For what it is worth, Carly Fiorina always struck me as having more the affect of a politician than a chief executive.
Ms Fiorina, whose troubled leadership of Hewlett-Packard ended in 2005 when she was pushed out by the board, and eventually succeeded by Mark Hurd, today revealed that she plans to run as a Republican for the California Senate seat held by Barbara Boxer.
It may prove good timing, since it comes a day after there was a swing to the right in US elections, with Jon Corzine, a former chief executive of Goldman Sachs, being defeated in his bid for re-election as governor of New Jersey, and a Republican being elected governor of Virginia.
On the other hand, the fact that Mr Corzine was beaten and that Michael Bloomberg was only just re-elected as mayor of New York despite spending extremely heavily on his campaign suggests that former chief executives do not always succeed as in political life.
My memories of Ms Fiorina, even in her time at HP, are of a very polished public performer but not someone who had an impressive grasp of detail. I was struck at how like a politician she seemed at a press briefing in Davos in 2005, just before she was ousted.
She was poised and very articulate but she tended to stick firmly to her talking points and did not seem very comfortable responding to questions. Admittedly, it could be that I simply witnessed her at a particularly stressful moment.
Anyway, those qualities may serve her well in her new venture, for which she prepared by serving as an adviser to John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, in last year’s campaign.
