Margaret Cushing Whitman (born August 4, 1956) is an American business executive, diplomat, and politician serving as the United States ambassador to Kenya since 2022. Whitman was president and chief executive officer (CEO) of eBay from 1998 to 2008. Afterwards, she became president and CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise from 2011 to 2015, during the company’s major split. She then served as the CEO of Quibi from its launch in 2018 until its closure in 2020. A member of the Republican Party, she ran for governor of California but was defeated by former governor Jerry Brown in California’s 2010 gubernatorial election. Whitman was a senior presidential campaign official for Republican Mitt Romney in both 2008 and 2012, although she supported Democrats Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden in the 2016 presidential election and the 2020 presidential election, respectively.
Whitman was an executive at The Walt Disney Company, where she was vice president of Strategic Planning throughout the 1980s. In the 1990s, she was an executive for DreamWorks, Procter & Gamble, and Hasbro. During Whitman’s 10 years with eBay, she oversaw its expansion from 30 employees and $4 million in annual revenue, to more than 15,000 employees and $8 billion in annual revenue. In 2014, Whitman was named 20th in Forbes List of the 100 Most Powerful Women in the World.
In 2008, Whitman was cited by The New York Times as among the women most likely to become the first female president of the United States. She ran for governor of California in 2010, winning the Republican primary. The fifth-wealthiest woman in California with a net worth of $1.3 billion in 2010, she spent, at the time, more of her own money on a single election than any other political candidate in American history.[5][6] The $144 million of her own fortune she used for the race (the campaign spent $178.5 million in total, including money from donors) was surpassed only by Michael Bloomberg in the 2020 presidential election. Whitman was defeated by Democratic former Governor Jerry Brown in the 2010 California gubernatorial election, 54% to 41%.
In December 2021, Whitman was nominated by President Joe Biden to serve as the United States Ambassador to Kenya. She was confirmed in July 2022 and took office the following month.
What is Meg Whitman’s Net Worth?
Meg Whitman is an American business executive who has a net worth of $3.5 billion. Meg Whitman has served in senior positions at a number of major companies. She was the president and CEO of eBay and the Hewlett-Packard Company; the CEO of Quibi; and an executive at the Walt Disney Company, DreamWorks, Hasbro, and Procter & Gamble. Beyond her business endeavors, Whitman ran for governor of California in 2010.
Early Life and Education
Meg Whitman was born as Margaret Whitman on August 4, 1956 in Huntington, New York to Hendricks Jr. and Margaret. As a teen, she went to Cold Spring Harbor High School, from which she graduated in 1974. Whitman subsequently attended Princeton University to study to become a doctor; however, she changed to economics after she spent a summer selling ads for Business Today magazine. After obtaining her AB from Princeton in 1977, Whitman went to Harvard Business School to earn her MBA.
Career Beginnings
After graduating from Harvard in 1979, Whitman started her career as a brand manager at Procter & Gamble. Following this, she became a consultant at Bain & Company, and was eventually promoted to senior vice president. In 1989, Whitman began serving as vice president of strategic planning at the Walt Disney Company. Two years after this, she worked for the Stride Rite Corporation; after that, in 1995, she became the president and CEO of Florists’ Transworld Delivery. Whitman then became the general manager of Hasbro’s Playskool Division in 1997. Among her actions in that position, she imported the British children’s television show “Teletubbies” to the United States.
eBay
In 1998, Whitman became the CEO of the e-commerce company eBay, which at that time had only 30 employees and around $4 million in revenue. During her nearly decade-long tenure with the company, eBay grew to around 15,000 employees and $8 billion in annual revenue. To do this, Whitman built a new executive team and split the company into 23 business categories, assigning executives to each of them. In 2002, eBay went public and acquired PayPal. Three years after that, it purchased Skype for $4 billion; the company later sold Skype to investors for around $2.75 billion. Although Whitman resigned as the CEO of eBay in late 2007, she stayed on the board and worked as an advisor to the new CEO John Donahoe through 2008.
Hewlett-Packard
Whitman joined the board of directors of the Hewlett-Packard Company in January of 2011; in September, she was named the company’s CEO. In her first year in that position, she brought back focus to the company’s research and development division, and reinstated HP’s commitment to the PC business. However, trouble plagued Whitman over the subsequent years. In 2013, she was named among the most “underachieving” CEOs by Bloomberg L.P. due to HP’s significantly underperforming stock. Later, in 2017, Whitman stepped down as the chair of the board of directors while remaining CEO. She eventually resigned from the latter position in February of 2018.
Quibi
From its founding in the summer of 2018, Whitman served as the CEO of the short-form media streaming platform Quibi, which officially launched in 2020. Five months after its launch, the company was considering acquisition or sale due to its failure to draw subscribers. Quibi was eventually shut down in December of 2020, with its content library sold to Roku in early 2021.
Board Appointments
Whitman has served on the board of directors of numerous companies over the years, including DreamWorks, Procter & Gamble, the eBay Foundation, Zipcar, and Survey Monkey. She also served on the board of Goldman Sachs, but resigned after 14 months when it was revealed that she had received shares in a number of public offerings managed by the company.
Political Career
Whitman made her first major foray into politics in 2008, when she became a member of the national finance team of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Following Romney’s withdrawal from the race, Whitman became the national co-chair of John McCain‘s campaign. Later, in 2016, she served as the finance co-chair of Chris Christie‘s presidential campaign; however, after he dropped out, she endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
In addition to working on presidential campaigns, Whitman ran for office herself in 2010 as a candidate for governor of California. She funded her own campaign, spending a record $144 million. Whitman ran on a platform that emphasized job creation, a reduction in state government spending, and a reform of the K-12 education system. Ultimately, she lost the election to Jerry Brown. Later, in December of 2021, Whitman was nominated by President Joe Biden to become the US ambassador to Kenya.
Personal Life and Philanthropy
In 1980, Whitman married Griffith R. Harsh IV, the Chair of Neurosurgery at the University of California, Davis. Together, the couple has two children, and resides in Atherton, California.
With her husband, Whitman founded the Griffith R. Harsh IV and Margaret C. Whitman Charitable Foundation in 2006. In its first year of operation in 2007, it made charitable contributions totaling around $125,000, most of which went to the Environmental Defense Fund. The foundation also invested $4 million in offshore hedge funds.
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