Carly Fiorina

At 70 years old, Carly Fiorina has this physical status:

Carleton "Carly" Fiorina (née Sneed; born September 6, 1954) is an American businesswoman and politician best known for her work as CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HP).

She then served as Chair of the philanthropic group Good360. In 2010, Fiorina unsuccessfully bid for the Senate nomination in 2010 and the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. Fiorina was the first female to lead a Top-20 company as the first female CEO of HP from 1999 to 2005, according to Fortune Magazine.

Fiorina oversaw what was then the biggest technology sector merger in history, in which HP acquired Compaq, a rival personal computer manufacturer.

HP became the world's largest personal computer manufacturer as a result of the transaction.

In order to save 80,000 jobs, HP laid off 30,000 U.S. employees.

Since being a success, the company has risen to 150,000 employees.

Following a boardroom disagreement, Fiorina was forced to resign as CEO and Chair in February 2005.

She was nominated for the Senate nomination in California in 2010, but she lost the general election to incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer in 2010.

Fiorina ran for six days as the vice presidential running mate of Ted Cruz until he halted his campaign, the lowest vice presidential candidacy in modern US history.

Early life and education

Carleton Sneed was born in Austin, Texas, on September 6, 1954, the daughter of Madelon Montross (née Juergens) and Joseph Tyree Sneed III. In every generation of the Sneed family's history, the name "Carleton," which is derived from "Carly," has been used. Fiorina's father, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law, was a professor at the time of her birth. He would later serve as Dean of Duke University School of Law, Deputy US Attorney General, and judge on the Ninth Circuit of Appeals. Her mother was an abstract painter. She is mainly of English and German origins, and she was raised Episcopalian. Joseph P. Sneed, her paternal great-grandfather, was a Methodist minister and educator in Texas. The Constantine Sneed House, built in Brentwood, Tennessee, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is owned by her paternal great-great-great-uncle.

Carly was a Brownie, but she did not become a Girl Scout because of her family's frequent moves. She attended Channing School in London. She attended five separate high schools, one in Ghana, and another in Durham, North Carolina, graduating from Charles E. Jordan High School. At one time, she aspired to be a classical pianist. In 1976, she earned a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and medieval history at Stanford University. She spent her summers as a secretary for Kelly Services. She attended the UCLA School of Law in 1976 but was dropped after one semester. She spent six months at Marcus & Millichap, a real estate company, before moving to a broker position. When she married in 1977, she and her husband moved to Bologna, Italy, where he was doing graduate work; there, she taught English to Italian businessmen.

Fiorina earned a Master of Business Administration, Marketing, from the University of Maryland's College Park in 1980. She earned a Master of Science degree in management from MIT Sloan School of Management, as part of the Sloan Fellows program in 1989.

Personal life

Todd Bartlem, a Stanford classmate, married Fiorina (then Carleton Sneed) in June 1977. In 1984, the two families divorced. She was introduced to AT&T executive Frank Fiorina in 1981, who told her on their third date that she would one day be running the company. She married him in 1985; this was his second marriage for both of them. Fiorina has said that they wanted to have children together, but that "was not God's idea." Frank Fiorina resigned from AT&T at the age of 48 in 1998 to travel with and help his wife with her travel needs throughout his career.

Traci and Lori Ann, Frank Fiorina's first child, were two children from his first marriage. Following the divorce, Patricia, their mother, was given custody of both children. Carly helped her husband with raising his children. Lori Ann struggled with alcoholism, prescription drug use, and bulimia. She died at the age of 35 in 2009.

Fiorina was diagnosed with stage II breast cancer in February 2009. In March 2009, she underwent a double mastectomy at Stanford Hospital, followed by chemotherapy, which caused her to temporarily lose her hair, and then radiation therapy. "She had a fantastic prognosis for a complete recovery." Barbara Boxer, a blogger who ran for the United States Senate seat contested by Barbara Boxer in late 2009, told a group of supporters: "I must say that after chemotherapy, Barbara Boxer isn't that scary anymore."

According to Fiorina's campaign's financial reports, she and her husband have a total net worth of $59 million. Fiorina has published the income tax returns that she and her husband jointly filed in 2013 and 2012; in those years, the Fiorinas reported earnings of nearly $2 million and $1.3 million, respectively.

