HP integration team leader Jeff Clarke resigns

IDG News Service - Jeff Clarke, the former Compaq Computer Corp. chief financial officer who led the integration team overseeing the company's merger with Hewlett-Packard Co., has resigned effective immediately, the company said yesterday.
Along with Webb McKinney, who also recently announced his plans to retire, Clarke was in charge of orchestrating the integration of the largest acquisition in the technology industry's history. After the integration, Clarke assumed the role of executive vice president of global operations in charge of HP's supply chain operations.
In a statement, HP said Clarke's resignation "was mutually agreed to and was appropriate," adding that it would make no other comment. An HP spokesman reiterated the company's reluctance to comment.
A call to Clarke's office at HP's headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., was greeted by an automated message informing callers that the line had been disconnected, and an e-mail message was returned to sender.
A number of HP executives have left the company in recent weeks, including the former head of Compaq's server division, Mary McDowell, and McKinney. Despite the departures, HP last week posted its best financial results since the merger with Compaq, with all divisions reporting a profit.
Clarke held a variety of positions within the finance departments of both Compaq and Digital Equipment Corp. during an 18-year career with the two companies, according to his executive biography on HP's Web site. The bio was pulled from HP's site Tuesday morning but was accessible using Google Inc.'s caching function.
Clarke was senior vice president for finance and administration as well as CFO at Compaq before HP announced its intention to purchase the company in September 2001. After the merger closed in May 2002, Clarke and McKinney shared responsibility for integrating HP and Compaq's systems and employees.
In December 2002, Clarke was moved to executive vice president in charge of supply chain and customer operations (see story).
While HP's decision to acquire Compaq had its share of critics, the integration of the two companies has gone about as well as anyone could have expected, and Clarke played a role in that process, said Gordon Haff, an analyst at Illuminata Inc. in Nashua, N.H.