(This entry was posted by Kristie Bernard, HP Enterprise Marketing. Photo credit: Carla Osberg Photography)

Last week, I was fortunate to attend the 33rd annual Simmons Leadership Conference – a top event for professional women – and hear HP’s CEO Meg Whitman speak about her career and personal experiences.

The theme of the 2012 conference was “innovation and impact,” and it lived up to its promise of being a powerful motivator. I was inspired by how Meg began her session with an encouraging and remarkably personal opening. Addressing an audience of over 3,200 attendees (including many of my fellow female HP coworkers), Meg shared some memories of her first and most important role model: her mother.

One story she told was about how her mother became a mechanic in World War II, even though she had never before even looked under the hood of her own car.  The result of her mother’s influence: Meg & her sister were instilled with a “can-do” attitude.

Meg said that this “can-do” attitude set her up to get the maximum amount of learning in each part of her career (which included positions at companies as diverse as Hasbro, FTD, Stride Rite Corporation, Walt Disney Company, and of course eBay). A few lessons she learned through these experiences:

- The cost of inaction is far greater than the cost of making a mistake

- The ceiling is where you put it

- While great leaders can come from different backgrounds and have different styles, effective leaders are always true to themselves

- It’s all about the team: you need the right people with the right skills in the right place at the right time to be successful

- Mission is a motivation. People want to know what they do matters.

- The power of many: listen to your customers, your users, your teams as well as the people on front lines

- Establish credibility: say what you mean and mean what you say; deliver the results and manage the financials

- Determine what your product offerings could allow that has not been done before.

When Meg accepted the position of CEO at HP, she had already been on the board of directors for some time. During her comments at the conference, she said what struck her about HP was that the company is at the heart of how the world works. For example:

- HP operates in 170 countries and employs more than 349,000 people

- HP technology and services support the very fabric of global society.  Without HP...

...cell phone calls don’t get connected.

...credit card transactions don’t get processed.

...healthcare doesn’t get delivered.

...the international space station isn’t connected.

Meg ended the plenary session by sharing a realization she had on a recent conference call with financial analysts.  Sitting beside HP’s CFO, Cathie Lesjak, she realized that the Whitman-Lesjak CEO/CFO team may be the only all-women combo in the Fortune 50. How cool is that?

In all, it was an excellent experience hearing from our CEO and meeting up with old colleagues and new friends.  If you have any thoughts on my notes about Meg’s plenary session, please share them in the comments.  I look forward to hearing from you!

During the 2012 HP Catalyst Summit in Beijing, HP announced the creation of a new Education Innovation Fund.  HP’s fund will support teacher training in China through a $1 million donation to Zheijiang University and the National Commission of the People’s Republic of China for United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The fund will assist in training teachers how to creatively think about how information, communication and technology (ICT) can be leveraged to improve learning outcomes.

Innovation in education – particularly in the sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), fields – is crucial to the future of both China’s education system and schools across the world. HP was one of the first high technology firms to enter China 27 years ago and the company has consistently invested in advancing China’s long-term education and economic opportunities.

For a period of two years, the fund will provide training for more than 5,000 teachers from 500 rural and urban schools in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, and Chengdu, Sichuan Province, will be trained through the fund, impacting thousands of students yearly. These educators will then be invited to enter a competition for innovation in education, which will in turn directly contribute to China’s National Plan, including National Strategy in ICT Education.

HP’s STEM education efforts are not unique to China: In June 2011, during the first ever HP Catalyst Summit in New Delhi, HP pledged $1 million to improve STEM education in India.

About the Catalyst Summit

The 2012 HP Catalyst Summit brings together more than 120 educators, policy leaders and education experts from 15 countries to exchange best-practice techniques, explore technological solutions and collaborate to develop innovations in STEM.

To learn more about HP Catalyst, visit: www.hp.com/hpinfo/grants/catalyst.html

(Above: Consumers and small businesses now have an easy and free option to responsibly recycle office technology thanks to HP and Staples. All brands of technology, regardless of where they were purchased, will be accepted. Visit your local Staples store or www.hp.com/us/go/recycling to learn more.)

Today, HP announced a new program with Staples, the world’s largest office products company, which makes recycling used electronic devices – of any brand – easy, convenient and free. To participate, simply drop off used electronics items at the service desk of any Staples location across the continental U.S. Desktops, laptops, monitors, printers and keyboards are among the items accepted.

By making things simple for our customers, we’re hoping to collect and recycle tens of millions of pounds of equipment over the next two years.

We believe this collaboration reflects our industry’s need for more electronics recycling. And we’re grateful to have the Consumer Electronics Association’s vocal support for this effort.

“We applaud HP’s new partnership with Staples to recycle old computer equipment,” said CEA Vice President of Environmental Affairs and Industry Sustainability Walter Alcorn.  “This is a shining example of how our industry is stepping up to meet the challenge of recycling a billion pounds of consumer electronics annually by 2016.  Our industry goal is to make recycling electronics as easy as purchase, and this is definitely a step in that direction.”

At HP, we’ve recycled more than 2 billion pounds of electronic products and HP supplies since 1987. Our collaboration with Staples is another important piece to our sustainability goals around e-waste reduction.

Combined with HP’s existing collaboration with FedEx Office, it’s now possible for customers to take advantage of HP’s recycling efforts in more than 3,000 locations throughout the United States.

Learn more about our program, click here: http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-information/environment/computer-hardware-recycling.html

To find a Staples store near you, click here.