An ousted pioneer explores a new trail

Fiorina has forged her career going against precedent.

She was hired away from Lucent Technologies Inc. to shake up HP, which was founded in 1939 by William Hewlett and David Packard, and inject a sense of urgency into its paternalistic culture.

Fiorina met fierce resistance from both employees and directors, who criticized her as an overly slick marketer who didn't understand technology or the company well. She appeared in TV commercials, and her portrait appeared in the company's lobby next to ones of the founders, sparking howls of derision among the rank and file.

The resistance turned into a war when in 2001 Fiorina engineered a $18.9-billion merger with Compaq Computer Corp. She fought a seven-month proxy battle against the founders' children, who wanted to stop the merger.

Fiorina won. But she struggled with the merged company's financial performance during an economic downturn. She drew the ire of workers across the country by cutting the workforce and defending the practice of outsourcing jobs overseas. "There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore," she said.

That applied to her own.

HP's stock fell 49% while she led the company, a much steeper decline than the 27% drop of the Nasdaq over the same period. In early 2005, HP's board wanted her to hand off some oversight of the company's daily operations. When Fiorina resisted, the board fired her.

Since Fiorina's departure, HP's sales, profit and stock price have taken off. Although many credit new Chief Executive Mark Hurd, Fiorina said she set the proper course.

"The company was transformed under my leadership," Fiorina said in a 2006 interview on "60 Minutes."

Chuck House, a former HP employee who is co-writing a corporate history, thinks Fiorina helped modernize the company and was unfairly blamed for its problems.

"It's curious to me why she got bashed so badly," said House, executive director of the Media X program at Stanford University, which brings together research and industry. "She has a lot of naysayers, who tend to be people who love the old HP way."

Fiorina's emergence on the political stage has revived debate over her HP legacy and created a backlash against the candidate by some high-tech workers. But Fiorina's controversial tenure may make her more ready for politics than many other CEOs, who are often insulated from daily criticism, said Steve Forbes, the media magnate and two-time presidential candidate.