Unless you regularly read Forbes or stay really up to date on top executives in the business world, you probably haven’t heard of Meg Whitman, but this woman has been practically everywhere. She has been an executive at so many famous companies that it’s hard to keep track of them all – which has earned Meg Whitman a net worth of $2.1 billion, and got her ranked 20th on the “100 most powerful women in the world” list, published by Forbes.
Disney, DreamWorks, Procter & Gamble, Hasbro, eBay, HP… these are some of the companies that are on Whitman’s resume. Impressive, right? She’s currently the CEO and President of HP (Hewlett Packard Enterprise). Oh… and she’s the reason we have the Teletubbies in the United States. She’s most famous for her work as CEO of eBay from 1998 to 2008, during which time the company exploded in growth, from 30 employees to 15,000, and from $4 million in revenue to $8 billion.
She’s also something of a political activist, and ran for governor of California in 2010. She was defeated by Democrat Jerry Brown by 54% to 41%, but she sure made an effort – she set a record for spending more of her own money on her campaign than any other candidate in the history of the US (we’ll see if Trump manages to squash her record this year). All told, she spent $144 million of her own money, plus some $34 million from donors.
Whitman hasn’t been without her detractors in the business world though – she topped Bloomberg’s list of “Most underachieving CEOs” after HP’s stock underperformed by 30 points compared to before she became CEO. Also, strangely, the charitable foundation that she and her husband created had $46 million in assets within its first year, but had only given $125,000 of that to actual charities.
Like her or not, Meg Whitman has been places, and as long as HP doesn’t completely tank with her at the helm, I imagine she will continue to for many years.
