Mark Hurd

Mark Vincent Hurd,

(born January 1, 1957) was the chairman, chief executive officer, and president of Hewlett-Packard, the largest information technology company in the world by revenue.Hurd succeeded CFO Robert Wayman, who served as interim CEO from February 10, 2005 to March 28, 2005, after former CEO Carly Fiorina had stepped down. On September 22, 2006, Hurd succeeded Patricia C. Dunn as chairman after she resigned after the pretexting controversy.

On August 6, 2010, he resigned from all of the positions at HP, following discovery of inappropriate conduct in an investigation into a claim of sexual harassment. The probe concluded that the company's sexual-harassment policy was not violated, but that its standards of business conduct were. Hurd said he "realized there were instances in which I did not live up to the standards and principles of trust, respect and integrity that I have espoused at HP" and added that he believed it would be "difficult to continue as an effective leader at HP." 

Education

Hurd graduated from Baylor University with a bachelor of business administration in 1979, where he played tennis, and was a member of the Tryon Coterie, the Texas Lambda chapter of Phi Delta Theta.[citation needed]

Career

Hurd spent 25 years at NCR Corporation, culminating in a two-year tenure as chief executive officer and president. His leadership was marked by successful efforts to improve operating efficiency, bolster the product line and build strong leadership. In the fiscal year of 2004, NCR generated revenue of $6.0 billion, up 7 percent from a year earlier, and net income rose nearly five-fold to $290 million.[citation needed]

Hurd was named president of NCR in 2001 and was given additional responsibilities as chief operating officer in 2002. Hurd began working for NCR as a junior salesman in Dallas in 1980, and subsequently held a variety of positions in general management, operations, and sales and marketing. He also served as head of the company's Teradata data-warehousing division for three years.

Hurd is a member of the Technology CEO Council, a coalition of chairmen and chief executive officers of IT companies, which develops and advocates public policy positions on technology and trade.

Hurd is also on the board of directors of News Corporation.

Hewlett-Packard

Management style

Hurd is regarded as one of the most successful managers in the United States, for his success in turning around HP. Under his leadership, the company has been the first in the sale of desktop computers since 2007, and laptop computers since 2006. In 2008, it also increased its market share in inkjet and laser printers to 46% and 50.5%, respectively. Hurd said that he gets up every day at 4:45AM in California without an alarm clock because competitors in the east coast are already awake.

Hurd has reputation for aggressive cost-cutting. He laid off 15,200 workers—10% of the workforce—shortly after becoming CEO. Other cost-cutting includes reducing the IT department from 19,000 to 8,000, reducing the number of software applications that HP uses from 6,000 to 1,500, and consolidating the HP's 85 data centers to 6. In the recent recession, Hurd imposed a 5% pay cut on all employees and removed many benefits. Hurd himself took a pay cut of 20% in his base salary, although the compensation committee increased his bonus by the same amount. Following the acquisition of EDS, Hurd instructed that all EDS employees should have their salaries adjusted to match the salaries of their HP counterparts, with pay cut of as much as 20%.

Hurd forecast that in 2009, HP's sales could drop as much as 5% in the midst of the recession, but its profit would increase by nearly 6%.

In 2009, Hurd was considered one of the "TopGun CEOs" by Brendan Wood International, an advisory agency.

Compensation

In 2008, Hurd's total compensation was $33,952,237, including a base salary of $1,450,000, stock award of $7,907,660, cash bonus of $23,931,882, and $662,695 in perks and other compensation.  It was the largest bonus of any CEO in 2008, although Hurd himself implemented wage freeze on the employees.In 2009, Hurd made a total of $24,201,448, including a base salary of $1,268,750, stock award of $6,648,092, cash bonus of $15,809,414 and $475,192 in benefits and other compensation. Hurd said he believes in what he calls "pay for performance", such that employees have a substantial part of their salaries "at-risk", which gets paid only when the company's performance measures up.

Bibliography

The Value Factor: How Global Leaders Use Information for Growth and Competitive Advantage by Mark Hurd and Lars Nyberg, Bloomberg Press, 2004, ISBN 1-57660-157-9

Fall 2003 Baylor Business Review "Enterprise Decision-Making" by Mark Hurd, ISSN 0739-1072

(source:wikipedia)