Israeli Website Celebrates HP’s Jewish CEO While Scandal Looms
By Josh Nathan-Kazis October 11, 2010
The new CEO of computer hardware goliath HP is Jewish, Israeli news website YNet reported gleefully on Friday. Léo Apotheker, a former CEO of software goliath SAP, is the German-born child of Polish Jewish refugees with a degree from Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
But Apotheker arrives at HP in the wake of a series of scandals — scandals that were reignited on Sunday in a scathing column by New York Times business columnist Joe Nocera. Apotheker is replacing former HP CEO Mark Hurd, who was fired by HP for misusing his expense account. In his column, Nocera, a frequent critic of HP’s board of directors, pointed to a scandal at SAP involving intellectual property theft by a division of the company overseen by Apotheker.
“It takes your breath away, really: the same board that viewed Mr. Hurd’s minor expense account shenanigans as intolerable has chosen as its new CEO someone involved — however tangentially — with the most serious business crime you can commit,” Nocera wrote.
HP struck back at the columnist today. In a letter to the paper, quoted on the Times’ own Dealbook blog, company chairman Ray Lane wrote that there was no evidence that Apotheker “was involved” in the theft.
None of this, besides the firing of Hurd, bore mention in the YNet piece. The subhed of that story: “Computer giant’s new CEO Léo Apotheker studied in Jerusalem, loves hummus, speaks fluent Hebrew.”
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Dive In
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 3
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 4
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward ‘Another Jewish warrior’: Fine wins special election for U.S. House seat
-
Fast Forward A Chicagoan wanted to protest Elon Musk — and put a swastika sticker on a Jewish man’s Tesla
-
Fast Forward NY attorney general orders car wash to stop ripping off Jews with antisemitic ‘Passover special’
-
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.