Hp Ceo Whitman Raises $3.5M For The American Heart Association

Hp Ceo Whitman Raises $3.5M For The American Heart Association
By Sal Pizarro

Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman put her competitive streak to use for a good cause last Thursday as chairwoman of the American Heart Association's Silicon Valley Heart Ball, a black-tie gala held on the grounds of the company's Palo Alto headquarters.

Whitman said she couldn't say no when Bob Swan, eBay's chief financial officer and a board member of the American Heart Association's Silicon Valley chapter, recruited her to host the annual event. But she had a definite goal in mind: Raise the most money at a Heart Ball by any chapter in the country. "I understand that Dallas is ahead of us," she told the crowd of 500 guests, many of them from Silicon Valley tech companies. "How does that happen?"

You can probably guess how the evening turned out, raising nearly $3.5 million for the cause through sponsorships, direct donations and the auction of a behind-the-scenes tour of DreamWorks Animation's studios that Whitman herself purchased for $30,000. A last-minute appeal to the room raised the final $25,000 that put the event over the top. "We're No. 1 in the nation," a jubilant Whitman said. "I'm glad to say we didn't lose to Dallas."