Patricia C. Dunn (March 27, 1953 – December 4, 2011) was the non-executive chairman of the board 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 ...

(HP) from February 2005 until September 22, 2006, when she resigned her position. On October 4, 2006,

Bill Lockyer William Westwood Lockyer (born May 8, 1941) is a retired American politician from California, who held elective office from 1973 to 2015, as State Treasurer of California, California Attorney General, and President Pro Tempore of the California ...

, the California attorney general, charged Dunn with four felonies for her role in the

HP spying scandal HP may refer to: Businesses and organisations * HP Inc., an American technology company ** Hewlett-Packard, the predecessor to HP Inc. * HP Foods ** HP Sauce, formerly made by HP Foods * Handley Page, an aircraft company * Hindustan Petroleum * ...

. Some members of the press reported that Dunn had been scapegoated. On March 14, 2007,

California Superior Court Superior courts in California are the state trial courts with general jurisdiction to hear and decide any civil or criminal action which is not specially designated to be heard in some other court or before a governmental agency. As mandated by t ...

Judge Ray Cunningham dismissed the charges against her.

Early life

Born in

Burbank, California Burbank is a city in the southeastern end of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located northwest of downtown Los Angeles, Burbank has a population of 107,337. The city was named after David Burbank, w ...

, Dunn grew up in

Las Vegas, Nevada Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

, where both her parents were involved in the casino industry. Her father was the entertainment manager for the Dunes and Tropicana hotel-casinos, and her mother was a model and entertainer. When Dunn was only eleven, her father died. Her mother subsequently moved the family to California.

Education

After graduating from

Terra Linda High School Terra Linda High School (also known as TLHS and more commonly known as TL) is a public secondary school located in Terra Linda, San Rafael, California, United States. In 2006, it was named a California Distinguished School. The school is part of t ...

in 1970, Dunn entered the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...

, but dropped out to support her mother by working as a housecleaner. She resumed college and graduated from

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

in 1975 with a B.A. in Journalism.

Career

After college Dunn began working as a temporary secretary at Wells Fargo & Co. She eventually became CEO at

Barclays Global Investors BlackRock, Inc. is an American multi-national investment company based in New York City. Founded in 1988, initially as a risk management and fixed income institutional asset manager, BlackRock is the world's largest asset manager, with trill ...

, the company that acquired the asset management division of Wells Fargo. In 1998 she joined the HP Board of Directors. In 2001 the Financial Women of San Francisco named Dunn the "Financial Woman of the Year". Dunn became non-executive chair of the HP board in February 2005 when

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 ...

, the CEO and chair of the HP board, left the company. Dunn was also non-executive Vice Chairman of Barclays Global Investors from 2002 to October 2006. Additionally, she was Director and Executive Committee member of Larkin Street Youth Services in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, on the board of the Conference Board's Global Corporate Governance Research Center, and an advisory board member of

Haas School of Business The Walter A. Haas School of Business, also known as Berkeley Haas, is the business school of the University of California, Berkeley, a public research university in Berkeley, California. It was the first business school at a public university i ...

Scandal

Dunn was at the center of the

2006 HP Spying Scandal On September 5, 2006, Newsweek revealed that Hewlett-Packard's general counsel, at the behest of HP chairwoman Patricia Dunn, had contracted a team of independent security experts to investigate board members and several journalists in order to ...

because she directed investigations of board-level leaks of information to reporters in 2005–2006. HP hired companies which, while investigating the leaks, obtained the personal telephone records of HP board members and reporters who covered HP through a practice called

pretext A pretext (adj: pretextual) is an excuse to do something or say something that is not accurate. Pretexts may be based on a half-truth or developed in the context of a misleading fabrication. Pretexts have been used to conceal the true purpose or rat ...

ing. It is illegal under California law to use deceit and trickery to obtain private records of individuals. HP announced on September 12, 2006, that

Mark Hurd Mark Vincent Hurd (January 1, 1957 – October 18, 2019) was an Americans, American technology executive who served as Co-CEO and as a member of the board of directors of Oracle Corporation. He had previously served as Chairman, Chief Executive ...

