Robert P. Wayman (born July 5, 1945) was the former

chief financial officer A chief financial officer (CFO) is an officer of a company or organization who is assigned the primary responsibility for making decisions for the company for projects and its finances; i.a.: financial planning, management of financial risks, ...

(CFO) of the

Hewlett-Packard Company The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company. It was founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, Californ ...

from 1984 to 2006. He served as the company's interim

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

in 2005, and was an executive vice president, as well as a member of the H-P board of directors. He died on July 22, 2022.

Early life and education

Wayman is a Chicago native. He attended

Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...

Evanston, Illinois Evanston is a city in Cook County, Illinois, United States, situated on the North Shore (Chicago), North Shore along Lake Michigan. A suburb of Chicago, Evanston is north of Chicago Loop, downtown Chicago, bordered by Chicago to the south, Skok ...

, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in science engineering and a

Master of Business Administration A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular ...

Career

Robert Wayman joined the Hewlett-Packard Company in 1969 as a cost accountant at its

Loveland, Colorado Loveland is a List of cities and towns in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule municipality and the List of cities and towns in Colorado, second most populous municipality in Larimer County, Colorado, United States. Loveland is situated n ...

office, after a few years he moved to the company's headquarters at

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. Th ...

, where he held a number of finance positions before he was appointed as the company's CFO in 1984, he then reported to former CEO John Young. He served on the company's board of directors from 1993 to 2002, and rejoined the board in 2005. In February 2005, he was appointed an interim CEO, following

Carly Fiorina Cara Carleton "Carly" Fiorina (; ; born September 6, 1954) is an American businesswoman and politician, known primarily for her tenure as chief executive officer (CEO) of Hewlett-Packard (HP) from 1999 to 2005. Fiorina was the first woman to le ...

departure as a result of pressures from the board of directors; Wayman retained his finance responsibilities, and served in the top executive role until

Mark Hurd Mark Vincent Hurd (January 1, 1957 – October 18, 2019) was an American technology executive who was CEO of Oracle Corporation. He had been chairman, chief executive officer, and president of Hewlett-Packard, before his forced resignation in 2 ...

assumed the position in March 2005. The board of directors approved a $3 million bonus for his 52-day service as CEO, an unusual payout, that led to questions by some corporate governance experts and employees, but was defended by the company. On December 11, 2006, after 37 years with the company, Robert Wayman announced his retirement, which became effective on December 31. He was succeeded by

Cathie Lesjak Catherine "Cathie" A. Lesjak was the chief financial officer (CFO) of HP Inc. She became CFO of Hewlett‑Packard Company on January 1, 2007 and was the interim CEO from August 6, 2010 to November 1, 2010. During her tenure as interim CEO, HP paid ...

. In a Financial Times interview, Wayman said he began to plan for retirement since 2002 but reiterated due to the company's controversial deal to acquire

Compaq Compaq Computer Corporation was an American information technology, information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced some of the first IBM PC compati ...

. Wayman joined the Santa Clara-based

Affymetrix Affymetrix is now Applied Biosystems, a brand of DNA microarray products sold by Thermo Fisher Scientific that originated with an American biotechnology research and development and manufacturing company of the same name. The Santa Clara, Calif ...

board of directors on March 19, 2007, until it was acquired by

Thermo Fisher Scientific Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. is an American life science and clinical research company. It is a global supplier of analytical instruments, clinical development solutions, specialty diagnostics, laboratory, pharmaceutical and biotechnology s ...

in 2016. He was a board member of

Sybase Sybase, Inc. was an enterprise software and services company. The company produced software relating to relational databases, with facilities located in California and Massachusetts. Sybase was acquired by SAP in 2010; SAP ceased using the Syba ...

, until it was sold in 2010. He also served as director in other corporation boards, including Con-Way Inc., and CareFusion. He currently serves on the board of the nonprofit V Foundation for Cancer Research. He is a member of the Advisory Board to Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

References

External links

HP biography
(archived) {{DEFAULTSORT:Wayman, Robert Hewlett-Packard people Living people American computer businesspeople Northwestern University alumni American chief financial officers Kellogg School of Management alumni American technology chief executives Businesspeople from Chicago 1945 births