Of
all the powerful executives pledging to take a $1 yearly salary, Margaret “Meg”
Whitman was the sole female who took a significant pay cut to help balance the
inequality between high-flying executive pay and the average worker.
She
joined top CEOs from famous companies, such as Steve Jobs from Apple; Sergey
Brin, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt from Google; John Chambers from Cisco
Systems; and Larry Ellison from Oracle.
Her
pledge to the cause is just one of the reasons why Whitman is one of the most
significant female business leaders in current times. The fact that she was
invited to join the group in the first place belies her power as a
forward-thinking CEO who has helmed significant Fortune 500 companies.
Though
it still remains true that women are relatively scarce in the upper echelons of
business, Whitman has secured a position that is unique, in that she is ranked
amongst the very top level of CEOs in the world. She is currently 15th on Forbes’
list of the world’s 100 most powerful women, despite existing in a world that
is significantly overshadowed by CEOs who are predominantly male.
Whitman
has managed to carve herself a niche as a driven CEO who works hard to
streamline companies until they succeed. Starting at The Walt Disney Company,
she oversaw strategic planning during the 1980s, a role that led her to become
an executive for DreamWorks, Hasbro and Procter & Gamble.
Her
major coup came when she became President and CEO of eBay, between 1998 and
2008. Her decade-long tenure was immensely successful. A company of just 30
employees expanded to over 15,000, and a revenue of $4 million turned into a
staggering $8 billion.
It
is not surprising, then, that she has been recruited to turn around
Hewlett-Packard. The technology giant has diminished in its influence over the
past few years, but with Whitman at the helm the company should reverse this
trend. Her focus on cutting down on unnecessary spending to generate savings appears
to be paying off already, judging by the statistics for this year.
It
is clear that Meg Whitman enjoys a position far beyond the large majority of
women in business. The salient point, however, is that she has gained a
position far beyond some of her male peers, making her uniquely powerful in the
technology world. It seems almost certain that she will continue to forge
beyond expectations in her latest role at Hewlett-Packard.
