Turning Around ING

Financial giant ING was in trouble in 2008 with a fourth quarter loss of €3.3 billion. Just how bad was it? It had to draw £22bn of government money to stay alive.  It already had in place a plan to enter Japan which had to be shelved. ING was also going to lay off 7,000 workers.

It was under these conditions that Jan Hommen became the CEO of one of the largest banking and insurance group in the world, ING.  Given the fact that he had only been with the company for around 4 years some were a bit skeptical with his appointment. It didn’t help that prior to joining ING he didn’t actually work at another financial institution but with companies in the heavy industry and electronics. He had previously been working with Alcoa and then at Philips Electronics.

He took on the job through and he acted quickly. There were three main tasks that had to be done as he later stated: correct and strengthen the financials, reduce the number of business interests and reinforce franchises in the company’s core markets.  Moving decisively, he acted to have the group exit from 10 of the 45 countries it operated in. The goal was to become a bank focused on Europe once again while keeping some smaller operations in strategically global locations.

The results of the changes led to a net loss of only €712 million for the first three months of 2009 as compared to a loss of €3.7 billion in the same quarter of 2008.  The banking division also recorded a profit of €132 million as compared to a €1.84 billion loss in the same quarter of 2008.

Other changes included the restructuring of the management team of the insurance division and partial sale of some assets.  All in all Hommen’s reforms have helped ING get back on its feet. There are fewer doubters now that he has shown result. Hommen became chairman of the Supervisory Board on January 2008.  His current positions are CEO, chairman Executive Board ING Group, Management Board Banking, and Management Board Insurance.

When the going got tough for ING they were fortunate to have leader who acted quickly and decisively.

A Trillion Dollar Responsibility

Heading a multimillion dollar business is already a lot of responsibility so you can imagine what kind of responsibility (and pressure) is involved in handling over a billion dollars worth of assets.  There are very few people in the world doing that and one of the few is Kathleen Murphy. She is the president of Fidelity Personal Investing.  This enterprise offers retail brokerage, managed accounts, annuities, mutual funds as well as other financial products and services to individual investors that number in the millions.

Aside from this Kathleen is also responsible for the annuities and life insurance business of Fidelity. This includes workplace savings business for tax exempt organizations, the entire advertising and brand programs of Fidelity as well as online strategies of Fidelity via Fidelity.com.

Among Kathleen’s outsized achievements was increasing last year’s customer account from 12.7 million in 2010 to 13.5 million in 2011. Under her watch assets under management increased to $1.1 trillion.

Before joining Fidelity Kathleen was the CEO of ING U.S. Wealth Management.  Kathleen who is a 25 year industry veteran began her career at Aetna where she stayed for 15 years.  She has always been an achiever.  In 1984, Kathleen graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. degree in economics and political science from Fairfield University. She finished her juris doctorate from the University of Connecticut in 1987 with highest honors. 

A Huge Role

Banks nowadays have many capabilities. It can make international transactions and billions of profits are made all done electronically. Many people still associate banks with the brick and mortar branches that they’ve had for ages.  In fact many people will associate the strength of the bank with the number of bank branches they see.  Branch banking may be the old way of doing banking but it is still a big chunk of the business and will continue to do so.
 
Any person who is in charge of handling the branches of a huge bank belongs to the elite crops of managers. This person is literally in charge of the face of the bank. The branches are the front liners of the bank. For banking giant Wells Fargo, it has Carrie L. Tolstedt heading its Community Banking division.  She is thus responsible for retail, small business and business banking.

On its own the division she heads would be a huge company. It serves 22 million retail banking households with its more than 104,000 employees. It also caters to 2.5 million small business and business banking households. This unit has more than 6,200 retail banking stores and more than 12,000 ATM in 39 states and the District of Columbia to serve its customers.

Carrie can be considered a bank insider. She started her career in 1986 joining Norwest Bank in Nebraska.  Carrie joined another company FirstMerit Corporation then opted to rejoin Norwest.  Norwest merged with Wells Fargo in 1998. The merger did not slow down Carrie’s rise in the new organization; she eventually became the Central California regional president of Wells Fargo in 2001. From there it has been steady rise to positions of more responsibilities.

