Tattletales have 60 minutes to get off the playground - I mean the boardroom
From InfoWorld:
Former Hewlett-Packard chairmen Patricia Dunn and Carly Fiorina each cited board member Thomas Perkins as an instigator behind their ousters from the technology company, according to interviews the two gave on a U.S. TV news program Sunday night.
Dunn and Fiorina made their comments in separate segments on the CBS News program "60 Minutes." Dunn responded to felony charges filed against her and four other defendants in a California court last week for the alleged use of illegal tactics to probe boardroom leaks to news media. Fiorina commented about her book on her HP tenure, "Tough Choices: A Memoir," which is being published this week....
Dunn told correspondent Lesley Stahl that Perkins, of the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, launched a campaign to force Dunn off the board over how she conducted an investigation of boardroom leaks....
Dunn initiated an investigation of leaks to the media in 2005 and a second one in 2006, in which HP hired outside private investigators who allegedly used false pretenses to gain access to phone records of HP directors, some employees and journalists who cover the company....
[A] spokesman for Perkins said Perkins talked to people with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice and the California Attorney General's office to complain about the tactics used in the leak investigation.
Dunn claims that Perkins turned against her when she wanted to identify Perkins board ally George Keyworth as the director who leaked news of board deliberations to a reporter in January. She says Perkins wanted the identity of the leaker kept confidential but she wouldn't agree to that....
Fiorina, who was fired as chairman, president, and CEO of HP in February, 2005, told Stahl she believes Perkins and Keyworth were behind her ouster as well.
Fiorina said she initiated her own investigation of board leaks in early 2005 after the Wall Street Journal reported the board was considering an HP reorganization plan that would have stripped Fiorina of some of her powers....
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