Posted on 01/24/2005 10:57:19 AM PST by Rodney King
Hewlett-Packard Co.'s board of directors is considering a plan that would redistribute some of the day-to-day responsibilities of its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Carly Fiorina to other HP executives, due in part to the board's displeasure with the company's uneven performance, according to a report published Monday.
Rather than seeking to undermine Fiorina, the board believes that by giving three senior executives more authority, it would enable HP to respond more quickly to customer demands and the increased competition it faces from industry players such as Dell Inc., according to a report in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). The Journal article doesn't name any sources, only citing "people familiar with the situation."
A representative for HP in Europe declined to comment on the story.
Along with considering the management reorganization during its annual planning meeting, the board also formally asked Thomas Perkins to rejoin the board on Jan. 12, the report said. Perkins left his seat on the HP board last year and works as a venture capitalist for the company he co-founded, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The HP board meeting was held sometime between Jan. 12 and Jan. 15 at the San Francisco Park Hyatt Hotel, the WSJ said.
The three HP executives who would be granted more control are Vyomesh Joshi, who leads HP's printing and personal-computing division; Ann Livermore, head of services and enterprise computing; and Shane Robison, the chief technology and strategy officer, the report said. Fiorina, seen by the board as overly "hands on" but who remains popular, agreed with directors on the management reorganization after initially resisting the changes, the WSJ said.
Fiorina has been willing to shake up HP's organizational structure in the past. Less than two weeks ago, on Jan. 14, Joshi was named as the head of a newly combined printing and PC unit. In November, Fiorina announced that changes would be made in the PC and server divisions in an effort to improve profits within the groups.
In 2003, the CEO oversaw a similar revivification of the HP enterprise systems group and the HP services group, by combining the divisions and putting Livermore in charge of the newly created group.
Joshi, who previously ran the server division for a number of years, would under the new plan be given increased decision-making authority in the printer-and-PC group, the report said. The details of the redefined roles for Livermore and Robison are still being hammered out, the WSJ said.
Laura Rohde is London correspondent for the IDG News Service.
bump
Please let HP keep her. Otherwise, she'll end up in the Bush administration.
Maybe a deserving CEO in Bangalore can do her job for pennies?
Boy, you are right about that. I once had HP Research as a client. They had great engineering back then. Watch her turn HP into another DEC.
Could not agree more.
Taking the power in the tech companies from the Engineers and giving it to the "marketers" has been a big mistake.
Well, it's not like she is getting a pay cut. It sounds to me like the board doesn't want to fire her solely so that they don't have to admit the mistake of having hired her in the first place.
Well, If she were a man, she never would have been hired in the first place.
Carly is all about ego. This is still going to hurt.
Affirmative action in action.
No lie there.
The HP iPod. There was a winner...
Farm out Fiorina's job duties?
Why stop there?
Why not outsource them to India?
Think of the money they could save!
Tell it to Lawrence H. Summers...
Recent news reports out of Harvard University, by way of MIT, is that Carly Fiorina lacks the innate abilities to be CEO of a top technology company.
This reminds me of the Mary Cunningham and Bill Agee fiasco in Detroit many years ago.
Not one but two highly unqualified people.
They both belonged in government jobs.
It is really sad what HP has become.
From a technological and engineering innovator to a toy manufacturer (Home PC's) in just a few short years.
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