People to Watch in 2000
Who will make big news in the business world this year? Who will emerge from relative obscurity to become a major player? To start the new year, Times business reporters selected people from their beats who they believe will be among those to watch in 2000--in Southern California, across the country and around the world. Some are well known, having made big news in previous years. Others are not exactly household names but nevertheless are likely to make a major impact in their fields.
Of course, there’s no way to predict just what’s going to happen in the next 12 months. Nor can any such list be complete--there’s always the come-from-nowhere phenom who’ll surprise everyone. But it’s a good bet that if you follow the fortunes of these 22, you’ll see the top business stories of 2000 unfold.
Carly Fiorina of Hewlett-Packard
It would be intriguing enough that she is the first female chief executive of a component company in the Dow Jones industrial average of 30 blue-chip stocks.
Add to that the fact that Carly Fiorina has emerged as a leader in one of the most male of industries, computer hardware.
And then there’s the real challenge before Fiorina--transforming Silicon Valley granddaddy Hewlett-Packard Co. from a staid, consensus-driven maker of printers, desktop computers and higher-end network servers to a cutting edge Internet-enabler such as rival Sun Microsystems Inc.
An engaging speaker with a sales and marketing background at Lucent Technologies Inc., Fiorina, 54, has put herself on the line very publicly, appearing in television commercials touting HP as a once-and-future innovator.
She has also reorganized Palo Alto-based HP internally, tied pay closer to performance, and given more power and speed to managers trying to sell all manner of goods and services to companies doing business on the Web.
The coming year will show whether Fiorina is just a snazzier figurehead or a captain of industry capable of turning around one of high tech’s biggest ships.
