Lewis Emmett Platt (April 11, 1941 – September 8, 2005) was an American businessman and corporate director, who was chairman, president and
chief executive officer
A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...
of
Hewlett-Packard
The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
.
Personal life and education
Platt was born in
Johnson City, New York
Johnson City is a Administrative divisions of New York#Village, village in Broome County, New York, Broome County, New York (state), New York, United States. The population was 15,174 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Binghamton, New York, Bin ...
, the son of Margaret (Williams) and Norval Lewis Platt. He earned his
bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...
in
mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and ...
from
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
in 1964 and his
MBA
A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...
from the
Wharton School of Business
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ( ; also known as Wharton Business School, the Wharton School, Penn Wharton, and Wharton) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in ...
at the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
in 1966. He was granted an honorary doctorate in Engineering Science by
Santa Clara University
Santa Clara University is a private Jesuit university in Santa Clara, California. Established in 1851, Santa Clara University is the oldest operating institution of higher learning in California. The university's campus surrounds the historic Mis ...
. He was a member of the
Alpha Tau Omega
Alpha Tau Omega (), commonly known as ATO, is an American social fraternity founded at the Virginia Military Institute in 1865 by Otis Allan Glazebrook. The fraternity has around 250 active and inactive chapters and colonies in the United Stat ...
National Fraternity and served on its National Foundation Board of Governors.
Platt was widowed early in 1981. His wife died of cancer, and leaving him to raise two young daughters. This life change is said to have informed policies accommodating employee needs that he later implemented as chief executive of Hewlett-Packard.
Career at Hewlett-Packard
Platt joined Hewlett-Packard (HP) as an engineer in the medical products division. In the 1980s, he rose through the ranks in HP's Computer Systems Organization (CSO), becoming executive vice president overseeing HP's Computer Products Sector in 1988, and head of the CSO in 1990. Under Platt's watch, HP made a major investment in
RISC
In computer engineering, a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) is a computer designed to simplify the individual instructions given to the computer to accomplish tasks. Compared to the instructions given to a complex instruction set comput ...
/
Unix
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...
which brought tens of billions in revenue and made the company a major IT provider.
Platt succeeded John A. Young as president and chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard in 1992, and then succeeded co-founder
David Packard
David Packard ( ; September 7, 1912 – March 26, 1996) was an American electrical engineer and co-founder, with Bill Hewlett, of Hewlett-Packard (1939), serving as president (1947–64), CEO (1964–68), and chairman of the board (1964–6 ...
as the company's
chairman of the board
The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...
in 1993.
Under Platt's tenure as CEO, HP's sales went from $20 billion in 1993 to $38 billion in 1996. During his seven years as CEO, revenues increased 187 percent to $47.1 billion. Despite his corporate successes, Platt was not considered media-savvy due his thick glasses and hulking frame and generally kept a low profile, although he did agree to sit atop of a bunch of crates on the roof of an HP building for a BusinessWeek cover story in 1995.
Platt was known as an embodiment of the "HP Way", a management philosophy developed by company founders Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, that "built on respect for every individual and on the notion that people want to do their best — and will, if given the right direction". Platt was noted to being attuned to the company's rank-and-file as he practiced "management by walking around", as he flew commercial airlines instead of using the corporate jet. He also ate in the company cafeteria with the employees on a regular basis.
Late in his tenure, Platt was often criticized by investors and some HP executives for focusing on progressive values and long-term results. Platt's detractors said that company needed a more cold-blooded competitiveness and higher octane leadership to succeed, that his "pragmatic, nothing-fancy approach" seemed out of touch with the "go-go demands of the late 1990s," and that he had failed to capitalize on the Internet boom. Platt, who had announced back in March 1999 that he intended to resign and spin off HP's test and measurement group into Agilent, said in a July 1999 interview, "even before the announcement of the splitting of the company and the new CEO, we had spent a lot of time looking at ourselves. We needed to make some cultural shifts." Platt said, "We needed to hold fast to the core values but change some of the practices. (We needed to) speed up decision making."
