Hewlett-Packard Co.'s board is expected to oust Chief Executive Leo Apotheker and replace him with former eBay Inc. CEO Meg Whitman on Thursday, according to a person briefed on the matter.
The technology company's board was set to meet again Thursday morning, according to people familiar with the matter. An official announcement was likely Thursday afternoon, said one of these people.
After about a week of informal discussions regarding Mr. Apotheker, H-P's board convened its regularly-scheduled meeting Wednesday. Thursday's session was also previously scheduled, said one of these people.
Ms. Whitman, who joined H-P's board earlier this year, served as eBay's CEO until 2008. The 55-year-old ran unsuccessfully last year as a Republican candidate for governor of California.
An H-P spokesman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Apotheker's ouster would come after a turbulent 11-month tenure in which the market value of the technology giant was cut nearly in half. The ouster would be the latest setback for a company that has been buffeted by a decade of board acrimony, abrupt CEO departures and strategic drift.
Just last month, Mr. Apotheker, with the blessing of the board, announced a dramatic plan to revamp H-P by splitting off or selling its personal-computer business and spending $10.3 billion to acquire U.K. software company Autonomy Corp.
Board members publicly supported Mr. Apotheker and his strategy even as many investors criticized the moves and H-P's stock price took a major hit. Indeed, shares soared Wednesday on news that Mr. Apotheker might be out.
In Thursday afternoon trading, shares of H-P fell 5% to $22.84. Ms. Whitman's likely appointment was earlier reported by All Things D, which like the Wall Street Journal, is owned by News Corp.
The ouster would raise further questions about the governance of H-P. Its board came under some criticism for the way in which Mr. Apotheker's predecessor, Mark Hurd, was dismissed following an internal investigation into his relationship with a contractor. Mr. Apotheker overhauled the board after joining H-P, naming six new members this year.
H-P's board also drew criticism for its dismissal of former CEO Carly Fiorina in 2005 and an unrelated spying scandal in which private investigators it hired improperly accessed phone records and other information about some board members and reporters.
Among the gaffes Mr. Apotheker committed since becoming H-P's chief was a leaked memo in which he urged top executives to pinch pennies. He also oversaw three reductions of the company's financial outlook.
But the situation came to a boil last month when he sparked investor outrage by agreeing to pay a lofty premium for Autonomy. At the same time, Mr. Apotheker disclosed plans to potentially spin out the company's $40-billion-a-year PC business. He also canceled H-P's line of tablets and smartphones after about six weeks on the market.
Ms. Whitman joined eBay in 1998 after stints at Hasbro Inc., Florists Transworld Delivery and Stride Rite Corp. By the time she left the Internet company in March 2008, eBay's annual revenue was $7.7 billion, up from $86 million when she joined.
But concerns later mounted as eBay's once-torrid growth slowed amid competition from other e-commerce sites such as Amazon.com Inc. Ms. Whitman was also roundly criticized for eBay's 2005 purchase of Internet-calling firm Skype for $2.5 billion, for which it later took a $1.4 billion write-down. EBay has been viewed as a turnaround situation for the last few years under CEO John Donahoe.
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