Hewlett-Packard announced that it's giving the leadership of its board of directors to CEO Meg Whitman, after two chairmen had led the board but not the company in the years following CEO Mark Hurd's ouster.

Whitman joined the HP board in 2011, arriving about five months after Hurd left the company, but she didn't take her CEO role until the fall of that year. She's wrapping up her third year as CEO. Analysts see the addition of chairman to her duties as proof that HP's now her company to lead in totality.

Over the last two decades, only three other people have chaired the HP board as well as held the CEO role: Hurd, Carly Fiorina and Lew Platt. It's usually been an ultimate vote of confidence about a CEO's track record. None of the CEOs began their leadership of the company while heading up the board as well. Platt took his chairman's role from founder David Packard within a year of becoming CEO. Fiorina took the post from Dick Hackborn, 14 months after becoming CEO. Whitman becomes the third woman ever to lead the HP board, following Fiorina and Patricia Dunn. The latter took her job in the wake of Fiorina's ouster.

Leadership of Hewlett-Packard remains an issue for the migrated as well as migrating 3000 customers -- at least those who are investing in HP's alternatives to MPE. Whitman's record since taking her CEO duties has been admirable and at times heroic. She presided over a company in the early winter of 2012 with a stock valued at under $12 a share. In the course of her CEO term, Whitman's weathered the detritus of weak acquisitions such as Autonomy as well as the steep slowing of its services business growth. Whitman voted for Autonomy's acquisition as a board member, early in her directorship. But since 2013 she has championed growth through R&D rather than purchasing companies such as EDS and Compaq.

The board now contains only one longstanding HP employee, Ann Livermore, who serves as executive advisor to Whitman. More than 15 years ago, Livermore was passed over for the CEO job in favor of Fiorina -- but Livermore represents one of the last board members whose pedigree is in technology rather than business management. Livermore has been an HP employee since 1982.

Ralph Whitworth, who's reported to be in poor health, resigned the chairmanship he held since last year to make way for Whitman, as well as vacating his board seat. Klaus Kleinfeld, chairman and chief executive of Alcoa, arrives at the board to take Whitworth's seat.