Why Gender Plays a Role in Hp

If there were more women on the top rungs of the corporate ladder, it might be easier to overlook the fact that the Hewlett-Packard HPQ -0.80% board has booted two of them in 20 months. But there aren't -- the number of female CEOs at Fortune 500 companies can be counted on two hands. So you have to wonder: does gender have something to do with it?

There is no love lost between Carly Fiorina, who was fired as H-P chief executive in February 2005, and Patricia Dunn, who was axed as chairman last month. Ms. Dunn played a critical role in Ms. Fiorina's firing. According to other board members, she was one of the last to take sides in the board's bitter fight over the ex-CEO.

Ms. Fiorina suspects Ms. Dunn ultimately joined her opponents as part of a deal to become chairman. Ms. Dunn says the chairman's job wasn't discussed with her until after the board's vote on Ms. Fiorina. Ms. Fiorina disses Ms. Dunn in her new book, "Tough Choices," by writing that "her opinions were frequently hard to discern." Ms. Dunn accuses Ms. Fiorina of turning a deaf ear to the board.

Wall Street Journal Video

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, who is out with her memoirs, "Tough Choices," talks with WSJ's Alan Murray about H-P's boardroom scandal and her next act.

There is an odd sisterhood between these two women, nonetheless. They are roughly the same age -- Ms. Fiorina is 52 years old, Ms. Dunn, 53. Ms. Dunn still refers to Ms. Fiorina as a "hero" and wrote a warm note to her after the firing that said as much. Ms. Fiorina is less kind to Ms. Dunn, but spares her from much of the heavy reproach she heaps on other members of the board. Both were pushed out in part at the instigation of the same two men -- George "Jay" Keyworth, a former science adviser to President Reagan, and Tom Perkins, a wealthy venture capitalist.

The even more striking similarity is this: both women left their jobs with very public displays of righteous indignation. They both went down with guns blazing.

Ms. Fiorina learned of her firing at a board meeting in a hotel near a Chicago airport. Ms. Dunn, who delivered the bad news, suggested Ms. Fiorina announce she had decided to leave on her own. That is a common deceit in the corporate world. Ms. Fiorina's predecessor at H-P, Lewis Platt, had portrayed his departure as his own decision, even though, as Ms. Fiorina's book recounts, he was under intense pressure from directors to depart. Moreover, Ms. Fiorina could easily have sustained the ruse, since there were rumors that she might leave to take a cabinet post in the Bush administration.

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