Meg Whitman (Hewlett Packard Enterprise) - Lessons in Situational Leadership

Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders (ETL)

Stanford eCorner

Journey, Startups, Education, Stanford, Culture, Strategy, Stanford University, Entrepreneurship, Business, Life Lessons, Thought Leadership, Creativity, Etl, Challenges, Leadership, Innovation, Founders

4.4 • 739 Ratings

🗓️ 1 February 2017

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Meg Whitman, president and CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, describes how she learned to lead companies big and small to success by adjusting to different environments, building on what a business does best, and approaching work with urgency and initiative. In conversation with Stanford Professor of the Practice Tina Seelig, Whitman recounts the explosive growth during her time as president and CEO of eBay, the challenging turnaround of storied tech giant HP, and her 2010 run for California governor that revealed deep political insights that still resonate.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You are listening to the DFJ Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders series, brought you weekly by the Stanford Technology Ventures Program.
0:10.3	You can find podcasts and videos of these lectures online at eChorner.standford.edu.
0:18.5	So nearly 80 years ago today, on January 1, 1939, that you know that date, right?
0:28.6	It was a time of great concern in this country, and two grad students in the School of Engineering, Bill Hewlett and David Packard, who were introduced by their
0:38.7	professor, Fred Terman, started Hewlett-Packard. They built the company, HP, and it became
0:46.2	really pivotal in driving the technology and cultural norms of Silicon Valley and also
0:52.5	the world. It's had a huge influence on all of us.
0:56.7	And in fact, right outside this auditorium, if you turn right,
1:01.5	you will see an exact replica of the HP Garage, where Bill and Dave started their company.
1:08.9	Now, HP Enterprise is now run by Meg Whitman. She took the reins of HP in 2011,
1:14.6	and her career before then was incredibly impressive. She's held senior roles at Disney, Procter & Gamble, Bain, Hasbro,
1:24.6	and spent 10 years as a CEO of eBay, where she oversaw the growth of the company
1:30.3	from 30 people and $4 million in annual revenue to more than 15,000 employees and $8 billion
1:38.3	in revenue. She also ran for California Governor in 2010, and today she's the president and CEO of H.P. Enterprise.
1:47.7	Please join me in giving her a wonderful welcome.
1:54.0	Today we're going to get a chance
1:58.6	to sort of look at the lines between the resume and get your insights on some really important topics.
2:04.0	So let's start with HP.
2:06.3	You got to the company.
2:08.1	During a really interesting time, the company was really struggling to kind of find its feet.
2:13.3	And you came in really to turn it around.
2:15.8	Can you tell us about that process, your thinking, and what you ended up doing?
	...

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