HP Board Mulled Apotheker Ouster Weeks Before Strategy U-Turn

Hewlett-Packard Co. Chairman Ray Lane told Leo Apotheker on Sept. 21 that he’d be ousted as chief executive officer after eight weeks of board wrangling that included the departure of a director close to the CEO.

Apotheker, whose dismissal was announced the following day, became the third CEO to be fired by a Hewlett-Packard board of directors in seven years. His successor, former EBay Inc. CEO Meg Whitman, inherits a company wracked by slowing growth and a share price that has plunged 47 percent in past six months.