What really happened between HP ex-CEO Mark Hurd and Jodie Fisher? - Fortune Tech

What really happened between HP ex-CEO Mark Hurd and Jodie Fisher? - Fortune Tech:

When Hurd was displeased, he let people around him know, and one person who was always around was Caprice Fimbres. A former public relations account executive, Fimbres was Hurd's "program manager," an aide with broad sway over the CEO's schedule.

Fimbres took on the challenge of allaying Hurd's concerns. At some point, she began thinking about a television show she'd been watching. Fimbres was hooked on reality TV, and that summer she'd been following a particularly bad NBC series called "Age of Love." Its gimmick was inane, even for an inane genre: "Age of Love" pitted a group of female twentysomethings—the "kittens"—against a group of fortysomethings—the "cougars"—vying for the affections of a real-life tennis star.

Apparently Fimbres concluded that experience in a made-for-TV cat fight was the ideal preparation for playing gatekeeper to one of the most important corporate CEOs in the world. Whatever her rationale (she declined to be interviewed), Fimbres decided to recruit among the cougars, according to Nadine Jolson, a publicist for some of the contestants, who says Fimbres contacted her at the time.

At least two other contestants from the "Age of Love" discussed an HP role with Jolson. But the tech giant ultimately hired a 47-year-old divorced single mom from Los Angeles named Jodie Fisher to act as a greeter at events where Hurd met top customers. Her job was to gracefully steer clients, ensuring that Hurd spent the right amount of time with the right people.