16 Facts About Eckhard Pfeiffer

Eckhard Pfeiffer was born on August 20,1941, in Lauban, Germany [now Lublan, Poland] and is a businessman of German ancestry, who served as president and CEO of Compaq from 1991 to 1999.

Eckhard Pfeiffer was named as one of Time "Cyber Elite Top 50" for 1998.

Eckhard Pfeiffer graduated from Kaufmaennissche Berufsschule in 1963, and later received his MBA from Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas.

Eckhard Pfeiffer is a fan of fast cars and has owned a Porsche 911 Turbo and a 1962 roadster version of the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL.

Eckhard Pfeiffer joined Texas Instruments as a financial controller in Munich after graduation, and later became head of the company's European marketing division.

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Eckhard Pfeiffer joined Compaq from Texas Instruments, and established operations from scratch in both Europe and Asia.

Eckhard Pfeiffer opened up Compaq's first overseas office in Munich in 1984.

Eckhard Pfeiffer became president and CEO of Compaq in 1991, as a result of a boardroom coup led by board chairman Ben Rosen that forced co-founder Rod Canion to resign as president and CEO.

In 1996, despite record sales and profits at Compaq, Eckhard Pfeiffer initiated a major management shakeup in the senior ranks.

Eckhard Pfeiffer's vision was to move Compaq beyond its main business of manufacturing retail PCs and into the more lucrative business services and solutions that IBM did well at.

However, Eckhard Pfeiffer had little vision for what the combined companies should do, or indeed how the three dramatically different cultures could work as a single entity, and Compaq struggled as a result of a strategy that had the company caught in between the low end and high end of the market.

Eckhard Pfeiffer refused to develop a potential successor, rebuffing Rosen's suggestion to recruit a few executives to create the position of Compaq president.

The board complained that Eckhard Pfeiffer was too removed from management and the troops, as he surrounded himself with a "clique" of Chief Financial Officer Earl Mason, Senior Vice-president John Rose, and Human Resources Chief Hans Gutsch.

Eckhard Pfeiffer received $6 million in severance pay, and received $70 million worth of stock options that vested immediately as a result of his forced resignation.

Eckhard Pfeiffer was one of the founders of Accoona, an Internet search engine provider, and has been its chairman since December 2004.

Eckhard Pfeiffer serves on the boards of several major corporations including Ericsson, and DirecTV.