Carly Fiorina will run for president as a successful tech CEO. Silicon Valley says that's a fantasy
Carly Fiorina will run for president as a successful tech CEO. Silicon Valley says that's a fantasy
When Carly Fiorina launches her campaign for president this week, her message to the world will be emphatic: what she did for HP, she can do for America.
From spaghetti dinners in New Hampshire to startup conferences in New York, the former head of Hewlett-Packard is expected to keep staking her claim as a pioneering executive prodigy: “It is only in the United States of America that a young woman can start as a secretary and become CEO of the largest technology company in the world,” she recently posted on Facebook, next to a low rating from a pro-choice group that she called “a badge of honor”.
Fiorina, 60, has never held public office. A 2010 run for US senate collapsed amid images of private jets and million-dollar yachts. Now, she hopes the revived record of a dot-com businesswoman will vault her over the otherwise all-male Republican field of mostly professional politicians – or at least lead to a spot as one of their vice-presidential running mates to face Hillary Clinton head-on.
“We went from a market laggard to market leader,” Fiorina has said of her six years running the computer giant. “Unlike Hillary, I have actually accomplished something.”
But those who watched what Fiorina did to HP – mishandling the $25bn acquisition of Compaq, getting ousted by the board in 2005 with a $21m golden parachute, repeatedly being named one of the worst CEOs in American corporate history – say those supposed accomplishments are already coming back to “haunt” her run for the White House.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/03/carly-fiorina-run-for-president-hewlett-packard
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