Powerful Women: Meg Whitman
Technology is an integral part of our everyday lives. I cannot even imagine what my life would be like if I was not constantly connected to either my phone or my computer. There are several major software and hardware companies out there, and Hewlett-Packard, or HP is a major one.
Margaret Cushing Whitman, or Meg, is the President and chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard. Born in Long Island, New York Meg was a very bright student. She graduated from Cold Spring Harbor High School in only three short years and was in the Top Ten of her class. Meg originally wanted to pursue medicine, so she enrolled in Princeton University as a math and science major.
Meg held a summer job selling advertisements for a magazine and then decided that she would be better suited as an economics major. In typical Meg Whitman fashion, she graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in economics, with honors, in 1977. Afterwards, she pursued an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, and graduated in 1979.
Post graduation, Meg began her career as a brand manager at Proctor & Gamble. Afterwards, she moved to Bain & Company and worked as a consultant moving up the ranks to the position of senior Vice President. Bain & Company’s VP was not the only Vice President position Meg held. She worked as Vice President of strategic planning at Walt Disney, and then moved on to President and CEO of Florists’’ Transworld Delivery.
In March 1998, Meg joined a new company called eBay when it just had 30 employees. Meg quickly became CEO and under her reign the company grew to 15,000 employees and $8 million in annual revenue by 2008. Along with assisting in the websites redesign Meg assisted in obtaining Skype and selling the company as well.
Meg has always kept busy. She has served on the board of directors of the eBay Foundation, Procter & Gamble, DreamWorks SKG, and Goldman Sachs. On January 2011, Meg Whitman moved onto the board of director’s at Hewlett-Packard and was named CEO on September 22 of that same year.
Meg has been very active in politics and supports the Republican Party and Mitt Romney during his current presidential election. In 2010, Meg Whitman ran for the governor of California with a self-funded campaign. Although she did not win, she continues to support politicians.
Ally | Elite.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