Fiorina and her husband are housed in a house in Mason Neck, Virginia, overlooking the Potomac River. In 2015, the house and grounds were worth $6.6 million. Fiorina and her husband lived in Los Altos Hills, California, a San Francisco Bay suburb, at the time of the 2010 Senate race. Fiorina and her husband owned a condo in Washington's Georgetown neighborhood, where they lived for approximately half of the year; they sold the house for $5.3 million.

Fiorina said she is Christian despite the fact that she was debating her religious faith. "She was born Episcopalian, but not a regular churchgoer," she said.

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Business career

Fiorina joined AT&T as a management trainee, providing telephone services to major federal departments in 1980. She became the company's first female officer as senior vice president in 1990, eventually heading the company's North American operations.

Fiorina, Inc., a spin-off between AT&T and Bell Labs' Western Electric and Bell Labs divisions, was responsible for corporate development for Lucent Technologies, Inc. in 1995, a spin-off from AT&T's Western Electric and Bell Labs divisions that has grown into a new entity. She introduced Lucent Chief Executive Henry B. Schacht to her role as a spokesperson in that capacity. She was instrumental in planning and executing the initial public offering of a winning stock and company launch plan in 1996. The spin-off became one of the most profitable IPOs in the United States, raising US$3 billion.

Fiorina was appointed president of Lucent's consumer products industry later in 1996. She was elected group president for Lucent's US$19 billion global service-provider market, in 1997, oversawing marketing and sales for the company's largest client segment. Fiorina chaired a $2.5 billion joint venture between Lucent's consumer communications and Royal Philips Electronics, which is part of the name Philips Consumer Communications (PCC). Fiorina was named "The Most Influential Woman in American Business" in Fortune magazine's October 12, 1998 issue.

Lucent's market share increased in every region for every product, from US$19 billion to US$38 billion. Lucent reported that new sales increased by lending money to their own customers, according to Fortune magazine, "In a bit of accounting magic," Lucent's income statement appeared as new income, but the mysterious debt was stashed on Lucent's balance sheet as a potentially healthy fund." Lucent's share price increased by 10-fold.

Hewlett-Packard Company appointed Fiorina chief executive officer in July 1999, replacing Lewis Platt and winning over Ann Livermore, the internal candidate. "Carly Fiorina didn't crack the glass ceiling, she obliterated it as the first woman to lead a FORTUNE 20 company," Fortune magazine's Matthew Boyle said of Fiorina's selection as HP's first female CEO.

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld wrote in Fortune magazine in August 2015 that the search was caused by "a dysfunctional HP board committee" with its own poisoned politics, which had no CEO experience and no interviews with the full board. Fiorina received a higher signing bonus than any of her predecessors, including: a US$36,000 annual salary, a relocation allowance, and permission (and encouragement) to use company planes for personal use. Fortune also ranked her as America's most influential woman for five years in a row.

Despite the fact that the decision to spin off the company's analytical services division before her appointment, this was one of her first major responsibilities as CEO as chief executive, leading the unit's breakaway from Agilent Technologies. Fiorina had planned to purchase PricewaterhouseCoopers' technology services arm for over US$14 billion, but Fiorina turned down the bid after Wall Street's lackluster response. IBM acquired the PwC consulting arm following the dot-com bust, which was worth less than US$4 billion. HP later acquired Electronic Data Systems, another technology services company, which some people regarded as a confirmation of Fiorina's plan.

Fiorina reported the acquisition of Compaq, the second biggest manufacturer of personal computers after Dell, in early September 2001, right after the bursting of the Tech Bubble. On the announcement of the merger, HP stock dropped by 30%. The Compaq acquisition established the world's biggest personal computer manufacturer in terms of units shipped.

Fiorina was often at odds with HP's board of directors, and she had to contend with the board for the merger. Walter Hewlett (the son of company co-founder William Hewlett) was a point of particularly strong resistance. Hewlett had intended to accept the Compaq contract with the other board members, but later changed his mind. He organized a proxy battle against Fiorina's plans, which Fiorina retained with a "razor-thin margin" of 54%, with institutional shareholders providing the bulk of the funds. Other board members, including Richard Hackborn, Philip M. Condit, George A. Keyworth II, and Robert Knowling, all supported Fiorina. Fiorina proceeded to reorganize HP and combine the parts of it that she had stored with Compaq.

