Tech Blogger, Sarah Frier, of Bloomberg writes comments on the burden that is placed on HP’s new CEO, Meg Whitman. She quotes John Chambers, the CEO of Cisco Systems, that he discouraged her from becoming the CEO of HP. Was this because of the lack of qualifications Meg Whitman had, or the state of the company, HP?

Mark Hurd, the CEO of HP from 2005 to 2010, was a competent leader that brought HP’s stock performance skyrocketing. This can be seen in the following chart, as well as the improvements he made when he went into NCR and the Oracle:

His effective cost cutting strategies, excellent interpersonal skills and leadership transformed HP into a profitable, successful technology company. However, due to a sexual assault accusation, Mark Hurd was dismissed from the firm in 2010. Since then, HP’s performance has been falling. The proceeding CEO, Leo Apotheker, failed to continue HP’s success and instead, invested money into mergers that results in many internal conflicts. Due to his lack of commitment he was fired within 11 months. At this point in time, HP was suffering many legal issues and problems within the organization regarding employees, management and corporate image. The Board of Directors needed a CEO to bring HP up from its knees. They chose Meg Whitman.

Meg Whitman was previously the CEO of the famous trading corporation, eBay. However, this past experience of Whitman was very different to the needs of HP. Instead of focusing on future trends and innovative products, she chose to focus on hardware products that were becoming outdated. She had no expertise in technology companies and was stubborn in her decisions. Currently, HP is still suffering from leadership issues and is searching for a way to rise from the ashes. Unfortunately, Meg Whitman is not the CEO to accomplish this task.

Tech Blog: http://go.bloomberg.com/tech-blog/2012-09-25-chambers-on-whitman-taking-hp-reins-i-would-have-told-her-not-to/