The Republican Party is boasting a very diversified field of candidates this presidential election, and of this diversified field dominated by men stands one woman, Carly Fiorina.
Fiorina announced her presidential campaign back in early May of this year via YouTube. Ever since she has announced her bid for president, she intrigued many in the Republican Party as well as the entire country. However, most had no clue who she even was before her announcement for president.
Born as Cara Carleton Sneed, Fiorina was born in Austin, Texas, on Sept. 5, 1954. She moved often as a child, attending five different high schools, including one in Ghana.
Fiorina received an undergraduate degree from Stanford University and then enrolled in law school at UCLA. She dropped out of law school, much to her father’s disliking, and later went on to earn an MBA in marketing from the University of Maryland in 1980 and a Masters of Science in management at MIT in 1989.
Starting her career at AT&T as a management trainee, she quickly rose through the ranks and became the company’s first female officer as senior vice president. In 1995, she began working for a company called Lucent Technologies Inc., where she helped spearhead the launch of the business that would later become extremely successful. In 1996, she was appointed president of Lucent’s consumer products sector, and after continuing to rise in the ranks of the company, she chaired a $2.5 billion joint venture between Lucent and Royal Phillips Electronics under the name of Phillips Consumer Communications. Fortune Magazine named her the most powerful woman in American business in 1998.
Hewlett-Packard Company appointed Fiorina as chief executive officer in July 1999. She was a very active CEO and made many changes at the company. Under her watch, the company began to give more to charity and ran the Technology for Teaching program to help those who had little access to technology become connected.
However, a major blemish on Fiorina’s business record was her controversial decision to merge Hewlett-Packard with Compaq Computers in September 2001. The Compaq merger was widely unpopular in the company, and after roughly two years, business analysts claimed that the merger with Compaq had essentially done nothing for the company. After several years, the board of directors for Hewlett Packard offered a plan to essentially remove all of her power as CEO and transfer it to the division heads. Fiorina rejected this proposal and, shortly after, resigned as CEO of the company.
After leaving Hewlett Packard, Fiorina wrote an autobiography in 2006 called Tough Choices. She was involved on the boards of several companies such as Kellogg and later began working for the CIA as the chair of the CIA’s External Advisory Board, where she led experts in advising CIA officials on national security issues. She was also a consultant for John McCain’s campaign for president in 2008.
In 2010, Fiorina ran for public office for the first time against long-time California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, but she lost to Boxer by 10 points.
Fiorina is now currently competing for the Republican nomination for president and has seen boosts in the polls following her debate performances. Her poll numbers have fluctuated between 15 percent in September to around three percent, according to recent Real Clear Politics poll. While her poll ratings seem low, she has proven in her continual media coverage and debate performance that they are average due to the crowded Republican field this election cycle.
Fiorina has an ample amount of experience to be president when compared to the rest of the field, which will make it interesting to see where her political career takes her over the next year.