The fusion was initially greeted with almost universal suspicion. Fortune's February 7, 2005 issue called her merger proposal "failing" and "doubtful." Robert Burgelman, a business professor and former HP executive vice president, and Webb McKinney, who was in charge of HP's post-merger integration team, reviewed the merger and concluded it was ultimately positive. Although Fiorina lacked the skills to run the merged company, Compaq Ben Rosen's former acting CEO said in 2008 that her successors made it work. HP was able to integrate Compaq's activities and emerge as the world's biggest personal computer manufacturer. The sector soon fell into decline, contributing to more challenges for the company. When the personal computer industry dropped, HP's net worth fell by almost US$1.2 billion from the acquisition. A 2011 New York Times article referred to it as "one of the most questionable deals of the time."

HP's Dutch subsidiary formed a joint venture in 1997, Redington Gulf, which sold HP's Iranian products. The company exported millions of dollars worth of printers and computer products to Iran under Fiorina's leadership, although US export limits were in force. After the Boston Globe first published the story in 2008, the SEC sent HP a letter of inquiry, claiming that the sales did not breach export controls because they were made through a foreign subsidiary. HP was funneling their orders through a foreign subsidiary, according to former officials who worked on sanctions. Following the SEC probe, HP's relationship with Redington Gulf came to an end.

Fiorina said she received a phone call from Michael Hayden, then the head of the National Security Agency, in September 2015, asking for increased surveillance. Hayden said he had made the request for HP servers as part of the Stellar Wind, a warrantless surveillance service run by the US from 2001 to 2007, but the details were not revealed to Fiorina at the time. Fiorina "complied with Hayden's instruction, redirecting trucks of HP computer servers from a warehouse in Tennessee to the Washington Beltway, where they were escorted by NSA security" to the department's Fort Meade headquarters, where they were escorted by NSA security." Fiorina said in 2015: "I felt it was my responsibility to help, and so we did," Fiorina said. "They were ramping up a whole range of applications and needed a lot of data crunching capabilities to try and monitor a slew of threats." ... What I didn't know at the time was that our country had been attacked." Hayden also requested that Fiorina give Fiorina advice "on how the CIA will maintain its undercover espionage mission in a culture of increasing government leaks and calls for greater public accountability and transparency." According to Fiorina, she advised the company to be "as transparent as possible, probably as much as possible."

Because he believed the company had become complacent and that consensus-driven decision making was hampering the company's growth, Fiorina's predecessor tried to replace him. Fiorina introduced three major reforms shortly after her arrival: from 83 to 12, replacing profit sharing with bonuses, as a result of the company's financial success, and consolidating back-office operations.

Fiorina has been chastised by HP and the tech community for her leadership in the demise of HP's egalitarian "The HP Way" work culture and guiding philosophy, which she felt stifled innovation. Because of changes to HP's culture and calls for voluntary wage cuts to discourage layoffs (which were later followed by the largest layoffs in HP's history), employee satisfaction surveys at HP revealed "widespread dissatisfaction" and mistrust, and Fiorina was often booed at company meetings and assaulted on HP's electronic bulletin board, which were later identified as the highest in America.

Fiorina and others have said that she "laid the groundwork for some of HP's changes under her successors" and that she shook the company's culture so that it could compete in the Internet Age, according to The Fiscal Times.

Fiorina announced an agreement with Apple CEO Steve Jobs for the iPod+HP in January 2004, a cobranded iPod that was sold through HP's retail channels. HP was forbidden from showcasing a competitor to the iPod until August 2006, and HP promised to pre-install iTunes on every PC sold as part of the deal. Jobs unveiled a new product, the iPod mini, two days before Fiorina revealed it, catching Fiorina off guard. HP did not produce the latest iPods in a timely manner, causing them to continue selling an outdated model for many months. In addition, Apple began selling its own iPods through the same retail outlets. As a result, iPod+HP sales made up only a small part of total iPod sales at the start of the campaign. Mark Hurd, HP's successor, resigned as CEO, ended HP's deal with Apple within days of taking office, prompting a "highly symbolic move" that was welcomed by HP as a return to innovation.

