The key parts of her resume are a controversial seven-year tenure as CEO of Hewlett-Packard and a failed run in 2010 to unseat U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., in a campaign that included questions about a spotty past voting record. She also served as a campaign advisor for Sen. John McCain in his unsuccessful 2008 presidential run against Barack Obama.
Carly Fiorina is reportedly set to base a run for the Republication nomination for president in 2016 on that background. According to reports last week, Fiorina will announce her candidacy May 4, joining what promises to be an increasingly crowded GOP field that will fight it out for the right to run against presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Fiorina—who has been talking up her ambitions and staking out positions for several months—has been a sharp critic of Clinton and has said that being the only other woman running for president would help negate any advantages the former first lady and secretary of state may have with issues relating to women.
She generally holds straightforward conservative views, from being against abortions and same-sex marriage to opposing President Obama’s negotiations with Iran. Fiorina also has talked up her experience running HP to show her capabilities in building the U.S. economy.
Her tenure with the tech giant is most known for the $24 billion acquisition of rival PC maker Compaq in 2002, a deal that generated a lot of controversy at the time and continues to be debated, even as current CEO Meg Whitman plans to split HP in two later this year. One of the two new companies—HP Inc.—will sell PCs and printers.
During the campaign, Fiorina also will be asked about other aspects of her time as HP’s CEO, including the more than 30,000 employees laid off, the 49 percent decline in the company’s stock during her tenure and HP’s efforts to recover from the tech market bust.
According to a report in Bloomberg, Fiorina told an audience in Iowa that she will jump into the presidential race “within a couple of weeks.” That statement came soon after reports about the May 4 date surfaced.