Meg Whiteman First Interview – Don’t Mess With The Swish – She Bags First Interview with Meg Whitman

Update:  AllThingsD followed up with another fine interview of five questions for HP new CEO Meg Whitman.  This came from their crack enterprise reporter Arik Hesseldahl.

Meg Whitman first interview as HP CEO is with ATD cofounder, star tech reporter, and executive editor Kara Swisher.

Yesterday — right after she took over the reins at Hewlett-Packard — high-profile Silicon Valley tech exec Meg Whitman and Executive Chairman Ray Lane got on the phone with me to talk about her new gig.

In the interview Kara unearths the fact that Lane wanted her as CEO before.  Oh yeah she was running for political office.

I like Whitman’s mojo where she says “HP is an icon and the place where the initial spark to create Silicon Valley came from and I am resolved to restore it to its rightful place.”

Ray Lane then goes on to position Leo… “Leo was very wise about figuring out what HP needed to do to add value,” said Lane. “But he did not have more important tools we needed, including operational excellence, people skills and communications skills.”

Whitman’s priorities according to Kara’s interview

1) Focusing on meeting Wall Street expectations for HP for the next quarter over the next 45 days. “We have made a commitment,” she said. “And we are going to do everything possible to keep it.”

2) Integrating HP’s $10 billion acquisition of Autonomy, which was made by Apotheker. “As you know from my time at eBay, I know a lot about unstructured data and it is a market where no one is a leader except Autonomy,” Whitman said.

3) Come to a decision about whether to spin off or keep its Personal Systems Group, which includes HP’s consumer PC business. “We will not sell,” said Lane firmly.

4) Getting a better feel for HP and its employees. “I have been on the board for eight months, but I really need to get in there and meet its people,” said Whitman. “That is perhaps the most important thing to get right.”

Of course priority #2 could be helped if she takes our advice in backing out of the Autonomy deal.  Here is Meg’s “How To Guide” – warning too good for eHow