"Steve Jobs blithely mugged her and HP's shareholders," Steven Levy, who wrote about the deal in 2015. Jobs had effectively gotten his [iTunes] software installed on millions of computers for free, stifled his main rival, and brought a company that celebrated innovation to announce that Apple was a superior engineer. "He lost nothing."

HP laid off 1,700 marketing employees in January 2001. Fiorina asked employees to either take pay cuts or use their allotted vacation time to save more money, resulting in more than 80,000 people signing up and saving HP US$130 million. Despite all the employees'' efforts, Fiorina reported that 6,000 jobs would be laid off in July, the largest reduction in the company's 64-year history, but those layoffs did not occur until after the Compaq merger was announced. Fiorina said in September 2001 that she planned to lay off an additional 15,000 jobs in the event of a merger with Compaq.

Fiorina laid off 30,000 U.S. employees in all. According to PolitiFact, the 30,000 layoffs were "as a result of the merger with Compaq" in 2004, and that the 2004 number included nearly 8,000 employees of other businesses that had been acquired by HP since 2001. HP had a net gain of employees under Fiorina's leadership, as well as recruitment in countries outside of the United States.

The organization had 84,800 employees when Fiorina was appointed CEO of HP in 1999. The company had 145,000 employees around the world after the merger with Compaq. HP had 150,000 employees at the time of her resignation in 2005, after HP had acquired several other businesses, but HP had only acquired 150,000.

During Fiorina's tenure as CEO, HP's sales doubled and the rate of patent filings increased. In addition, HP's cash balance increased by 40% to about $6.8 billion. However, the company underperforms by a number of other indicators: Despite a 70% increase in net income of the S&P 500 over this period, the company's debt increased by 50%; however, its stock price fell by 50%, outstaging declines in the S&P 500 Information Technology Sector Index and the NASDAQ. By contrast, IBM and Dell's stock prices dropped by 26.5 percent and 3.3 percent respectively during this period. The Compaq acquisition was not as transformative as Fiorina and the board had expected that the PC division of the merged entities would result in an operating margin of 3.0% in 2003, but it was 0.9% in that year and 0.9% in 2004.

During a 5 a.m. phone call, HP fell dramatically short of its estimated third-quarter earnings, and Fiorina fired three employees. The Hewlett-Packard board of directors discussed with Fiorina a variety of topics regarding the company's success and disappointing earnings results in early January 2005. The board suggested a move to hand over the board of HP division heads, but Fiorina resisted strongly. The classified plan was leaked to The Wall Street Journal a week after the meeting. Directors were also worried about the board's inability to collaborate effectively with Fiorina, according to BusinessWeek's Ben Elgin.

The board sacked Tom Perkins and coerced Fiorina to resign as chair and chief executive officer of the firm less than a month later. The company's stock soared 6.9% on the announcement of her resignation, adding almost three billion dollars to the value of HP in a single day.

She referred to board members' behavior as "amateurish and immature" in her book Tough Choices. In his report to Fiorina, Larry Sonsini, who investigated the leak related to Fiorina's forced resignation, referred to the board as "dysfunctional."

HP reported on May 13, 2008, the first since Compaq's purchase. According to the article, the price was estimated at $12.6 billion. Loren Steffy of The Houston Chronicle said that the EDS acquisition after Fiorina's tenure was evidence that her failed attempt to purchase a portion of Pricewaterhouse Coopers was justified.

Time magazine and Yahoo! announced the company's deal with Fiorina, which was described as a golden parachute by Time magazine and Yahoo! Fiorina's finance department received a severance package worth US$21 million, which included 2.5 times her annual salary increase as a result of increased vesting of stock options. Fiorina's brief tenure at HP earned over US$100 million in compensation, according to Fortune magazine.

Fiorina was voted the most influential woman in industry by Fortune Magazine in 2003, a role she held for five years. She was ranked in the Time 100 list of the world's Most Influential Women in 2004 and ranked tenth on the Forbes list of the 100 Most Influential Women in the World today. Fiorina was regarded as the epitome of "an alluring, turbulent new breed of chief executive officers whose blend grand visions with charismatic yet self-centered and demanding styles" in 2005. "Fiorina received a high mark in leadership style last year, but she failed to execute strategy" in the same year.

