Rich On Money

mark hurd Hewlett Packard

I was looking at Hewlett Packard and the Mark Hurd situation. As you know the Hewlett Packard CEO Hurd was fired recently because he was involved in a sexual harassment suit with a female vendor who arranged for business meetings with Hewlett Packard personnel and outside vendors. They were like mini conventions for HP. Hurd on occasion attended the meetings.

First of all as someone who has been and continues to involved with business meetings at a high corporate level, let me give you some words of advice as to proper conduct if you represent a company in a very high position. If you represent yourself, these words are appropriate also. 

People get set up all the time

You simply cannot in society trust people anymore to do the right thing. Mark Hurd and Hewlett Packard are learning that lesson right now. Hurd was taking down $10 million plus per year in pay and stock options, and he was worth every penny. The 54 year old CEO is the first man to run the company efficiently since Bill Hewlett and David Packard founded the company back in 1939 in Palo Alto, California. If you want to be protected as a CEO or wealthy private citizen, you have to take precautions. This is what I advise clients:

• As a CEO you never eat dinner alone with an attractive woman other than your wife. There must always be a third person present to shill for you. It’s a term in common usage meaning to protect your interests. 
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• You meet a woman in a bar, and you strike up a relationship. If you are smart, you do not take her to your hotel room. If you do, you should inform the bartender right there and then as to what is happening. If the lady finds it offensive, than let her go. Your money and your freedom is too important to blow it for an evening’s entertainment. This technique would have saved Mike Tyson from going to jail in Indiana for rape. 
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• If you are paying for the evening, take the cash you need, and put the rest and your jewelry in the hotel safe, and do it in front of the lady. You don’t need to be fed a drugged drink and wake up with no assets in the hotel room. By the way, always break out your money and credit cards into at least two, and probably three different locations when you travel. 
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• Carry copies of your credit cards, and passport with you when going overseas. This will make it much easier if things are lost to get back to America via the American embassy in the country you are stuck in. 
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• Along the same lines, I would maintain a copy of the entire contents of your wallet in your office or home. This includes copies of your passport and travel documents. If everything is lost or stolen, make sure this information packet back in the states is accessible to your wife or someone else that can then fax the necessary copies to your location or embassy.  

Follow the guidelines and you will live to play another day. If however you think you are God walking around in a man’s body, than I will virtually guarantee you that you will find yourself in over your head. You will drown, and have no one else to blame but yourself. Good luck