Her ascent at Wells Fargo has not gone unnoticed. In 2010 U.S. Banker magazine listed her as among the “25 Most Powerful Women in Banking”, and she held the number one spot. Carrie earned her B.S. degree in Business Administration at the University of Nebraska and finished the Pacific Coast Banking School at University of Washington.

The REIT Master

The real estate industry was severely affected during the 2008 financial crisis. Many companies no longer had access to credit and witnessed their own demise.  Ventas though was another story. The company’s chairman and CEO Debra Cafaro deftly guided the company through the crisis. Ventas has come out even stronger.

Ventas is a publicly traded seniors housing and health care real estate trust (REIT). It had been on an acquisition binge prior to mid-2007. Cafaro saw that there was trouble in the horizon and asked her senior managers to become defensive in nature. This totally shocked them as the only thing they knew was to grow, grow, and grow.

While her company’s stock price was high, Cafaro wisely raised equity and refinanced debt. When the financial crisis hit the company had a solid balance sheet and strong cash position.  Despite the crises and low stock prices she was also able to raise several hundred million dollars in equity and debt during the first half of 2009. This was outstanding considering the fact that there were companies who had little or no access to capital.

The following months saw Ventas lead the REIT sector as the market began to recover.  Ventas which is an S&P 500 company is now one of the leading seniors housing and healthcare REIT in the U.S. It has a well diversified portfolio of over 1,400 seniors housing and healthcare properties in 46 states, the District of Columbia and two Canadian provinces.

As to its financial performance, from 2001-2011 its compound annual total shareholder return of 23.4% greatly outpaced both the healthcare REIT and the overall REIT indexes. Much of the credit goes to Cafaro with her mastery of the real estate and REIT markets.

Chevron’s Company Man

John S. Watson is the chairman and CEO of energy giant Chevron Corp. He has held this position since January 1, 2010. While many companies search for high caliber executives to run their firm, Watson has been with Chevron for almost 32 years.  In fact he began his career at Chevron in 1980 and hasn’t worked for any other company.  Watson is a company man.

The advantage of having a company man run the firm is he doesn’t have to familiarize himself with the entity. This saves time and he can immediately go about instituting improvements. Another advantage of having a company man is he is a source of inspiration for others in the company that they too have a chance of being CEO. It’s good for a company’s morale.

Born in California in 1956, Watson received a bachelor’s degree in agricultural economics from the University of California, Davis in 1978. He then followed this up with an MBA from the University of Chicago in 1980.

After getting his master’s degree he has been with Chevron ever since. His first job at Chevron was as a financial analyst. Watson then held a number of financial and analytical positions in Chevron and Chevron U.S.A. Inc.  (CUSA). He went on to hold supervisory positions in the comptroller’s financial and profit analysis groups.

By 1996, Watson became president of Chevron Canada Limited. His rise in critical positions then happened in relatively fast successions. In 1998, he was elected a vice president of the corporation being responsible for strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions. Watson led the company’s integration effort after the Chevron-Texaco merger in 2000 and was then appointed chief financial officer.

He became the president of Chevron International Exploration and Production Company in 2005. The year 2008 saw Watson appointed as executive vice president for strategy and development.  He became the vice chairman of the board from 2009 to 2010 and then became the chairman and CEO.

The company Watson heads is truly global and huge. Chevron produced 2.673 million barrels of oil-equivalent per day in 2011. Around 75 percent of that production happened outside the U.S.  Its global refining capacity in 2011 was at 1.96 million barrels of oil per day.

 

Managing A Trillion Dollar Business

There are not many people in this planet who manage multi-billion dollars businesses. Fewer still are those who handle trillion dollar companies. One of the few who does is Mary Callahan Erdoes. She is the CEO of J.P. Morgan Asset Management.

This enterprise oversees around $1.3 trillion in assets. Mary is head of the fifth largest asset management company in the world. This also includes the second largest hedge funds as well as America’s most prominent private bank that caters to the ultrawealthy as well as more than 200 other investment classes.  She made her mark early; on her fist year on the job revenue reached $9 billion and profits rose 20% to $1.7 billion.

Mary is known for her hard work and competitiveness. She works in an industry known for its toughness and she has come out with good deals for her company. Among the positions she handled was heading private bank where client base increase 15% a year and assets growing by $238 billion. This got the notice of the top brass who asked her to head the asset management division.

