in California, but lost the general election to incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer. Fiorina was a candidate in the 2016 Republican presidential primary; after her campaign ended, she became the vice-presidential running mate of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz until he suspended his campaign.
Cara Carleton Sneed was born on September 6, 1954, in Austin, Texas, the daughter of Madelon Montross (née Juergens) and Joseph Tyree Sneed III. The name "Carleton", from which "Carly" is derived, has been used in every generation of the Sneed family since the Civil War. At the time of her birth, Fiorina's father was a professor at the University of Texas School of Law. He would later become the dean of Duke University School of Law, a Deputy U.S. Attorney General, and a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Fiorina's mother was an abstract painter. Fiorina is mainly of English and German ancestry. She was raised Episcopalian. Fiorina has said that she was a Brownie but did not become a Girl Scout due to her family's frequent moves. She attended Channing School in London. Fiorina also attended five different high schools, including one in Ghana. She graduated from Charles E. Jordan High School in Durham, North Carolina. At one time, she aspired to be a classical pianist. Fiorina received a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and medieval history from Stanford University in 1976. She worked as a secretary for Kelly Services in the summers during her college years. She attended UCLA School of Law in 1976, but dropped out after one semester. Fiorina worked as a receptionist for six months at a real estate firm, Marcus & Millichap. She later moved up to a broker position there. When she married in 1977, she and her husband moved to Bologna, Italy, where he did graduate work; in Italy, she tutored Italian businessmen in the English language. In 1980, Fiorina received a Master of Business Administration in marketing from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park. In 1989, she obtained a Master of Science degree in management from the MIT Sloan School of Management under the Sloan Fellows program.
In 1980, Fiorina joined AT&T as a management trainee, selling telephone services to large federal agencies. In 1990, she became the company's first female officer; she was named senior vice president and oversaw the company's hardware and systems division. She later headed the company's North American operations. In 1995, Fiorina led corporate operations for Lucent Technologies, Inc., a spin-off of AT&T's Western Electric and Bell Labs divisions. In that capacity, she reported to Lucent chief executive Henry B. Schacht. She played a key role in planning and implementing the 1996 initial public offering of a successful stock and company launch strategy. The spin-off became one of the most successful IPOs in U.S. history, raising US$3 billion. Later in 1996, Fiorina was appointed president of Lucent's consumer products sector. In 1997, she was named group president for Lucent's US$19 billion global service-provider business, overseeing marketing and sales for the company's largest customer segment. That year, Fiorina chaired a US$2.5 billion joint venture between Lucent's consumer communications and Royal Philips Electronics, under the name Philips Consumer Communications (PCC). In the October 12, 1998 edition of Fortune, Fiorina was described as "The Most Powerful Woman in American Business". Lucent added 22,000 jobs, revenues grew from US$19 billion to US$38 billion, and the company's market share increased in every region for every product. According to Fortune, Lucent increased sales by lending money to their own customers: "In a neat bit of accounting magic, money from the loans began to appear on Lucent's income statement as new revenue while the dicey debt got stashed on its balance sheet as an allegedly solid asset". Lucent's stock price grew 10-fold.
In July 1999, Hewlett-Packard Company named Fiorina chief executive officer. Fiorina succeeded Lewis Platt and was chosen over internal candidate Ann Livermore. Matthew Boyle of Fortune magazine said of Fiorina's hiring as HP's first woman CEO that, "Carly Fiorina didn't just break the glass ceiling, she obliterated it, as the first woman to lead a FORTUNE 20 company." Writing in Fortune magazine in August 2015, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld described the hiring as the result of "a dysfunctional HP board committee, filled with its own poisoned politics, hired her with no CEO experience, nor interviews with the full board." Fiorina received a larger signing offer than any of her predecessors, including: US$65 million in restricted stock to compensate her for the Lucent stock and options she left behind, a US$3 million signing bonus, a US$1 million annual salary (plus a US$1.25–US$3.75 million annual bonus), US$36,000 in mortgage assistance, a relocation allowance, and permission (and encouragement) to use company planes for personal affairs. Fortune also named her the most powerful woman in America for five consecutive years.
Although the decision to spin off the company's analytical instruments division pre-dated her arrival, one of her first major responsibilities as chief executive was overseeing the separation of the unit into the stand-alone Agilent Technologies. Fiorina proposed the acquisition of the technology services arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers for almost US$14 billion, but withdrew the bid after a lackluster reception from Wall Street. Following the collapse of the dot-com bubble, the PwC consulting arm was acquired by IBM for less than US$4 billion. HP later acquired Electronic Data Systems, another technology services company, which some considered a validation of Fiorina's strategy.
In early September 2001, in the wake of the bursting of the Tech Bubble, Fiorina announced the acquisition of PC maker Compaq with US$25 billion in stock, which, at the time, was the second largest producer of personal computers, after Dell. HP stock traded down by 30% on the news of the merger. The Compaq merger created the world's largest personal computer manufacturer in terms of units shipped. Fiorina was frequently at odds with HP's board of directors, and she had to fight with the board for the merger. Walter Hewlett (the son of company co-founder William Hewlett) was a source of particularly strong opposition. Hewlett originally voted with the other board members to approve the Compaq deal, but he later changed his mind. He launched a proxy fight against Fiorina's efforts which Fiorina won with a "razor-thin margin" of 51.4% of the shareholders, with the institutional shareholders providing the bulk of the support. Fiorina was supported in the proxy battle by other board members, including Richard Hackborn, Philip M. Condit, George A. Keyworth, II, and Robert Knowling. Fiorina proceeded to reorganize HP and merge the parts of it that she kept with Compaq. The merger was met initially with almost universal skepticism. The February 7, 2005, issue of Fortune described her merger plan as "failing" and the prognosis as "doubtful". Business professor Robert Burgelman and former HP executive vice president, Webb McKinney, who led HP's post-merger integration team, analyzed the merger and concluded that it was ultimately successful. In 2008, former acting CEO of Compaq Ben Rosen stated that although Fiorina lacked the skills to run the merged company, her successors made it work. HP was able to integrate Compaq's operations and emerge as the world's largest seller of personal computers. The industry soon fell into decline, leading to further difficulties for the company. HP eventually wrote off US$1.2 billion from the acquisition as the personal computer market declined. Looking back, a 2011 The New York Times article described it as "one of the more questionable deals of the time."
