Meg Whitman

Margaret Cushing Whitman is an American business executive, diplomat, and politician serving as the United States ambassador to Kenya since 2022. Whitman was president and chief executive officer of eBay, Inc.(EBAY) from 1998 to 20 08. Afterwards, she became president and CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise from 2011 to 2015, during the company's major split. She then served as the CEO of Quibi, Inc. from its launch in 2018 until its closure in 2020. A member of the Republican Party, she ran for governor of California but was defeated by former governor Jerry Brown in the 2010 gubernatorial election. Whitman was a senior presidential campaign official for Republican Mitt Romney in both 2008 and 2012, although she supported Democrats Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden in the 2016 presidential election and the 2020 presidential election, respectively.

Whitman was an executive in The Walt Disney Company, where she was vice president of Strategic Planning throughout the 1980s. In the 1990s, she was an executive for DreamWorks, Procter & Gamble, and Hasbro. During Whitman's 10 years with the eBay, she oversaw its expansion from 30 employees and $4 million in annual revenue, to more than 15,000 employees and $8 billion in annual revenue. In 2014, Whitman was named 20th in Forbes List of the 100 Most Powerful Women in the World.

In 2008, Whitman was cited by The New York Times as among the women most likely to become the first female president of the United States. She ran for Governor of California in 2010. She won the Republican primary. The fifth-wealthiest woman in California with a net worth of $1.3 billion in 2010, she spent the second most of her own money on the race than any other political candidate spent on a single election in American history, spending $144 million of her own fortune and $178.5 million in total, including money from donors, a record surpassed only by Michael Bloomberg in the 2020 presidential election. Whitman was defeated by Democratic former Governor Jerry Brown in the 2010 California gubernatorial election by 54% to 41%. 

In December 2021, Whitman was nominated by President Joe Biden to serve as the United States Ambassador to Kenya.

Career :

eBay :

Whitman joined eBay in March 1998, when it had 30 employees and revenues of approximately $4 million. Despite initially not wanting to take on the role, during her time as CEO, through 2008, the company grew to approximately 15,000 employees and $8 billion in annual revenue. Originally, when Whitman joined eBay, she found the website as a simple black and white webpage with courier font. On her first day, the site crashed for eight hours. She believed the site to be confusing and began by building a new executive team. Whitman organized the company by splitting it into 23 business categories. She then assigned executives to each, including some 35,000 subcategories. In 2002, soon after its initial public offering, PayPal became a wholly owned subsidiary of eBay valued at $1.5 billion. In 2004, Whitman made several key changes in her management team. Jeff Jordan took over PayPal, Matt Bannick took over international operations, and Bill Cobb took over U.S. operations, which has the colorful U.S. logo, while each international site has unique branding. 

Whitman picked John J. Donahoe for eBay in March 2005 as president of eBay Marketplaces, responsible for all elements of eBay's global ecommerce businesses.

During Whitman's tenure as CEO, eBay completed the purchase of Skype for $4.1B in cash and stock in September 2005. eBay later admitted that it had overpaid and, in 2009, eBay sold Skype to a group of investors led by Silver Lake Partners at a valuation of $2.75B. In 2011, after the first papers were filed for a possible IPO, Microsoft purchased Skype for US$8.5B.

In June 2007, while preparing for an interview with Reuters, Whitman allegedly shoved her subordinate, communications employee Young Mi Kim. Of the incident, Whitman related, "In any high-pressure working environment, tensions can surface." Kim also stated, "Yes, we had an unfortunate incident, but we resolved it in a way that speaks well for her and for eBay." The matter was resolved after a $200,000 settlement.

Whitman resigned as CEO of eBay in November 2007, but remained on the board and served as an advisor to new CEO John Donahoe until late 2008. She was inducted into the U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 2008. "I've said for some time that 10 years is roughly the right time to stay at the helm at a company like ours", she said in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, adding that "it's time for new leadership, a new perspective and a new vision."

Whitman has received numerous awards and accolades for her work at eBay. On more than one occasion, she was named among the top five most powerful women by Fortune magazine. Harvard Business Review named her the eighth-best-performing CEO of the past decade and the Financial Times named her as one of the 50 faces that shaped the decade.

Quibi :

Whitman was CEO of Quibi, a short-form media content app designed for smartphones. In September 2020, just 5 months after its launch, Quibi was considering sale or acquisition with a valuation of $500 million,despite its $1.75 billion initial investment, having failed to meet subscriber targets. Coverage and analysis has blamed this failure on the concept itself, and failures of leadership from Whitman due to her lack of “experience in the industry of the company she is running."The failure of the app was predicted by many in the Silicon Valley tech ecosystem, with one critic, Rob Enderle listing this as the most recent in Whitman's “repetitive failures” due to her “inability to take responsibility for mistakes, an inability to support subordinates, a focus on shifting blame, and a lack of subject matter expertise.”