Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett Packard and author of Tough Choices, a memoir, was interviewed by Quentin Hardy, Silicon Valley Bureau Chief for Forbes Magazine.  In the final part of this interview, she talks about what it's like for a women  executive to be in the media spotlight.

CF:      I talk in the book about the impact of celebrity. But when I came to Hewlett Packard in 1999, I was not prepared for the degree of attention that would accompany my arrival. Does that sound naïve? Sure, it was naïve. I was so focused on the job, what do I say to the people of Hewlett Packard about what we need to do, how do I find common cause with them? How do I explain to them that although I’m not an engineer, I have been around engineers all my career and I think I understand what makes them tick, how do I talk about all that.

And the spotlight was intense. So what happens in that situation? It’s there. You have a choice. I had a choice. I could hide under my desk. But the problem is, you can’t lead hiding under your desk and you definitely can’t lead a transformation unless you’re out in front telling people where you want to go. So, I had to be out there. So you’re right, you use what you can to send a message.

QH:      And you make a TV commercial where you are standing in front of a model of the garage, embodying change.

CF:      Yes. And you know what, I probably shouldn’t have done that. A lot of employees asked me to do it. The garage was an incredibly potent symbol for the people of HP. It still is. It is why I spent the money to have it restored, because it’s a historic landmark and a symbol of innovation and leadership. Employees said to me, we want to know that you treasure this symbol. But I probably shouldn’t have done it because I think it was misinterpreted.

QH:      And the fame eventually kind of catches up with you. Just before the firing a lesser business magazine, beginning with the name F, puts you on the cover—

CF:      Quentin has a really thin skin about this stuff, that’s my conclusion.

QH:      Absolutely. I can’t take it, that’s why I’m up here. And it starts off with this really, for my money, bizarre moment in journalism where they sort of say they’re sorry for having made you a hero of business because it’s coming in bad. So they front themselves in this story, then they say they elevated you up and it’s time to ding you now. And you don’t really mention how that might have affected the board or how the media environment around you had changed.

CF:      Well, I think the negative press and the pressure on the stock price absolutely were creating on the board. Of course they were. Of course, a board’s job is to hopefully resist short term pressures. I’ve been on three big company boards where CEOs needed to be changed out. I think I do have some understanding of what a rational transition process looks like and I know what an emotional process looks like.

But look, Fortune Magazine—let me just say that—let me just say that I—of course it’s an honor. But what I said to the Fortune reporter in 1998 the very first time I was interviewed is I said if you want to encourage women to enter business, don’t number us. If you want to highlight successful women, wonderful. But when you number us one to fifty what you imply is that business is like tennis, there’s a women’s ladder and there’s a men’s ladder and women have to compete against each other because we can’t play with the boys and that isn’t what business should be about. Business should be about a meritocracy where everybody gets to play and where the game is better because everybody gets to play and the rules are the same no matter who’s playing the game.

QH:      And this was sometimes interpreted as your saying there is no glass ceiling. You were saying you wanted to compete with everybody. You’re a very competitive person and you want to compete as broadly as possible.

CF:      I think most women in business want to compete.

CF:      Well, gender is fate. I can’t change this. So, in that sense—

CF:      Well, look, first of all, as I explained very candidly in the book, I didn’t express myself well my first day on the job when people said what about the glass ceiling. I was, as I had all my life, I was trying to find common language and common cause with a group of people that I was now responsible for leading and talking about my gender wasn’t a way to find common cause. The vast majority of my employees were men. They didn’t care about my gender, they cared about a company they loved. And so that’s what I wanted to talk about. I hope that I created lots of opportunity for women inside HP. I was very proud of the diversity of the workforce that we had. I’ve seen a lot of the women who used to work at HP here today.

But it’s also true that if I’m going to write an authentic book, which was my goal, I have to talk about what it’s really like to be a woman in business and it is still different. A woman’s experience is still different. We don’t have yet enough practice dealing with women in positions of responsibility and authority so we fall back on old habits. And it is true, my very first meeting with colleagues, when I graduated from the University of Maryland with my MBA and I go off to AT&T and I’m a salesperson and my very first meeting with customers happens in a strip club. My first boss, when I become a manager for the first time, my boss introduces to me to my subordinates as our token bimbo. I mean, this is the truth. Should I not tell it?

QH:      And up to the end, you fire people and you say when a man does it, he’s decisive. When a woman does it, she’s vindictive. The language around it.

CF:      The language around it, the language around women still is different. We stereotype them differently, we caricature them, we perceive them differently. The best example of this I actually think comes from Bill Clinton. I was sharing a podium with him and someone asked him the gender question because obviously of Senator Clinton. And he said well, you know, when I used to talk about an issue—and let’s face it, Bill can talk, right—he said when I talk about an issue and I go on about it, people describe me as substantive, erudite, informed. He said when Hillary goes on about it, they describe her as lecturing. The language is different and so is the experience. We have made progress. We have progress yet to make.