HP’s Board of Directors must have a thing for Water CEOs. Today’s big news was the appointment of former eBay CEO Meg Whitman to the potentially toxic job of CEO of HP, replacing the short-lived Leo Apotheker. With that, HP’s board has gone back to a Gui Water CEO – Apotheker’s predecessor, Mark Hurd, was also a Gui Water.

(Side note, in following on to my ‘There Is No Such Thing as Coincidences in BaZi’ – Apotheker as a Rooster in his chart – no doubt he’s feeling very betrayed by the BoD of HP)

Analysts of course are giving Whitman lousy odds to begin with as far as the job is concerned – Yahoo Finance’s article “With Whitman, HP gets star power, imperfect fit” implies that Whitman’s appointment may not necessarily turn around HP due to her lack of experience in an engineering-centric company.

In taking on Whitman as CEO, HP is trading in a Direct Resource type CEO for a Eating God type CEO. (see Bazi charts of Apotheker and Whitman respectively below – note, times not accurate).

Leo Apotheker BaZi - Time of Birth Not Accurate

Apotheker is currently in the Yi Mao 乙 卯 Luck Pillar.

Whitman is currently in the Geng Yin 庚 寅 Luck Pillar.

A Direct Resource-centric CEO probably made sense at the time when HP brought Apotheker in because they were looking for continuity after Mark Hurd’s departure (which had less to do with poor performance and more to do with just indiscreet performances). A Direct Resource-centric CEO is a ‘holding position’ CEO in that sense – this is a guy you bring in who won’t do too much and will be a safe pair of hands as it were. However, the Board of Directors may also have been looking for a CEO who would be able to tolerate their insane demands of restoring HP to its glory without sacrificing the share price and don’t sack workers because it looks bad on us and don’t sell off divisions because that upsets the share price (I don’t claim to know what they are thinking, I’m guessing here) – people with heavy Resource-centric charts tend to be able to take a lot of crap so Apotheker may have struck them as someone who would be able to weather the storm.

On the other hand, maybe the BoD was just not a very good judge of character – heavy Resource-centric charts usually give rise to a person who presents a very assuring front and they can give the illusion of being great thinkers/deep thinkers. But their capacity for ‘doing’ however may not be there, and usually Resource-strong charts need good Luck Pillars in order to get things done. (Apotheker went through some of his best Luck Pillars when he worked for SAP, starting 1988). So HP maybe chose a good candidate, but just got him at the wrong time.

However, for the longest time, since the era of Carly Fiorina (a 乙 Yi Wood, 7 Killings type CEO), HP has struggle with defining itself and Hurd’s arrival brought stability but did not return HP to its past glory of being a leading innovator. If this is the objective of the HP board, then Whitman could be the right person because of the strength of the Eating God in her chart. Eating God’s excel at out of the box thinking, strategic vision and long-term planning – it is also one of the Stars that excels at innovation and is the true ‘unique’ Star of all the 10 Gods.  And coming at a time when the overall world economy is in the doldrums (thus, lowering general expectations for everyone anyway as to how big companies will perform), this might be the best time to re-engineer HP for the future. The question however is whether or not Whitman’s Eating God will be allowed to do its work, without having to stress about share-price and performance, the ‘Hurting Officer’ issues.