Following Fiorina's forced departure from HP, several commentators rated her as one of the worst American (or tech) CEOs of all time. InfoWorld grouped her with a list of products and ideas that fell, claiming that her tenure as CEO of HP was the sixth worst tech flop of all time, and branding her as the "anti-Steve Jobs" for reversing the goodwill of "geeks" and alienating current customers. During Fiorina's tenure as CEO, HP leased or purchased five planes, including two Gulfstream IVs, to replace four old aircraft, but only one of which had the capability to fly overseas. During a period of company layoffs, one Gulfstream IV, which was priced at US$30 million and made available for Fiorina's "exclusive" use, became a rallying point among HP workers who complained of Fiorina's expensive self-promotion and top-down leadership style. During her tenure, Yale School of Management Jeffrey Sonnenfeld said in August 2015 that Fiorina's leadership style had caused HP to lose half of its value.

Some have defended her company's strategic choices and viewed the Compaq merger as a long-term winner.

Transition of career and public persona

Fiorina's autobiography, Tough Choices, delves into her work and her views on issues, what constitutes a leader, how women can flourish in industry, and the role that technology can continue to play in reshaping the world in October 2006. "The book chronicles Fiorina's rise and fall as America's most influential female executive," NPR Books' analysis said.

Many books about Fiorina's involvement in the merger included Backfire, (2003) by Peter Burrows, and Perfect Enough: Carly Fiorina and Hewlett-Packard's (2004) George Anders' book "Moreson." "Two new books about the deal and its leading promoter, Carly Fiorina, show that there is a lot that investors will profit from this merger." According to a 2003 study by The New York Times, "three new books about the transaction and its lead champion," Hewlett-Packard's chair and chief executive officer, Carly Fiorina, "show that investors can profit immediately from the merger."

Fiorina joined the Fox Business Network in October 2007 as a business commentator.

Since resigning from HP, Fiorina served on the board of Revolution Health Group and computer security firm Cybertrust in 2005, Cybertrust began. She joined the board of directors of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), but she resigned from the board on November 30, 2009, citing "because she wanted to devote her full time and resources" to her Senate campaign. She had attended 17% of the TSMC directors' meetings in 2009 and 20% of TSMC directors' meetings in 2008. She served as a member of the MIT Corporation from 2004 to 2012. In 2005, she was a member of the World Economic Forum's Foundation Board (WEF). She is an honorary fellow of the London Business School. Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia had named her to the James Madison University Board of Visitors in July 2012. Fiorina was awarded an honorary degree and addressed the commencement address at Southern New Hampshire University in 2015.

Fiorina is the chair and CEO of Carly Fiorina Enterprises, a company and charitable foundation. Fiorina Enterprises was "a nonprofit company that helped Fiorina develop speaking engagements and appearances while still providing the public with details about her company." Fiorina Enterprises was one of the California secretary of state or the clerk of Santa Clara County, where Fiorina lives," a spokesperson for Fiorina Enterprises.

Political career

Fiorina has never served in public office, but she said that her status as an outsider has given her a positive reputation. "In an interview with Fox News in 2015, 82% of the American people now say we need people from outside the political class to serve in public service."

Fiorina served as an advisor for Republican Senator John McCain's presidential campaign in 2006. She was referred to in media outlets as a possible vice presidential candidate in early 2008, and The New York Times noted that although she did not want to run, she was also an executive who might run for president. Fiorina was appointed fundraising chair for the Republican National Committee's "Victory" campaign on March 7, 2008. She was reportedly a "google person" for the McCain campaign on topics relating to company and economic affairs. During the campaign, Fiorina's severance package from Hewlett-Packard was seen as a political risk by some.

Earlier that day, she defended Sarah Palin's appointment as McCain's running mate and said Palin was being exposed to sexist attacks, a charge she defended a few days later in reaction to one of Sarah Palin's Saturday Night Live parodies.

Fiorina replied "No, I don't know" when asked during a radio interview on September 15, 2008. But this isn't what she's looking for. Running a business is a different kettle of things." When she was asked about her answer, she replied, "I don't think John McCain could lead a major corporation." None of the candidates on either side of the election had the qualifications to lead a major corporation, according to Fiorina. Fiorina's remarks were widely reported in media, and potential television appearances were postponed, although she continued to chair the party's fundraising committee. Fiorina, responding to Barack Obama's win over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Primary, praised Clinton's efforts.

