Carly Fiorina (The More Things Changed)

Cara Carleton "Carly" Fiorina (née Sneed; born September 6, 1954) is an American businessperson and political figure, currently serving as the Chair of the Republican National Committee since 2017. She previously served as CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HP), as well as serving as the Chair of the philanthropic organizations Good360 and Unlocking Potential.

AT&T and Lucent
In 1980, 25-year-old Fiorina joined AT&T as a management trainee, and quickly climbed the ranks. In 1991 she was promoted to Director of International Strategy and Business Development for Network Systems, and then quickly promoted to Vice President of Strategy and Marketing. In this role, Fiorina was the first female officer at AT&T.; Later, due to her hard work and ingenuity, Fiorina was promoted once more to become Head of North American Field Operations for AT&T.

In 1995, AT&T spun off its telecommunications equipment business into a new company, Lucent Fiorina was selected to lead the initiative and the initial public offering (IPO) as Executive Vice President of Corporate Operations. At the time, this was the largest IPO in U.S. history, leading stock to jump 92% by 1996.

Hewlett-Packard
In 1999, Carly Fiorina was recruited to serve as the CEO of Hewlett-Packard, becoming the first woman to lead a FORTUNE 20 company.

Compaq Merger
In an effort to grow their market share and survive the 2001 recession, in 2001 the Hewlett-Packard Board of Directors voted in favor of a merger with PC giant Compaq, after Fiorina. Walter Hewlett, son of company co-founder William Hewlett, originally voted with the other board members to approve the Compaq deal, but he later changed his mind and strongly opposed Fiorina. He launched a proxy fight against her efforts which Fiorina won with a "razor-thin margin" of 51.4% of the shareholders vote.

However, as a result of the merger, Fiorina had stated her intent to lay of 15,000 workers, eventually laying off twice as many. In an interview with InformationWeek in 2006, Fiorina said "'When we combined the R&D budgets of HP and Compaq, we didn't have to have two R&D teams working on industry standard servers, for instance. We could have one. That's why the merger was such a great idea. We could decrease the cost structure by billions and billions of dollars. In the course of my time there, we laid off over 30,000 people. That's why I understand where the anger came from.'"

2016 Presidential Campaign
Fiorina officially announced her 2016 presidential campaign on May 4th, 2015, on Good Morning America, stating

"'Yes, I am running. I think I'm the best person for the job because I understand how the economy actually works. I understand the world; who's in it.'"

Spending and Accountability
At the fourth Republican primary debate, on November 10th, 2015, Carly Fiorina said that she supports moving the federal government to zero-based budgeting, in which all expenses must be justified from "zero base" Fiorina stated

"'We need to go to zero-based budgeting so we know where every dollar is being spent, we can challenge any dollar, cut any dollar, move any dollar.'"

Homeland Security and Terrorism
Fiorina stated that she would enlist the private sector to help fight against terrorism:

"“I think, as someone who comes from the technology world, we were using the wrong algorithms [to catch domestic terrorists]. This is a place where the private sector could be helpful because the government is woefully behind the technology curve.'"

Fiorina also said that if elected President, she would hold a summit at Camp David with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and other Sunni Arab allies, in addition to sharing intelligence and weaponry to combat ISIL and other extremists group, as well as countering rising power from Iran.

Results and Aftermath
Despite widespread praise for her debate performances, Fiorina struggled to build momentum when not on the debate stage. She ultimately withdrew on February 20th, 2016, following the New Hampshire primary. She initially endorsed former Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, then Donald Trump when he became the nominee.

After an Access Hollywood tape from 2005 surfaced, with Trump bragging about groping women, Fiorina demanded that he step aside in favor of the Vice-Presidential nominee, Indiana Governor Mike Pence.

RNC Chair
See Also: Republican National Committee Chairmanship Election, 2017 (The More Things Changed)

The 2017 Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairperson election was held in January 2017, to determine the next chairperson of the Republican National Committee. The elected chair will be in charge of the national party activities during their two-year term. Fiorina was elected on the third ballot, facing David Bossie - President and Chairman of Citizens United and Trump deputy campaign manager - and Ronna Romney McDaniel, Chair of Michigan Republican Party.