Mary finished her bachelor’s degree at Georgetown University, majoring in Mathematics and was the only female to complete as a Math major at Georgetown at that time. She then went to obtain an MBA degree at Harvard Business School.

Mary worked for other financial companies before she joined J.P. Morgan Asset Management as head of fixed income for high-net-worth individuals, foundations and endowments.  Less than 10 years later she became CEO of J.P. Morgan Private Bank.  In 2009 she was appointed CEO of the Asset Management division.

Aside from heading a trillion dollar business Mary is raising 3 kids with her husband.

Not Everyone’s Friend

Luis C. Camilleri has a job the many ambitious executive would want to have, being the chairman and CEO of a large multinational company. Yet this company is not a friend to everyone which means it has a lot of detractors. The company we are talking about is Phillip Morris. This is the largest tobacco company in the world if one does not include the state-controlled China National Tobacco. It’s most popular brand is Marlboro.

The tobacco business is quite profitable with more than 1 billion tobacco users in the world based on facts from the World Health Organization.  According to the U.S. Public Health Service around 45% of U.S. smokers try to quit each year with only 4% to 7% of them able to do so.

The company does admit that tobacco products are addictive and harmful. They like to point out though that the company has been following regulations and that they are a legitimate business and not operating underground. 

Many executives would perhaps want to work in a company with a better public image. For Luis Camilleri though he hasn’t had any other job since joining the Philip Morris. Camilleri can be described as an international citizen. He was born in Alexandria, Egypt in 1955 but his family comes from Malta.

Since age 9 Camilleri had attended British boarding schools. He is fluent in English, French, Italian, and a bit of German.  In 1976, Camilleri obtained a degree in Economics and Business Administration from Lausanne University in Switzerland.

Camilleri’s first job was as a business analyst with W.R. Grace & Company in Lausanne. He then joined Philip Morris International Inc. in 1978 as a business development analyst with Philip Morris Europe. Camilleri rose through the corporate ranks being promoted to positions of higher responsibilities. He played a big role in developing the emerging markets of Eastern Europe.

Camilleri had been chairman of Kraft Foods from 2002 to 2007 and chairman and CEO of Altria Group since 2002. He became the chairman and CEO of Philip Morris International on March 2008 after the company was spun off from Altria Group, Inc.

Given the negative image of the tobacco industry in general Camilleri plays a challenging role in helping to manage the perception of the industry.  He has been up to the task and his company has also been making handsome profits.

Working Her Way To The Top

Deirdre Connelly was born San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1960 to an Irish-American father and a Puerto Rican mother. She spent the first 18 years of her life in San Juan before she headed for mainland U.S.A. to study and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics and marketing from Lycoming College in Pennsylvania in 1983.

That same year Deirdre joined Lilly as a sales representative and started her upward trajectory in the pharmaceutical corporate world. She moved to San Juan a year later in 1984 as a marketing associate. Deirdre then progressed through higher positions in the sales and marketing area. In 1995, she became general manager for Eli Lilly Puerto Rico, SA.

More promotions followed then in 2005 Deirdre became the President of US operations. This was a high point in her career but it was just the beginning of a new chapter. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) was interested in her and she joined the company in February 2009 as President, North America Pharmaceuticals.  This was a huge responsibility given that GSK is a British multinational company. She is basically the right-hand person in the U.S. to GSK’s CEO.

While Deirdre is the first woman to hold the position she does not feel any discomfort and believes there will even be more diversity (including nationality) at GSK given its own diverse customers. 

Recently GSK bought Human Genome Sciences for $3.6 billion. Using human genome data to help produce curing drugs has always been a challenging yet potentially rewarding combination. Deirdre has been appointed as president and CEO to lead this company.

Leading A Successful Spin-off

There could be a host of reasons why a unit of a company is spun-off and this unit has to fend for itself. Ameriprise Financial, Inc. was spun-off from American Express in 2005. Today Ameriprise is one of the largest diversified financial services company in the U.S and a member of the Fortune 500.

The man who has led this successful spin-off is James M. Cracchiolo who sits as chairman and CEO of the company. There are many challenges facing a company when it becomes independent. One of them is brand awareness.  Brand awareness was one of the top concerns of Cracchiolo and he believes the company has successfully created its own brand which has helped it to stand on its own.

