HP: Interim to permanent CEO

Who says rock star CEOs are dead? The expected announcement that former EBay CEO and current H-P board member Meg Whitman will become CEO of Hewlett Packard (HP) underscores how much personal brand power matters in tumultuous crisis situations. Normally when there's turnover and the preceding position holder came from outside the company, Fortune 100 companies will turn to an internal executive candidate. HP, however, has quickly become a poster child of horrible governance, which means they probably felt like they had to go with a known brand name. Insert Whitman who joined the HP board earlier this year.

The real question now becomes whether or not the board considered internal candidates before offering the position to Whitman. It's often perceived as a conflict of interest for a director to join a company board without stating his or her intentions on becoming a company executive. In this case, it would help inform the story if the company were willing to say that they considered internal and external candidates before naming Whitman. Of course they can always say that publicly without really meaning it, which is why more reporting on the process will be necessary. Another easy out is the fact that Whitman is a brand name leader, which provides yet another buffer to a board that clearly has lost track of its own -- and the HP Way.

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