HP's perfect enough ....CARLY ...The Change leader

Born in 1954, (Carleton S. Fiorina) Fiorina was brought up in Austin, Texas (USA). Her father was a lawyer who also taught law at Stanford and other universities while her mother was a painter. Fiorina attended school in different parts of the world including Ghana, England, North Carolina and California.

She graduated in arts (BA in medieval history and philosophy) from Stanford University in 1976. Fiorina displayed her analytical capabilities at Stanford, where she was able to summarize hundreds of pages of religious writings into crisp, two-page abstracts in quick time.
After graduation, she attended the law school at UCLA (University of California at Los Angeles). However, she opted out of the course after completing one semester. In an interview to Investor's Business Daily, she said that 'lack of interest' had prompted her to drop out since law 'was all about discovering precedent someone else has set.' She then completed a master's degree in science (MS) from MIT's Sloan School.

In the early days of her career, Fiorina taught English in Bologna, Italy and she taught English to many clients, who were eager to know about American businesses using articles of American businesses. She also worked as a receptionist in Marcus & Millichap, then a small real-estate firm in New York. It was in this firm, when writing deals for brokers that she became attracted towards business management. In her autobiography “Tough Choices” Carly has mentioned that her work helped her develop people skills and she discovered that she loves to be part of a team. While continuing to work, Fiorina did a course in marketing management from the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland. After she acquired her MBA degree, she joined the sales department of AT&T Long Lines as an account executive, in 1980.
Fiorina spent nearly 20 years at AT&T and Lucent Technologies, where she held a number of senior leadership positions and directed Lucent's initial public offering and subsequent spin-off from AT&T.

Fiorina joined Hewlett-Packard Company on July 19, 1999 as CEO, succeeding Lewis Platt. She reworked the value statement of the company. She built a new management team. She was responsible for the faster and innovative and learning culture of HP. She undertook a major restructure of the organization and set new performance measures. However, many of Fiorina's initiatives at HP had been controversial. A major one was the HP-Compaq merger, which finally made the board of HP to fire her. In her autobiography Carly mentions “HP had consumed me. My entire life was programmed around it- every moment on the calendar, in advance.”
Some powerful ideas that have driven her life are the foundations laid down by her parents. She strongly believes,” Character is everything and character is defined as candor, integrity and authenticity. Authenticity is about knowing what you believed, being who you were, and standing up for both.”

As a leader she is well known in the corporate world as “The Change leader”. She is an inspirational leader, charismatic personality, has strong value system, ready to break established structure; innovative, influential and energetic and a marvelous orator. In 2002, (Fiorina), the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of HP was the only woman CEO to head a Fortune 50 company. Fortune magazine also ranked her as the most powerful woman in business for the sixth consecutive year.

She has a personal touch that inspires intense loyalty. She's known for giving balloons and flowers to employees who land big contracts. When Lucent was spun off from AT&T in early 1996, Fiorina stayed up all night with Comptroller Jim Lusk and other employees to make sure the prospectus for the stock offering was perfect. And it's not just business: When the wife of a senior Lucent executive fell ill recently, Fiorina helped make sure he got medical advice, doctors, and emotional support.

Fiorina holds positions on the board of trustees of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum. She is an Honorary Fellow of the London Business School. In early September 2005, Fiorina was named a director at Revolution Health Group, a venture formed by Steve Case. In October 2005, Fiorina joined the board of computer security company Cybertrust. In April 2006, Fiorina joined the board of directors for TSMC (Taiwan). Fiorina is an independent TSMC board member and serves on the audit and compensation committees.

In Carly Fiorina's Keynote Speech at MIT, 2002 she mentions “Trust comes as a basic DNA question” that is if you don’t have trust coded into your own organization then it is difficult to convey it to the larger market. Trust is doing right thing when no one is watching.”
Carly Fiorina remains and stands apart as a powerful and innovative leader.