Alumni Perspective - Meg Whitman (MBA '79)

James Raybould (OB), Contributing Writer

Issue date: 4/7/08 Section: Features

Outgoing president and CEO, eBay Inc., National Co-Chairperson of Senator John McCain's 2008 Presidential Campaign. Current Board member of eBay, the eBay Foundation, Procter & Gamble, and DreamWorks Animation. Prior experience at Procter & Gamble, Bain, Disney, Stride Rite, FTD, and Hasbro. Numerous accolades from leading publications, including being one of the few women to have been consecutively ranked (2004 and 2005) among the world's most influential people by Time Magazine.

Over the past 100 years HBS has produced legions of accomplished brand marketers, consultants, general managers, entrepreneurs and Fortune 500 CEOs. Far less common, however, has been an alumna merging all these roles into a single career. But in Meg Whitman ('79, Section H), HBS has a protagonist around whom professors from across disciplines can shape compelling case discussions.

Whitman modestly describes herself as a "strategic marketing executive," but her resume suggests that "strategic marketing über-executive" is more appropriate. After joining Procter & Gamble straight out of HBS, she progressed to leadership positions at Bain, Disney, Stride Rite, FTD, and Hasbro. And then in March 1998, she accepted the CEO position of a $4-million-revenue, 30-employee company named eBay. Ten years later, Whitman steps down as CEO having established eBay as one of the world's best known global brands, with 15,000 employees and annual revenues of almost $8 billion.

Long before these professional successes, Whitman was a 21-year-old recent Princeton graduate entering Harvard Business School. She still has vivid memories of her first day as an RC: "We were all scared to death sitting in the pit, preparing for Marketing with Professor Hiro Takeuchi. Our case was Gillette and one of my sectionmates was Susan Gillette. I remember Professor Takeuchi looking over at her and saying, 'Today we will not make a case of Susan Gillette!' and called on someone else!" Whitman realized early on that Marketing interested her the most, "Because I thought it was the most integrative course. It taught me to think about business problems in the most holistic way." She also recalls, "Learning a ton in Accounting from Professor Roland Christensen since I didn't have any work experience, unlike my banking colleagues who would sometimes go to sleep." (some things never seem to change…)

Reflecting back on her two years at HBS, Whitman says, "I felt very privileged to have been at Harvard Business School and still do. There's no substitute for the experience and big picture thinking it offers. I'm also happy that some of my best friends to this day were business school classmates."

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