In March 1999, HP's board had initiated a search for Platt's successor as CEO which would eventually be
Carly Fiorina
Cara Carleton "Carly" Fiorina ('' née'' Sneed; born September 6, 1954) is an American businesswoman and politician, known primarily for her tenure as CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HP). As chief executive officer of HP from 1999 to 2005, Fiorina wa ...
who came from
Lucent Technologies
Lucent Technologies, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Murray Hill, New Jersey. It was established on September 30, 1996, through the divestiture of the former AT&T Technologies business u ...
. Although Platt was instrumental in hiring Fiorina, he was viewed as a "has been" as she reportedly stopped seeking his advice a few weeks after she joined HP.
Fiorina's tenure was rocked by numerous disappointments, including her propensity to over-promise and her difficulty in taking advice from others, and she was ousted in 2005. Furthermore, she was perceived as aloof, as she was an outsider to the HP culture, and also as a result of her high visibility and "rock star status" in the press which led to the board of directors complaining that she was "spending too much time on the road, neglecting the nuts-and-bolts execution of her own strategic ideas". Fiorina's firing was also viewed as a vindication of Platt's previously-derided style, as a reporter remarked "While big egos and business cycles come and go, the values Platt held dear are timeless, and should not be easily dismissed".
Upon his departure in July 1999 as CEO and in 2000 as board chairman, his position was divided into three, partially because of the
Agilent Technologies
Agilent Technologies, Inc. is an American life sciences company that provides instruments, software, services, and consumables for the entire laboratory workflow. Its global headquarters is located in Santa Clara, California. Agilent was establi ...
divestiture. Richard Hackborn served as chairman of both HP and Agilent during the transitional period of the breakup, but the two companies had separate CEOs.
Civic engagement
In 1997, "Lewis E. Platt was appointed to the Advisory
Committee on Trade Policy Negotiations by
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
and
served as chairman of one of its task forces, the
World Trade Organization
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade. With effective cooperation
in the United Nations System, governments use the organization to establish, revise, and e ...
Task Force...
In 1996, Lewis E. Platt was elected cochair and a member
of the board of directors of Joint Venture Silicon Valley and the
Tech Network, formed in 1991, to strengthen the local economy and
make the area a better place to live, and he was a member of
The Business Council
The Business Council is an organization of business leaders headquartered in Washington, D.C.
On December 1, 2003, director Platt was named as the non-executive chairman of
Boeing
The Boeing Company () is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, telecommunications equipment, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product ...
, after
Phil Condit
Philip Murray Condit (born August 2, 1941) is an American engineer and businessman who was Chair and Chief executive officer (CEO) of the Boeing company from 1996 to 2003. He dramatically reshaped the company by Merger with McDonnell Douglas and re ...
resigned as chairman and CEO. In 2005, Platt was instrumental in forcing out President and CEO
Harry Stonecipher
Harry Curtis Stonecipher (born May 16, 1936) is an American business executive who was president and chief executive officer of American aerospace companies McDonnell Douglas and, later, The Boeing Company. Stonecipher was widely credited with t ...
for violating company rules, after it was revealed that Stonecipher was having an extramarital relationship with a female executive.
Death
On September 8, 2005, Platt died of a
brain aneurysm
An intracranial aneurysm, also known as a brain aneurysm, is a cerebrovascular disorder in which weakness in the wall of a cerebral artery or vein causes a localized dilation or ballooning of the blood vessel.
Aneurysms in the posterior circul ...
at his home in
Petaluma, California
Petaluma (Miwok languages, Miwok: ''Péta Lúuma'') is a city in Sonoma County, California, Sonoma County, California, located in the North Bay (San Francisco Bay Area), North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Its population was 59,776 a ...
. He was 64.
Legacy
A resolution of the
state legislature
A state legislature is a legislative branch or body of a political subdivision in a federal system.
Two federations literally use the term "state legislature":
* The legislative branches of each of the fifty state governments of the United Sta ...
named a section of
California State Route 87
State Route 87 (SR 87), known as the Guadalupe Freeway or referred to by the locals as Highway 87, is a north–south state highway in San Jose, California, United States. Before being upgraded to a freeway, it was Guadalupe Parkway (and some ...