WHEN Carly Fiorina was forced to leave her jobs as president, chief executive and chairman of Hewlett Packard, there was an overriding view that several directors, not one, should take her place (James Doran writes).
Mark Hurd, in a little more than a year, has managed to reverse that view and secure all three top jobs for himself. From January next year, he will be named chairman, president and chief executive.
His accolades are not undeserved. The share price has shot up from about $20 (£10.60) to more than $35 in his first year as chief executive and investors are happier with that than they had been with the dismal performance in Ms Fiorina’s last year in the job.
He has focused on three areas for growth – data centres, personal mobile devices and digital printing – while trimming costs and boosting competitiveness against the company’s arch-rival Dell.
Mr Hurd graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1979 and went on to spend 25 years working his way up to the chief executive’s office at NCR, a technology company.