HP Board Names New Members, Investigates Hurd's Departure

Embattled corporate board welcomes five new members, says good-bye to four incumbents, and gets into investigative mode, prodded by a shareholder lawsuit. 

It's possible that Jan. 20,
2011, might be the biggest news day in the history of Hewlett-Packard's
board of directors. 

Three news stories came to the fore on that day:

Story No.  1: In a Jan. 14 court
filing, it was revealed that HP's board has designated a committee to
investigate the circumstances of former CEO Mark Hurd's departure from the
company in August 2010, following sexual-harassment allegations by former HP contractor
Jodie Fisher. 

At that time, according to HP, no evidence of sexual harassment could be found-both
Hurd and Fisher have said that there was no sexual relationship between them-but
that Hurd had violated company business policies through filing false expense
reports to cover up a personal relationship between the two. 

Later, Hurd and Fisher settled their dispute out of court. 

This court filing comes as the result of a shareholder lawsuit to unearth the
details about why the board forced Hurd out.  Hurd, while controversial at
times, nonetheless was an effective administrator who kept corporate costs in
line and helped lead HP to become the world's largest IT company during his
five-year tenure. 

Thirty days after leaving HP, Hurd was hired by Oracle co-founder and CEO Larry
Ellison, who promptly named him co-president of the company and chastised the
HP board for letting him go. 

Story No.  2: Following the close of
the day's Wall Street trading, HP announced that four directors-some of whom
had been closely connected with Hurd, either personally or professionally- have
left the board.  They are Joel Hyatt, John Joyce, Robert Ryan and Lucille
Salhany. 

Story No.  3: Five new members have
joined the board.  One of them is former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, who lost the
California gubernatorial election to former Gov. Jerry Brown last November,
despite spending nearly $160 million to finance her own campaign. 

The others new members are Shumeet Banerji, CEO of Booz & Company; Gary
Reiner, former CIO of General Electric and an adviser at the private equity
firm General Atlantic; Patricia Russo, former CEO of Alcatel-Lucent; and
Dominique Senequier, CEO of AXA Private Equity. 

The incoming directors, who are independent of any association with Hurd, will
conduct the new Hurd inquiry with assistance from outside lawyers, the January
14 court filing said. 

According to reporting from The Wall Street
Journal and The New York Times, HP
used to hold party-like events for customers, and Hurd approved of paying
Fisher $1,000 to $10,000 to attend the events and to dine with him afterward. 
After HP stopped holding the events, Fisher accused Hurd of sexual harassment,
and he was later questioned regarding charges on his expense reports related to
the events. 

A number of shareholders have been up in arms at the dismissal of Hurd, who had
led HP out of a slump of sorts in 2005 following a difficult merger with Compaq
and general disarray under former CEO Carly Fiorina.  During Hurd's time as CEO,
HP shook off two periods in which the stock dipped below $30, rebounding to a
high of around $54 last May.

All the news didn't affect HP's stock price that much on Jan. 20; the stock was
down 34 cents a share, to $46.44, in after-hours trading. 

eWEEK reporter Michelle Maisto contributed to this story. 

Chris Preimesberger was named Editor-in-Chief of Features & Analysis at eWEEK in November 2011.  Previously he served eWEEK as Senior Writer, covering a range of IT sectors that include data center systems, cloud computing, storage, virtualization, green IT, e-discovery and IT governance.  His blog, Storage Station, is considered a go-to information source.  Chris won a national Folio Award for magazine writing in November 2011 for a cover story on Salesforce.com and CEO-founder Marc Benioff, and he has served as a judge for the SIIA Codie Awards since 2005.  In previous IT journalism, Chris was a founding editor of both IT Manager's Journal and DevX.com and was managing editor of Software Development magazine.  His diverse resume also includes: sportswriter for the Los Angeles Daily News, covering NCAA and NBA basketball, television critic for the Palo Alto Times Tribune, and Sports Information Director at Stanford University.  He has served as a correspondent for The Associated Press, covering Stanford and NCAA tournament basketball, since 1983.  He has covered a number of major events, including the 1984 Democratic National Convention, a Presidential press conference at the White House in 1993, the Emmy Awards (three times), two Rose Bowls, the Fiesta Bowl, several NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments, a Formula One Grand Prix auto race, a heavyweight boxing championship bout (Ali vs. Spinks, 1978), and the 1985 Super Bowl.  A 1975 graduate of Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., Chris has won more than a dozen regional and national awards for his work.  He and his wife, Rebecca, have four children and reside in Redwood City, Calif.Follow on Twitter: editingwhiz