Meg Whitman is a distinguished American business executive, diplomat, and politician, renowned for her transformative leadership in major technology and consumer companies.
Born Margaret Cushing Whitman on August 4, 1956, in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, she grew up in an affluent family on Long Island.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Princeton University in 1977 and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1979.
Whitman has held CEO positions at eBay, Hewlett-Packard, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, significantly growing these organizations.
She also served as the United States Ambassador to Kenya from 2022 to 2024 under President Joe Biden.
In recent years, she has continued her influence through board roles, including her return to The Nature Conservancy’s Global Board in 2025 and her appointment as an independent director at CoreWeave in 2025, where she chairs the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee.
Siblings
Meg was the youngest of three children born to Hendricks Hallett Whitman Jr., a businessman who ran his own loan company, and Margaret Cushing Goodhue Whitman, a homemaker with an adventurous spirit who served in World War II as a mechanic for the Red Cross and later traveled extensively.
Her mother instilled a strong sense of independence and capability in her children through experiences like leading a three-month family camping trip across Canada and the western United States when Meg was six.
Whitman has an older brother, Hendricks Hallett Whitman III, who became a rheumatologist practicing in New Jersey, and an older sister, Anne Whitman, who has owned a day care chain but faced personal challenges including mental health struggles stemming from postpartum depression.
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Career
Whitman’s career spans consumer goods, consulting, entertainment, and technology, marked by her ability to scale businesses and drive innovation.
She began in brand management at Procter & Gamble, followed by eight years as a consultant at Bain & Company.
She held senior roles at The Walt Disney Company in consumer products, served as president of the Stride Rite Division (launching successful lines like Munchkin baby shoes), transformed Florists Transworld Delivery (FTD) into a for-profit entity as its president and CEO, and managed Hasbro’s Preschool Division.
In 1998, she became president and CEO of eBay, growing it from a small online auction site with modest revenue into a global e-commerce powerhouse with billions in sales by 2008.
In 2011, she took over as CEO of Hewlett-Packard during a turbulent period, overseeing its historic split into HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), where she served as CEO until 2018.
She later led Quibi, a short-form streaming service, though it faced challenges and shut down.
Beyond corporate roles, she ran unsuccessfully for Governor of California as a Republican in 2010 and transitioned into public service as ambassador, focusing on U.S.-Africa relations and economic development.
Accolades
Whitman has been named to Fortune’s Most Powerful Women in Business list multiple times, including topping it in 2004, and ranked highly on global power lists such as Forbes’ 100 Most Powerful Women.
She was inducted into the U.S. Business Hall of Fame and the Bay Area Business Hall of Fame, and honored by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Additional accolades include honorary degrees, such as a Doctor of Business Practice from Carnegie Mellon, the Harvard Business School Alumni Achievement Award, and various corporate citizenship honors.
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