I'm sure that part of her problem was that she was a woman and many men, still, do not like having a woman boss. But I don't know how much of her failure was due to that and how much was due to her reputation of not listening. [link|http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=ai0au_TvS1qo&refer=news_index|Bloomberg]:

``The Compaq merger was a fiasco right from the start,'' said analyst Jason Maxwell at Los Angeles-based TCW Group Inc., which manages $100 billion and owns Hewlett-Packard shares. ``The premise was that they were going to gain some kind of scale that would allow them to get a better cost structure and gain market share, and that is just not true.''

[...]

The board lured Fiorina from Lucent with a pay package that included $65.6 million in shares. She became the first outsider to run the company since it was founded in 1938 and was charged with reviving sales growth and changing a culture that lagged behind in product development and production. She quickly won accolades for reinvigorating the sales force, overseeing the spinoff of the test-and-measurement unit and coordinating work between divisions.

``She's been a strong change agent,'' Sacconaghi said. ``She's been a cultural catalyst.''

[ Um, a catalyst is something that lowers the energy barrier in a chemical reaction. Good choice of word, apparently. ]

[...]

``What they need is good leadership,'' Hewlett, 60, said in an interview today from Palo Alto. ``She found a big splashy move like a merger to distract people from the fact that she wasn't really able to get the job done.''

[...]


She made lots of enemies, as is expected when major change is implemented. But her execution was lacking too.

It'll be interesting to hear your cousin's reaction.

Cheers,
Scott.