Whose Next In Line At HP?

Given HP's penchant for putting women in the top spots, I'm amazed no one has asked whether newly appointed Chairman Mark V. Hurd is going to continue to retain his joint title as Chairman & CEO, or whether a new CEO position will be created within HP -- to be perhaps filled by a current female senior executive.

One thing is for sure, if this is the case then HP will consider its options carefully. The disasterous appointment of Carlton Fiorina as chief exec 1999 and her subsequent appointment as Chairwoman lasted only five years before the company had become deeply divided over its intended strategy. Robert Wayman then stepped in as interim CEO, before recently sacked Chairwoman Patricia Dunn was put in place just above Mr. Hurd as CEO. It's no secret that HP likes the idea of a woman at the top. Execs at the time of Ms. Fiorina's appointment were criticised for looking to hard to find a female Chairman & CEO, which was allegedly at least in part the reason for the division of the jobs in the 2005 nomination process. Now, with the recent wire-tapping scandal, the nightmare seems to be re-living itself, just with a different plot this time. Dealbreaker is staying up-to-date.

I contacted HP earlier today to ask them if there were any further intended personnell changes, but so far I still haven't got a response. I'll update here if there is one. In the meantime, it's worth checking out the current roster of top female candidates (the following is an aggregation of their biogs from the HP website):

Ann O. Baskins - General Council

As HP's general counsel, Ann Baskins manages a global function responsible for worldwide legal matters including patents and licenses, litigation and regulatory compliance. As corporate secretary, she is responsible for annual shareholders' meetings, board of directors' formalities, corporate governance issues and shareholder records.

Baskins joined HP in 1982 as an attorney in the company's Legal Department in Palo Alto, Calif. She was named a senior attorney in 1985, corporate counsel in 1986 and held a number of positions in the department prior to becoming general counsel in January 2000. She was elected assistant secretary of the company in 1985 and became the corporate secretary in 1999.

Baskins holds a bachelor's degree in history from Stanford University and a law degree from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Ann Livermore - EVP, Tech Solutions

Ann Livermore leads HP’s Technology Solutions Group, a $33 billion-plus business that encompasses storage and servers, software and services. The products and services from this organization serve HP’s business customers of all sizes in more than 170 countries.

Livermore has been involved with HP’s business customers for more than two decades, building customer relationships and information technology solutions to help customers manage and transform their IT environments. Livermore joined HP in 1982 and has held a variety of management positions in marketing, sales, research and development, and business management before being elected a corporate vice president in 1995.

Originally from Greensboro, N.C., Livermore holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s degree in business administration from Stanford University. In 1997, Livermore was elected to the board of directors of United Parcel Service. Livermore also serves on the board of advisors at the Stanford Business School. She is based in Palo Alto, Calif.

Cathy Lyons - EVP & Chief Marketing Officer

Cathy Lyons, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of HP, is responsible for the company's comprehensive global marketing strategy. She leads HP's worldwide branding efforts and drives all its marketing initiatives, including external communications, internal communications, brand marketing, marketing strategy and excellence, corporate affairs, region corporate marketing, and total customer experience and quality. Lyons also leads the Global Marketing Council, comprised of marketing leaders from the businesses and functions as well as Corporate Marketing.

Previously, Lyons was senior vice president of Business and Imaging Printing, a global business unit in the HP Imaging and Printing Group. Prior to that, Lyons was vice president and general manager for the Inkjet Supplies Division, where she managed and directed development, manufacturing and marketing operations for the consumer and commercial inkjet business.

Lyons was also vice president and general manager of the Supplies business, where she directed worldwide business operations for multiple imaging and printing platforms, including ink, laser and print media technologies. In this position, Lyons also was responsible for directing a separate original equipment manufacturing organization that leveraged proprietary HP ink technologies into new industrial markets.

Before joining Supplies, Lyons was general manager of HP's LaserJet Solutions Group European operation in Bergamo, Italy, where she was responsible for creating the concept of digital sending. HP Digital Sending technology eventually grew to become a standalone business and today is integrated into HP's award-winning multi-function printers.

Based in Boise, Idaho, Lyons is a graduate of the University of Colorado, where she earned a bachelor of science degree in business administration and marketing.

Marcela - EVP Human Resources, Marcela Perez de Alonzo

Marcela Perez de Alonso has worldwide responsibility for HP's human resources initiatives, including workforce development and organization effectiveness, benefits and compensation, staffing, global inclusion and diversity, and HR processes and information management. She also is a member of the board for HP Financial Services, the financing arm of HP.

Since joining HP in 2004, Perez de Alonso has spearheaded a pivotal transformation to build a best-in-class HR organization aligned to drive results and optimize the company's growth and efficiencies.

Previously, a long-time executive at Citigroup, Perez de Alonso has held senior-level roles in both operations and human resources, including the lead HR role for Citibank's Global Consumer Business - a 90,000-employee organization where she developed a host of breakthrough initiatives. Senior executive recruiting, diversity, variable compensation and employee survey programs are among the many worldwide efforts Perez de Alonso led during her tenure. She also was head of Citigroup's North Latin America retail business operations and was in charge of deposit products for the company's international retail bank.

One of only 10 women to be included in the ninth annual Hispanic Business Corporate Elite directory, Perez de Alonso was named one of the 50 Most Important Hispanics in Technology and Business by Hispanic Engineer & Information Technology magazine. She also was honored as the 2005 Corporate Executive of the Year by Hispanic-Net, a California nonprofit organization of executives and professionals in technology-related fields.

Perez de Alonso earned an advanced degree in organizational psychology from the Catholic University in Chile. She attended the Business Executive Program of the Columbia University Graduate School of Business and received a certificate in finance and accounting.

Perez de Alonso is on the advisory board of the Marshall Business School, University of Southern California. She also is a member of the board of Next Door Solutions to Domestic Violence, a charitable organization serving Santa Clara County in Northern California.

Ann Baskins would be an unlikely appointment, seeing as she was (at least nominally) in charge of both the Kona I & II investigations which have caused this whole fiasco in the first place. My money would be on Cathy Lyons, given HP's intense focus on marketing and branding, and the fact that she hails from the printer side of the business, which has felt like the much ignored bedrock of the company in recent years. Then again, given  the state of affairs that seem to keep popping up, perhaps having a someone with human resources experience as cheif exec would not be such a bad thing.

*Update* Ryan J. Donovan, from Corporate Media Realtions at HP has responded to my questions - the following are the questions and answers:

Q: Since Mr. Hurd has now assumed the role of Chairman as well as CEO -
are there any plans to create a new CEO position or will he remain the
Chairman & CEO?
A: He will remain Chairman, CEO and President.

Q: Is he acting Chairman/CEO or full-time?
A: Full time.

Q: Any other personnell changes to be made?
A: Not at the Board level beyond Pattie Dunn's departure.

Q: What's the order of seniority of the following in the management
team? (i.e. who is most senior or are all positions pretty much equal?):
A: You can find a complete listing of levels on hp.com.

Well, seemingly no more changes, and operations as normal. Personally, I still wouldn't be surprised to see some more changes as time goes on. I'll update with more responses from employees/ex-employees soon. The last point too is not true, incidentally - while you can find an adequate list of management on the website (the same link I gave above when reffering to the management biogs), you cannot find the actual heirarchy of that management.