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 is the first woman to lead a Fortune Top-20 company. She is also known for her candidacies for U.S. Senate in California in 2010 and for president of the United States in 2016.

Fiorina is a graduate of Stanford University (BA, 1976), University of Maryland, College Park (MBA, 1980) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MS, 1989). She joined AT&T as a management trainee in 1980. In 1990, she was named senior vice president and oversaw the company's hardware and systems division. In 1995, Fiorina led corporate operations for Lucent Technologies, Inc., a spin-off of AT&T's Western Electric and Bell Labs divisions. She played a key role in planning and implementing the 1996 initial public offering of a successful stock and company launch strategy. 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. That year, Fiorina chaired a US$2.5 billion joint venture between Lucent's consumer communications and Royal Philips Electronics, under the name Philips Consumer Communications (PCC). In the October 12, 1998 edition of Fortune, Fiorina was described as "The Most Powerful Woman in American Business".

Fiorina was named chief executive officer of HP in July 1999. 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. 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; after her campaign ended, she became the vice-presidential running mate of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz until he suspended his campaign.