HP's Strategy and Operations under Carly Fiorina and Mark Hurd

Carleton Fiorina was born in September 1954, in Austin, Texas. Her father was a professor of law and changed jobs very often. Consequently, Fiorina attended five different schools in England, Ghana and the US. Fiorina completed her BA in medieval history and philosophy from Stanford University in 1976. After that, she joined the law school at the University of California, Los Angeles. However, after a semester she discontinued her legal education. Later on, she received her postgraduate degree in business administration from Maryland University in 1980 and another postgraduate degree in Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1988. Fiorina joined AT&T as a sales representative in 1980.

Mark Hurd was born in New York City in 1957. He was a good tennis player and won a tennis scholarship to Baylor University, from where he received a bachelors degree in business administration in 1979. Hurd had also spent some time playing professional tennis. Hurd joined NCR Corp. (NCR) in 1980 as a fresh graduate. At NCR, Hurd became known for his excellent operational skills. In 1999, Hurd was promoted as the chief operating officer of Teradata, the data warehousing division of NCR. Hurd was credited with having increased the revenues of this division by almost 36 percent during his tenure...