Carly Fiorina

Cara Carleton "Carly" Fiorina (née Sneed; born September 6, 1954) is an American businesswoman and politician, known primarily for her tenure as chief executive officer (CEO) of Hewlett-Packard (HP) from 1999 to 2005.

Fiorina was the first woman to lead a Fortune Top-20 company.

Cara Carleton Sneed was born on September 6, 1954, in Austin, Texas, the daughter of Madelon Montross (née Juergens) and Joseph Tyree Sneed III.

The name "Carleton", from which "Carly" is derived, has been used in every generation of the Sneed family since the Civil War.

At the time of her birth, Fiorina's father was a professor at the University of Texas School of Law.

He would later become dean of Duke University School of Law, Deputy U.S. Attorney General, and judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Her mother was an abstract painter.

She is mainly of English and German ancestry, and was raised Episcopalian.

Her paternal great-great-great-grandfather, Joseph P. Sneed, was a Methodist minister and educator in Texas.

Her paternal great-great-great-great-uncle built the Constantine Sneed House in Brentwood, Tennessee, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Carly was a Brownie but did not become a Girl Scout due to her family's frequent moves.

She attended Channing School, in London.

She later attended five different high schools, including one in Ghana, graduating from Charles E. Jordan High School in Durham, North Carolina.

At one time she aspired to be a classical pianist.

She received a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and medieval history at Stanford University, in 1976.

During her summers, she worked as a secretary for Kelly Services.

She attended the UCLA School of Law in 1976, but dropped out after one semester.

She worked as a receptionist for six months at a real estate firm, Marcus & Millichap, moving up to a broker position.

When she married in 1977, she and her husband moved to Bologna, Italy, where he was doing graduate work; there she did English tutoring to Italian businessmen.

In 1980, Fiorina received a Master of Business Administration, in marketing, from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park.

In 1980, Fiorina joined AT&T as a management trainee, selling telephone services to big federal agencies.

In 1989 she obtained a Master of Science degree in management from the MIT Sloan School of Management, under the Sloan Fellows program.

In 1990, she became the company's first female officer as senior vice president overseeing the company's hardware and systems division, eventually heading its North American operations.

In 1995, Fiorina led corporate operations for Lucent Technologies, Inc., a spin-off from AT&T of its Western Electric and Bell Labs divisions into a new company.

In that capacity, she reported to Lucent chief executive Henry B. Schacht.

She played a key role in planning and implementing the 1996 initial public offering of a successful stock and company launch strategy.

The spin-off became one of the most successful IPOs in U.S. history, raising US$3 billion.

Later in 1996, Fiorina was appointed president of Lucent's consumer products sector.

In 1997, she was named group president for Lucent's US$19 billion global service-provider business, overseeing marketing and sales for the company's largest customer segment.

In 2002, Fiorina oversaw what was then the largest technology sector merger in history, in which HP acquired rival personal computer manufacturer, Compaq.

The transaction made HP the world's largest seller of personal computers.

HP subsequently laid off 30,000 U.S. employees.

Nonetheless, the number of employees exceeded the pre-merger figure and grew to 150,000 during her tenure.

In February 2005, she was forced to resign as CEO and chair following a boardroom disagreement.

She subsequently served as Chair of the philanthropic organization Good360.

Fiorina was an adviser to Republican Senator John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign.

Fiorina ran unsuccessfully for the United States Senate in 2010 and the Republican presidential nomination in 2016.

In 2010, she won the Republican nomination for the United States Senate in California, but lost the general election to incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer.

Fiorina was a candidate in the 2016 Republican presidential primary, and was for seven days the vice-presidential running mate of Ted Cruz until he suspended his campaign.

In 2020, Fiorina endorsed the presidential campaign of Democrat Joe Biden.