Newsweek referred to McCain's bid, calling Fiorina "the most prominent surrogate on economics issues in any of the major campaigns." Fiorina's generous severance program from when she first left HP and her leadership style came out in discussing the likelihood of her becoming McCain's running mate, astute political analyst Stuart Rothenberg pointed out the dangers of her potential loss, saying that she "is really straightforward to sketch out" as she will "become a talking point for Democrats." Fiorina was "like a dream come true" for Democratic opposition researchers, according to Rothenberg.

Fiorina provided unpaid service on the Defense Business Board, which addressed, among other things, staffing issues at The Pentagon.

Fiorina spent two years as chair of the Central Intelligence Agency's External Advisory Board, from 2007 to 2009, when the board was first established in 2007 by then-CIA director Michael Hayden during the George W. Bush administration.

Fiorina officially declared her candidacy in the 2010 Senate election on November 4, 2009, in an attempt to unseat incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer. Fiorina's campaign for the Republican primary in the Republican primary received a number of endorsements, one from Sarah Palin in the form of a Facebook note. Her campaign ad ad involving Republican rival Tom Campbell, starring a "Demon Sheep" – created by Fiorina advertising consultant Fred Davis III – attracted significant international attention. The California Democratic Party created a parody of the ad depicting Fiorina herself as a demon sheep after the ad went viral.

Fiorina received more than half of the vote in the Republican primary election for the Senate on June 8, 2010, defeating Campbell and State Assemblyman Chuck DeVoe.

Fiorina had failed to vote in the majority of elections, according to a Los Angeles Times search of public records. "I'm a lifelong Republican, but I haven't always voted," Fiorina said, "I'm a lifelong Republican, but I haven't yet voted, and I will have no excuse." People die for the right to vote, as you know. And there are many, many Californians and Americans who exercise the civic responsibility on a regular basis. I didn't know about this. "I shame on me."

Fiorina had conservative views on certain social issues, according to the Los Angeles Times. Except in the case of rape, incest, or endangerment of the mother's life, she opposed abortion. She voted for Pro Pro 8 as a private citizen, defining marriage as a partnership between one man and one woman. Fiorina, a California voter who expressed clear opposition to Proposition 8's constitutionality after a federal court found it unconstitutional on August 4, 2010, saying that California voters supported same-sex unions even after a majority approved the proposal in 2008. She argued that she opposed litmus tests for Supreme Court nominations and did not favor a federal "personhood" amendment over Supreme Court nominees. Global warming had been described as a "significant problem," but Fiorina said the evidence surrounding it is inconclusive, saying that "I think we should have the confidence to investigate the science on a regular basis." Fiorina likened Boxer's worries about global warming to worrying about "the weather," in a campaign ad. Both the coal industry and Koch Industries made their contributions to Fiorina. Fiorina opposed Boxer's cap-and-trade law, and believes that attempts to control greenhouse gases would cost 3 million jobs and are "wildly damaging."

Fiorina named her net worth between US$30 million and US$120 million in financial reports, and by October 22, Fiorina had contributed a total of US$6.5 million to her own cause.

Sarah Palin had been scheduled to appear at a Republican fundraiser two weeks before the November 2 election, but no one, Meg Whitman (the Republican nominee for Governor of California), nor Fiorina – both big-name Republicans – planned to attend. Palin's primary endorsement, according to the report, could jeopardize her general election candidacy.

Boxer won the general election, defeating Fiorina 52% to 42.2%.

From 2011 to 2014, Fiorina formed and established a political action committee (PAC) titled "Up-Project" (short for "Unlocking Potential Project). "Foster encourages women with new messages and new messengers by focusing on personal relationships with voters and going beyond the traditional methods of finding, persuading, and turning out voters," the Washington Post announced in November 2014.

Fiorina was named as chair of the American Conservative Union (ACUF), ACU's educational arm, on October 1, 2013. The ACU is a conservative 501(c)(4) group, while the ACUF is its affiliated 501(c)(3) group, which produces the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

Fiorina, a co-chair of CPAC 2014, gave a keynote address at the conference. Fiorina made a keynote address at CPAC 2015, one of the conference's top speakers. Fiorina was expected to announce her candidacy for president in that speech, but Fiorina did not make her official declaration until May 4, 2015, including an attack on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Fiorina resigned as the ACU Foundation Chair in early 2015.

