Re: Fiorina's executioner - HP director Patricia Dunn

From: JF Mezei (jfmezei.spamnot_at_teksavvy.com)
Date: 02/14/05 

Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 21:04:17 -0500

Bill Todd wrote:
> I'm afraid your grasp of history is somewhat backward: the BoD (absent
> Walter Hewlett) supported her from the start, whereas she only managed
> to garner sufficient shareholder support (and in particular Deutsche
> Bank's) at the last minute.

Was this unanimous support in the BOD (less Hewlett) ? Or just 50.1%
support from BOD members ?

I have a feeling that support wasn't very solid. Remember that many
board members in large corporations, expecially prior to the
ENRON/WORLDCOM debacles, enjoyed the benefits, glory and gold games
without really getting involved and as a result, they woudl often just
vote along what they think is the majority, in order not to be seen as
the black sheep that prevents the company from moving ahead. Hewlett
was crealy the black sheep because he stood up and fought.

But that doesn't mean that other board member had 100% support for this
thing. Now that Carly was starting to be protrayed as a failure by the
press, such "soft" board member could easily be turned and hence Carly
gets fired.

There may also have been deal behind the scenes with those soft board
members. Perhaps bringing in Perkins assured victory of the ousting of
Carly, allowing board members to vote in favour of her ousting and not
fear her wrath shoudl she survive and then get back at board members who
voted against her.

I think that much of this actually happened outside the boardroom,
during lunches, telephone conversations, golf games between individual
board members without Carly knowing about it.

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