Mark V. Hurd, former chief of Hewlett-Packard, was accused of sexual harassment by Jodie Fisher, an H.P. contractor. A company inquiry found no harassment, but found other violations.
Even after a former actress in erotic films had accused Hewlett-Packard's chief executive, Mark V. Hurd, of sexual harassment, the company's board stood behind him.
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The directors had often talked with him about taking the world's biggest technology company back to its roots as an innovator after the big-ticket acquisitions of 3Com and Palm. They doubted that Mr. Hurd, ever meticulous and boastful of his integrity, could commit such unscrupulous acts, according to people with knowledge of the board's thinking.
But when he settled the woman's harassment complaint in a late-night meeting before the board's investigators had a chance to speak with her, the directors deemed his behavior just too troubling.
H.P.'s board rushed out Mr. Hurd's resignation the next day, on Aug. 6. What has followed is a stream of leaks from both sides resulting in a very public imbroglio. The drama between staid H.P. and equally staid Mr. Hurd continues in a fashion quite unlike executive departures of its kind.
The company has uncovered communications between Mr. Hurd and Jodie Fisher, the occasional H.P. contractor who accused him of sexual harassment, that seemed cordial, even after a last meeting in a hotel room in Boise, Idaho, a person with knowledge of Mr. Hurd's e-mails said.
But the board was increasingly troubled that Mr. Hurd had been so willing to put Ms. Fisher, whose job was to introduce Mr. Hurd to customers at H.P. marketing gatherings, in front of top customers at upscale company events. Nor could they fathom how Mr. Hurd could authorize more than $75,000 in payments and expenses, including first-class travel and stays in luxury hotels, for Ms. Fisher when the company's employees traveled under more austere conditions, according to several people with knowledge of the expenses.
Mr. Hurd has been portrayed as engaging in increasingly questionable behavior as H.P. examined his relationship with Ms. Fisher. The directors could not grasp how he could defend having a close personal relationship with an expensive contractor and play down her background in sexually charged films like "Intimate Obsession" and "Body of Influence 2." She also posed partly nude in Playboy while in college in the early 1980s.
Simply put, he lost the board's trust, said people with knowledge of the board's thinking.
A person close to Mr. Hurd counters that H.P. officials are trumping up a version of events in conversations with reporters.
"Mark Hurd is shocked and enraged by allegations from an H.P. board source that by settling an unfounded sexual harassment claim he was impeding the board from learning the truth," said this person close to Mr. Hurd.
Mr. Hurd had been encouraged by the directors to settle the claims for weeks, the person said.
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SOURCE: The New York Times