(the company's CEO) would replace Dunn as Chairman in January but she would continue as a board member. Ten days later, however, Dunn resigned (effective immediately) both from her position as chairman ''and'' from the board. In an official statement, Dunn noted "I accepted the responsibility to identify the sources of those leaks, but I did not propose the specific methods of the investigation... Unfortunately, the people HP relied upon to conduct this type of investigation let me and the company down. I continue to have the best interests of HP at heart and thus I have accepted the board's request to resign." On October 4, 2006, Dunn and four others were charged by California

attorney general In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...

with four

felon A felony is traditionally considered a crime of high seriousness, whereas a misdemeanor is regarded as less serious. The term "felony" originated from English common law (from the French medieval word "félonie") to describe an offense that resu ...

y counts:

fraud In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compens ...

ulent use of wire, radio or television transmissions; taking, copying, and using computer data without authorization;

identity theft Identity theft occurs when someone uses another person's personal identifying information, like their name, identifying number, or credit card number, without their permission, to commit fraud or other crimes. The term ''identity theft'' was co ...

; and

conspiracy A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agree ...

. Lockyer issued

arrest warrant An arrest warrant is a warrant issued by a judge or magistrate on behalf of the state, which authorizes the arrest and detention of an individual, or the search and seizure of an individual's property. Canada Arrest warrants are issued by a j ...

s for all five of those so charged. Dunn was scheduled to have been arraigned on November 17, 2006. On March 14, 2007, the judge in the case dropped all criminal charges against her in the "interests of justice". The dropping of the criminal charges by Judge Cunningham came after Dunn refused to take a plea of one misdemeanor in exchange for four felonies before the preliminary hearing.

Personal life

Dunn married William Jahnke, a former head of Wells Fargo Investment Advisors. The couple owned a

winery A winery is a building or property that produces wine, or a business involved in the production of wine, such as a wine company. Some wine companies own many wineries. Besides wine making equipment, larger wineries may also feature warehouses, ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, a home in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

, and a home in

Orinda, California Orinda is a city in Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city's population as of the 2020 census is estimated at 19,514 residents. History Orinda is located within four Mexican land grants: Rancho Laguna de los Palos Colorados ...

. Having survived

breast The breast is one of two prominences located on the upper ventral region of a primate's torso. Both females and males develop breasts from the same embryological tissues. In females, it serves as the mammary gland, which produces and secret ...

and

skin cancer Skin cancers are cancers that arise from the skin. They are due to the development of abnormal cells that have the ability to invade or spread to other parts of the body. There are three main types of skin cancers: basal-cell skin cancer (BCC) ...

, Dunn was diagnosed in January 2004 with advanced ovarian cancer.

Chemotherapy Chemotherapy (often abbreviated to chemo and sometimes CTX or CTx) is a type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs (chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) as part of a standardized chemotherapy regimen. Chemotherap ...

led to remission until August 2006, when she underwent surgery to remove liver metastases. On December 4, 2011, she died at home in Orindasurvived by her husband, three adult children, ten grandchildren, a brother, and a sister(bad link)(subscription required for full article)at age 58.

References

External links

2006 Separate videos of Fiorina and Dunn after HP pretexting scandal
2006-10-08
The HP Spying Scandal
Lindsay A. Graham, 2022, via

Wondery Wondery is an American podcast network and publisher of numerous award-winning podcasts, including Dirty John, Dr. Death, and The Shrink Next Door. Wondery was founded in 2016 by entrepreneur and media executive Hernan Lopez. The company was lau ...

(podcast) {{DEFAULTSORT:Dunn, Patricia C. 1953 births 2011 deaths American computer businesspeople Deaths from cancer in California Deaths from ovarian cancer Hewlett-Packard people University of California, Berkeley alumni American chairpersons of corporations Businesspeople from the San Francisco Bay Area Women corporate directors Businesspeople from Las Vegas Wells Fargo employees BlackRock people People from Burbank, California Technology corporate directors People from Orinda, California 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American businesswomen 21st-century American women