The strength and soundness of the company that Cracchiolo leads was proven in 2008 when Ameriprise declined around $2.5 billion in federal bailout money offered to it as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program of the U.S. government during the subprime mortgage crisis.

Ameriprise serves the financial planning requirements of the mass affluent and the affluent. Under Cracchiolo’s stewardship the company acquired Columbia Management’s long-term asset management business from Bank of America Corp. for $1.2 billion in May 2010. This deal made Ameriprise the eight-largest manager of long-term mutual funds in the U.S.  He has also been leading the company’s foray into India.

Cracchiolo was born in 1958 and earned both his bachelor’s degree in accounting and economics and master’s of business administration degree in finance from New York University Stern School of Business. He is also a licensed CPA in New York State.

Before leading Ameriprise to the path of independence Cracchiolo was an American Express insider having been executive vice president and CFO of Shearson Lehman Brothers from 1990 to 1993 when it was a unit of American Express.  He then became senior vice president of TRS Quality, Global Reengineering from 1993 to 1997. Cracchiolo rose through several more senior positions until his last post as Group President of American Global Financial Services from 2000 to 2005. Since 2003 he has also been the Chairman of Threadneedle Asset Management Limited.

On the socio-civic side Cracchiolo serves on the Board of Advisors to the March of Dimes Foundation.

Leading The World’s Largest Defense Contractor

Marillyn A. Hewson is the President and Chief Operating Officer of Lockheed Martin Corporation and also the Executive Vice President of the Electronics Systems division. This is a very high position in the world’s largest defense contractor company. Yet there is even more in store for her.  On November 9, 2012 she was elected by Lockheed Martin’s Board of Directors as director and the next Chief Executive Officer and President effective January 1, 2013.

Her current position as Executive Vice President of Electronic Systems is already a huge responsibility in itself. This enterprise had sales of about $14.6 billion in 2011 with 45,500 employees. Its operation is global with facilities in the U.S, U.K., Australia, and Canada.

While some say she will have a steep learning curve to follow, Hewson is no doubt a company veteran having spent almost 30 years with the Lockheed. During that time she steadily climbed the corporate ladder and has managed systems integration, internal audits, global supply chain management, and aeronautics.

Her leadership skill will surely be put to the test given the fact that the top position was supposed to go to someone else. This person had to go though because of a relationship scandal. Lockheed will also have to look at new areas of growth as defense spending cuts will eat into its profit.

Hewson has willingly taken the challenge and will surely make the most of this golden opportunity.

ESPN’s Jed Drake: A Seminal Career in Sports Broadcasting

Asserting notable influence in the field of television sports broadcasting for more than three decades, Jed Drake presently leverages his talents to manage a wide swath of production activities at ESPN, Inc. Serving as Senior Vice President and Executive Producer of Event Production since April 2000, Drake boasts distinction as one of the network’s longest tenured and most engaged team members. He joined the company during its second year of operation in 1980 and played an integral role in developing the programming that helped secure ESPN’s long-held reputation as a recognized leader in global sports broadcasting. 

Already well established as a television anchor thanks to the previous experience he amassed at NBC Sports and NBC affiliate WPTZ-TV, Jed Drake was originally hired by ESPN as a director and producer. Drake undertook his first major overseas project in 1987 when he relocated to Australia to supervise production of the America’s Cup, an endeavor he would repeat the following year, as well as in 1992 and 1995. Drake achieved another professional milestone in 1988 at the Calgary Winter Olympic Games where he served as Director for ABC’s bobsled and luge event presentations. Installed as a Coordinating Producer at ESPN in 1989, he helped launch Major League Baseball with 11 telecasts per week, programming that quickly developed into one of the network’s cornerstone divisions. Jed Drake subsequently earned a promotion to Senior Coordinating Producer in 1992 and took over as Vice President of Remote Production in 1996. 

The winner of 13 Sports Emmy Awards, Jed Drake received his B.S. in Broadcasting and Film from Boston University. He is currently immersed in steering production of ESPN’s World Cup Soccer coverage as the internationally loved game gains popularity among American audiences. Aside from his duties as Senior Vice President and Executive Producer of Event Production, Drake continues to helm sports broadcasting initiatives at ABC.  

