Tough Choices: Women, Leadership and Power

Carly Fiorina, as the CEO of Hewlett Packard, was the first woman to lead a Fortune 20 company and was named the "Most Powerful Woman in Business" by Fortune magazine. She succeeded as an outsider - she was neither an engineer nor a man in an industry dominated by both. Her leadership at HP culminated in the hotly contested acquisition of Compaq, followed by an ambitious transformation project. Prior to joining HP, Fiorina spent nearly twenty years at AT&T and Lucent Technologies, where she directed Lucent's IPO and subsequent spin-off from AT&T. She has also served on the boards of Cisco Systems, Kellogg Company and Merck. She heads up Carly Fiorina Enterprises, which includes the Fiorina Foundation, Fiorina Group, and Fiorina Education and Outreach programs on such topics as leadership, globalization and corporate citizenship. The author of Tough Choices: A Memoir, Fiorina serves as John McCain's Victory 08 Chair, appearing frequently in the media to speak on behalf of the presumptive Republican Party presidential candidate. The Fall 2008 Mary Louise Smith Chair.