The most powerful woman in Corporate America, Carly Fiorina is leaving HP. The woman who orchestrated the merger of HP and Compaq (even though HP got a hit after that), has left HP citing differences with the board.
Hewlett Packard Chairman and CEO Carly Fiorina, one of the most powerful women in corporate America, is leaving the company effective immediately, after being forced out by its board.
Fiorina was the only female CEO of a component of the Dow Jones industrial average. But her controversial May 2002 purchase of Compaq after a bruising proxy fight led by one of the Hewlett heirs has not produced the shareholder returns or profits she had promised.
In December, Fiorina told analysts that Hewlett Packard had seriously considered breaking up on three separate occasions but each time decided against it. Some analysts had argued HP should either spin off its lucrative printer and imaging business, or split HP into separate firms, with one focusing on consumers and the other on corporations.
Chief Financial Officer Robert Wayman was named interim CEO, while Patricia C. Dunn, an HP director since 1998, has been named non-executive chairman, the computer products company said Wednesday.
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