The Village Leader

When Kent J. Thiry took over as chairman of the board of directors and CEO of DaVita in October 1999, the company was tittering on the verge of bankruptcy. DaVita then known as Total Renal Care is a dialysis chain. It was being sued and investigated by the SEC and losing more than 40 percent of its employees each year.

Ten years later DaVita became a Fortune 500 company that had annual revenues of around $6.1 billion. Employee turnover was reduced by 11 percent and a stock price that had increased by over 2,600 percent. Davita’s employee number swelled to 34,000 with around 118,000 dialysis patients every week.

The company made a dramatic turnaround between 2000 and 2005 partially because of Thiry’s drive to establish a strong values-driven culture with focus on community. He transformed how the company operated and instituted a village-like concept. Employees are citizens and neighbors who watch out for each other and work toward the good of the community.

The company’s business objectives support the village instead of the other way around. According to Thiry, “We say we are community first and a company second.” He adds “That doesn’t mean we don’t care about profit, but that’s a means, not the end.” Thiry says his objective is not to create better business leaders but to create life leaders for whom business competence is a subset.

Thiry changed the name of the company from Total Renal Care to DaVita which he says is Italian for “he/she gives life”. Employees are known as teammates. Company-paid vacations can be won by teammates who do well.

Thiry is fond of wearing Three Musketeers costumes in conferences to cheer up the crowd. While a lot of what he does seems more on working at the human side of the business, the company is also said to be one of the leaders in its industry to use data to make decisions.

The factual figures show that he has truly turned the company around and earned huge profits.  The village “mayor” has produced results.

The Executive From South Africa

Talent comes from many places. One particular executive talent comes from South Africa. She is Bridget van Kralingen. She earned a Bachelors of Commerce degree from the University of Witwatersrand and obtained a Masters of Commerce degree from the University of South Africa.

A trained psychologist she started her career as a researcher at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.  Bridget spent more than 20 years at Deloitte Consulting. She was the Managing Partner of the Financial Services Sector before she joined IBM in April 2004 as global Managing Partner of the Financial Services Sector.  She has led turnarounds in the global business services in northeast Europe.

After leading Global Services in Northeast Europe, Middle East and Africa, Bridget was promoted General Manager, IBM North America. This position involves being responsible for revenue, profit and client satisfaction for all of IBM’S business in the U.S. and Canada.

In January 2012, Bridget was named Senior Vice President, IBM Global Business Services. GBS has over 100,000 consultants and practitioners. She now heads IBM’S consulting, systems integration and application management services in over 170 countries.

Bridget is most certainly going places and we’ll surely hear more about her in the near future.

Everyone Has A Chance

John Stumpf is the chairman, president and CEO of Wells Fargo & Company. During his early years it would be hard to believe he would be the head of one of the largest banks in the U.S. and the world. It goes to show that everyone has a chance of being successful and success has more to do with what you do with your life than the circumstances you were born in.

For Stumpf his early circumstances were not exactly ideal. He was born in 1953 in Pierz, Minnesota.  He grew up in a dairy and poultry farm as one of 11 children. Stumpf’s father was a dairy farmer. Of simple means, Stumpf shared a bedroom with is brothers until he got married.

School was not a bright spot in his life. He graduated in the bottom half of his high school class. He got a job as a bread maker in a Pierz bakery on account of the fact that his family had limited resources and his bad grades. He was able to enroll in St. Cloud State University on a provisional basis a year later.  Stumpf was able to get a job as a repossession agent at First Bank in St. Paul, Minnesota.

He obtained a bachelor’s degree in finance from St. Cloud State University and his MBA from the University of Minnesota.  In 1982 he joined the former Norwest Corporation (predecessor of Wells Fargo) in the loans department and later became senior vice president and chief credit offer for Norwest Bank, N.A.  Minneapolis.

Stumpf kept moving to higher positions. He was the regional president for Norwest Bank Texas from 1994 to 1998. He headed the bank’s acquisition of 30 Texas banks with assets totaling over $13 billion during his four years in that position.

Norwest Corporation and Wells Fargo & Company merged in 1998 with the surviving entity name being Wells Fargo & Company. For Stumpf it led to higher positions and more responsibilities and accomplishments.  He headed the integration of Wells Fargo’s acquisition of the $23 billion First Security Corporation in 2000. Stumpf was appointed Group EVP for Community Banking in May 2002. He headed one of the largest mergers in history with the purchase of Wachovia in December 2008.

