Student Union and the Washington University College Republicans invited prominent political figure and business leader Carly Fiorina to speak to students on campus as part of the Trending Topics speaker series at Graham Chapel Jan. 29.

SU spent $80,000 of its $225,000 budget for Trending Topics speakers this year on Fiorina, making her the most expensive speaker of the semester. However, SU said that Fiorina’s wealth of experience made the speaker well worth the cost.

Grace Bruton | Student Life

Carly Fiorina speaks to students in Graham Chapel as a part of Student Union’s Trending Topics speaker series.

Fiorina served as the CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HP) from 1999 to 2005, making her the first woman to lead a top 20 company as ranked by Fortune magazine. In 2002, she oversaw the largest technology sector merger in history between HP and Compaq.

In the political sphere, Fiorina advised Senator John McCain during his 2008 presidential run. She won the Republican nomination for the Senate in California in 2010, but lost the general election; and in 2016, Fiorina was also a candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination and briefly served as running mate to Senator Ted Cruz.

“[Carly Fiorina offers] experiences ranging from business to politics to her work with nonprofits” president of the Washington University College Republicans junior Drew McPike said. “And we thought that those experiences would come together and provide for us an experienced applicant who could also serve as a fantastic model for leadership.”

Fiorina said despite the appearance of her career consistently being on an upward trajectory, her path was not always so easy.

“Through most of my college years, I was afraid of the future and insecure. Insecure about myself,” Fiorina said. “Everyone seemed smarter, better and more prepared with a better plan. I had a plan for my life too, but it blew up very quickly after college…While it is true that I went from being a secretary to a CEO, and all that sounds so smooth, life isn’t like that—and my life has not been like that. And while I have had great success, I have also had challenges and setbacks and tragedies, because those are part of life.”

Fiorina’s speech mainly addressed the core principles that have remained constant over her career in a variety of different fields like business, politics and nonprofit work. She also spoke on the importance of leadership and problem-solving.

“There are certain things that I learned along the way that are just always true… There are problems everywhere, and the people closest to them know best how to solve them,” Fiorina said. “And the catalyst for unlocking potential and solving problems is always leadership.”

Although she generally focused more on her career in business than her career in politics, Fiorina expressed discontent with government bureaucracy and professional politicians who are concerned only with maintaining the status quo.

“In 1789, George Washington gave a farewell address, and…said beware the rise of political parties because political parties and politicians will come to care only about winning, and not about governing…I have concluded that government doesn’t solve very many of our problems, and politicians don’t either,” Fiorina said. “And businesses can certainly contribute to problem-solving, but the people who are engaged in the most rigorous problem-solving day in and day out in our society are nonprofits and universities and faith-based organizations, in other words, civil society.”

In order to help foster this type of civil society, Fiorina engages in work with non-profit organizations such as the Unlocking Potential Foundation and Opportunity International, which seek to foster leadership and entrepreneurship in developing regions.

“Several years ago, I was chairing a nonprofit called Opportunity International. Opportunity International is in the business of microfinance, which is the lending of very small amounts of money to desperately poor people, because poor people are not poor because they lack potential,” Fiorina said. “They are not poor because they don’t want to better themselves. They are poor so often, because no one will take a chance on them. And so microfinance is the business of lending these desperately poor people small amounts of money so they can begin to build a business and lift themselves and their families out of poverty.”

At the event, many Washington University students applauded Carly’s endorsement of bipartisanship and collaboration.

“Fiorina provided insight into how she successfully solves problems in politics, business and beyond,” junior Anna Cossio wrote in a comment to Student Life. “In modern-day politics, politicians are primarily motivated by a desire to win, and refuse to stray from their platform. However, to truly solve problems, collaboration is key. To make meaningful progress, everyone may need to make sacrifices.”

To students such as Cossio, Fiorina drew on her own experience exploring different career paths in college to advise students on how to approach their careers.

“Just get a job. Any job,” Fiorina said. “Because with any job you get, you are going to learn. You are going to learn about yourself, you are going to learn about other people, you are going to learn a little bit better about how the world works; and all those things you learn will make you better prepared for the next job…Opportunity will knock, and when it does, don’t be afraid. Walk through the door. Worry about doing a good job, building your courage and your character and your ability to collaborate, and don’t worry about the rest.”