Hasta La Gadget!

Wild news out of HP just now — CEO Mark Hurd has just resigned over a sexual harassment investigation. Hurd and HP’s board of directors decided that he should resign following a sexual harassment claim against Hurd and HP by a former marketing contractor — HP claims that although there was no violation of its sexual harassment policy, Hurd violated the company’s standards of business conduct by submitting inaccurate expense reports that covered his relationship with the contractor. CFO Cathie Lesjak is taking over on an interim basis, and she’s actually upping the company’s forecasts for next quarter, saying Mark’s resignation has nothing to do with HP’s performance and everything to do with his behavior. A committee led by former Netscape CEO Marc Andreessen has been formed to find a new CEO; Lesjak has asked to be excluded, and HP declined to answer if Jon Rubinstein was being considered when we asked.

Update: We liveblogged the media call — check it after the break!

Update 2: A quick note from the investor call, which mostly repeated the same info — interim CEO Cathie Lesjak said that although Mark Hurd was a “strong leader, at the end of the day, he didn’t drive our initiatives — it was the organization that supported Mark in driving those initiatives.” Ouch — given Mark’s recent history of saying things like “we didn’t buy Palm to get into the smartphone business,” it certainly seems like he might have been a little distracted.

Update 3: We’ve just received the full text of the letter interim HP CFO Cathie Lesjak sent to all employees — check it after the break.

Continue reading HP CEO Mark Hurd resigns over sexual harassment investigation (updated with liveblog!)

HP CEO Mark Hurd resigns over sexual harassment investigation (updated with liveblog!) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 Aug 2010 17:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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