By R. Brownell
1. From the classroom to the workforce
A bright student at an early age, Fiorina attended Stanford coming straight out of high school, where she would eventually earn her BA in philosophy and medieval history.
During her summers, she worked a variety of jobs ranging from hair salons to secretarial work to help pay the costs of school. Attending UCLA school of law, Fiorina dropped out after her first year, feeling like she was better suited to get right into the work force.
Nearly four years after dropping out of law school, Fiorina was a successful sales rep for AT&T, but would head back to the classroom to earn her masters in business management and marketing from the University of Maryland; she would later earn another master’s degree in management from MIT later down the road.
2. Executive decisions
Climbing the company ladder from sales representative to leading project officer, her first high profile assignment was to supervise the reconsolidation of AT&T’s Western Electric and Bell Labs into their own separate company in 1996. Fiorina’s success from the project would earn the company $3 billion.
3. “Forced resignation” or just plain fired?
After successful ventures with companies such as AT&T and Lucent, Fiorina’s trailblazing reputation went off the road during her time on the board of the Hewlett-Packard Company. Serving as the CEO of the company, the board cited a long list of damning issues, ranging from poor investing, alienating existing, longtime customers, and infighting between the head engineers. Fiorina left her position in 2005, and remained out of the private sector and public life for several more years.
4. Bandwagon to nowhere
Fiorina entered the political realm in 2007, when she became a media consultant for Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign. During her time on the McCain campaign trail, she was part of the team who selected Sarah Palin as McCain’s vice presidential pick, and would also become the chairwoman of the GOP’s fundraising “Victory Initiative”.
5. Upward comeback
After her time as part of the McCain/Palin ’08 team, Newsweek magazine called Fiorina one of the “25 most influential women of the GOP”.
6. Cancer survivor
In 2009, Fiorina was diagnosed with breast cancer, and underwent a double mastectomy. After months of chemotherapy, Fiorina had an almost complete recovery.
7. Rough political roads and demon sheep…
Fiorina campaigned for US Senate in 2010, against incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer, where she lost by a remarkable landslide. A memorable moment during her struggle of a campaign came when she was against GOP opponent Tom Campbell during the primaries. Fiorina launched an ad campaign that became to be known as the “demon sheep” commercial, where she claimed Campbell was a conservative in name only.
8. Presidential ambitions
After ruling out a potential 2016 run for US Senate or governor of California, Fiorina announced on May 4th, 2015, (the same day as Dr. Ben Carson’s announcement in Detroit) that she would be running for the President in the Republican primaries.