Its swift corporate defenestration was generally applauded by corporate
governance experts while the company’s share price has already begun to claw
back its losses.
But the safe decision is not always the right one. Mr Hurd was, by most
accounts, a superb executive. HP’s shares had outperformed the
technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite ninefold since he took over in 2005 and
net income grew handsomely.
There is no evidence that Mr Hurd cut any ethical or legal corners while
presiding over this success. Indeed, his transgressions appear minor enough
to have warranted little more than a slap on the wrist at most American
companies.
But HP is not most companies. The prototypical Silicon Valley success story,
its eponymous founders, who started it in a garage, are remembered for their
ethics as much as their business acumen. That image came under threat with
the tenure of flashy, divisive chief Carly Fiorina and a snooping scandal
that ensnared HP’s board.
Until Friday, Mr Hurd seemed like a made-to-order amalgam of traditional and
modern corporate leadership. But this is not 1950s America, when chief
executives were churchgoing boy scouts whose worst vice, as far as anyone
knew, was a two-martini lunch. Technology giants Oracle and Apple are run by
visionaries who are rightly forgiven for their colourful personal lives and
even the occasional accounting lapse. Ethics matter and it is possible to do
well while doing right – HP has just been ranked as America’s top corporate
citizen.
A corporate board’s duty is to act in shareholders’ interest. By setting
unrealistic expectations, HP’s appears so shaped by the highs and lows of
its corporate history that it has forgotten this.
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