Fiorina was ruled out running for president of the United States Senate in 2016, but she refused to rule out running for president in 2016 or Governor of California in 2018. Fiorina was "actively investigating" a bid for president in November 2014, according to The Washington Post. Her company history and position as the sole CEO and a "select of suited men" were all lauded, though Republican strategists pointed to her declining 2010 Senate results, unpaid campaign debt, and a general lack of women in a "sea of suited men" were all praised as positives, though Republican strategists referred to her prospects as "serious challenges" to her prospects. Fiorina said on Fox News Sunday that she had a "better than 90 percent chance" that she would run for president in 2016.

Fiorina declared her candidacy in a Good Morning America interview with George Stephanopoulos on May 4, 2015. Fiorina was the first person to publicly condemn Hillary Clinton. According to a report, Fiorina was seen as "the tip of the spear" in the Republicans' attack on the Clinton campaign because she was uniquely positioned to distinguish her critiques of Clinton from allegations of gender bias.

The social media and editorial outlets challenged Fiorina's tenure as president in a repeat of her 2010 senatorial run, emphasizing US job layoffs and offshoring she received from the company during her tenure as CEO, comparing it to high compensation compensation raises she earned during her tenure as a result of her high compensation compensation raises. Fiorina "worked really hard to save as many jobs as possible," campaign manager Sarah Isgur Flores responded to the work cut criticism.

Fiorina appeared in Fox News' first Republican debate on August 6, 2008. She was relegated to the debate earlier this day after failing to qualify for one of the Fox News prime-time debate slots. Fiorina's performance prompted news outlets to conclude she had won the early debate. Following the debate, several pundits correctly predicted that her polling numbers would rise. Fiorina announced an increase in fundraising on August 9, the ninth in the country's highest level of support. Fiorina came in fourth out of the sampled Republican primary voters with 8%, a jump in favor of six points from previous polling results. Fiorina misrepresented a Planned Parenthood sting film in another debate in September, hosted by CNN, referring to a grisly scene that was not in the picture. She was chastised for this in the media; the gaffe took up a large share of the post-debate coverage. Planned Parenthood denied she had lied, saying it was "not the first time Carly Fiorina has lied." In a December 2015 comparison of the presidential candidates with regard to their truthfulness, PolitiFact chief editor Angie Drobnic Holan discussed this particular lie. Fiorina's lowest result in the comparison was 50 percent falsehood, the sixth worst show in the category.

"Carly Fiorina is no doubt getting attention due to her unique background, but more and more people are interested in hearing "Fiorina" as the nation's most vocal critic of Hillary Clinton, according to the National Review, "Fiorina is already a problem solver" with Clinton's track as a career politician." "With so-called women's rights poised to play a pivotal role in the forthcoming election, Republicans need someone who can troll Hillary Clinton without seeming sexist," the Nation said. In her opinion, Meg Whitman, the former CEO of Hewlett Packard, said that a company background was not sufficient to be President of the United States, but that having worked in government is also crucial, and that "it's very difficult for your first role in politics to be President of the United States."

Fiorina reported a net worth of US$59 million, while US$12 million in income in 2013.

Her early debates in the Republican primary nomination, particularly her rebuttal of front-runner Donald Trump in the September 16, 2015 debate, saw her rise in the polls from 3% to 3% in October and down to 3% in December. Fiorina's campaign was suspended on February 10 after poor results in the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries. On March 9, 2016, Fiorina endorsed Texas Senator Ted Cruz for President, saying she was "horrified" by Donald Trump and that Cruz was the only one with a chance to deter him.

Cruz said on April 27, 2016 that if he were chosen as the party's presidential nominee, he would select Fiorina as his vice presidential nominee, but that her vice presidential campaign would be the shortest in modern American history.

From a Texas faithless voter, Fiorina received one electoral college vote for vice president. Fiorina was considered a candidate for the position of Director of National Intelligence during the 2016 transition period, following Trump's aspiration. Fiorina supported Joe Biden's presidential campaign in 2020 due to her disapproving of President Donald Trump.

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