Meg Whitman, Four Others to Join HP Board in Shakeup

Mark Hachman - PC Magazine

Hewlett-Packard said Thursday that it has appointed five new members to its board of directors, including former eBay chief executive and failed gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman.

The new directors will stand for election in March. With the new additions, the total number of HP directors will total thirteen. The changes come in the wake of a proposed independent investigation surrounding the ousted former chief executive, Mark Hurd.

The new directors are Shumeet Banerji, chief executive officer of Booz & Company; Gary Reiner, former chief information officer of General Electric Company and a current special advisor to private equity firm General Atlantic; Patricia Russo, former chief executive officer of Alcatel-Lucent; Dominique Senequier, chief executive officer of AXA Private Equity; and Meg Whitman, former president and CEO of eBay.

HP also said that incumbent directors Joel Hyatt, John Joyce, Robert Ryan and Lucille Salhany are not standing for re-election at the company's annual meeting.

"The addition of these new directors will further diversify the outstanding talents and wide-ranging experience that our directors already bring to HP," said Raymond J. Lane, non-executive chairman of the board of directors, HP, in a statement. "Each is a widely respected and deeply experienced business leader, and together they will provide our board and management team with new insight and perspectives relating to HP's business and the rapidly changing technology industry."

Although Lane touted each of the candidates' capabilities, the most famous candidate is Whitman, who helped lead eBay into a dominant position on the Web, but failed to capitalize on it to win a California governor's race that was ultimately won by Democrat Jerry Brown.

Lane called Banerji a respected strategic adviser, and characterized Reiner as an "important voice of the customer". Russo is an "experienced executive with extensive global business experience," Lane said, while, Senequier is a "highly regarded and influential financier".

"Meg Whitman is a true visionary and thought leader who brings to the HP board unique experience in developing transformative business models, building global brands and driving sustained growth and expansion," Lane said.