Stumpf became president in August 2005, CEO June 2007, and chairman in January 2010. His early circumstance wasn’t an obstacle to his success.

Woman Executive On The Rise: Karen Licitra.

More women are breaking the glass ceiling in the corporate world. For some reason the senior posts have always been the reserve of male executives. Nowadays more and more women, though still not in equal numbers as men, are occupying top positions in large companies.

One of these women is Karen Licitra. She was born in Bridgewater, New Jersey and took up undergraduate studies at Rider College earning a B.S. degree in marketing. Licitra started her career at Johnson & Johnson (J&J) as a sales representative in 1984 with Ethicon, Inc.

Owing to her performance she gained promotions in sales and marketing. In 1991, she joined Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. as director of marketing. Then Licitra earned a promotion as vice president for product management.

J&J acquired the Biopsys Medical business in 1997. Licitra was subsequently named vice president for breast care management. Under her guidance this business was successfully integrated with J&J.  In September 2000, Licitra was named vice president and general manager, Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. and became president months later on December 2000.

On July 2002 she was promoted as a group company chairman for J&J and Worldwide Franchise Chairman for Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. including the Advanced Sterilization Products business and J&J Medical, Canada.

Whether male or female her corporate rise is a great achievement. It just so happens that she is a woman who is a source of inspiration for other career women.

Top Caliber Executive: W. James McNerney

Many executives aspire for the top position in the company they work for. Some get that position others don’t.  For a selected few not getting the top position can lead to top positions in other companies.  For other like W. James McNerney, Jr. it meant getting the top position in two other companies.

Walter James McNerney, Jr. was born in Providence, Rhode Island on August 22, 1949. His father was a professor and business executive.  McNerney went to Yale University and earned a B.A. in American Studies in 1971.

His foray into the working world after college wasn’t exactly a fast-paced rise in the corporate ladder. McNerney taught sailing in Lake Michigan. He then worked on a ranch in Colorado before holding and insurance position in London, England. Getting back to school he finished an MBA degree at Harvard University in 1975.

McNerney then started working for well-known companies. He first worked at Procter & Gamble and was a brand manager for two-and-a-half years.  Next he moved to McKinsey & Co.  in 1978 as a senior manager in Chicago, Illinois. He then took care of high technology interests for international markets working out of Germany.

The McNerney joined GE in 1982, a career defining move which cemented his credentials as a top caliber executive. He started out as vice president for GE Information Services and after that had a series of promotions and assignments as head of different multi-billion dollar businesses of GE.  His last position was as president and CEO of GE Aircraft Engines.

With Jack Welch’s impending retirement, the race was on for the next CEO of GE and McNerney was in the running. When it became obvious that he wouldn’t get the top post he left GE. Yet GE executives especially of McNerney’s caliber are always in demand. He became the CEO of 3M in January 2001.

3M operated in 60 countries, had customers in 200 countries and was a $20 billion technology company producing a range of products from health care to telecommunications. McNerney joined the company under tough economic conditions. He reorganized 3M and managed to keep it profitable.

Then on July 2005 McNerney joined The Boeing Company as president, CEO and chairman of the board. He now leads a $68.7 billion aerospace company which is the largest in the world.

A Spot On Career

Some people take a course in college and wind up having a career in a totally different field. For Charlene Begley her career path has been spot on. She obtained her bachelor of science in business administration from the School of Business Administration, University of Vermont in 1988.

That same year she joined GE and her career has been following an upward trajectory ever since. Begley has been assigned and promoted through a number of leadership roles such as vice president for GE Corporate Audit Staff, and president and CEO of a number of GE businesses including GE FANUC Automation, Transportation, Plastics, and Enterprise Solutions.

Begley is now the president and CEO of GE Home & Business Solutions and senior vice president and CIO of GE. On its own GE Home & Business Solutions is a very large enterprise that encompasses business teams of Appliances & Lighting and Intelligent Platforms.  It is a global $8.6 billion business.

Information technology has been looming large in the world of business and its influence has been truly significant; having created such giants as Google which is now a very dominant company.  How information technology is leveraged can be a game changer.  Thus Begley holds a very important position as CIO being responsible for GE’s Information Technology organization.

Begley has spot on career with huge responsibilities and a promising future ahead.

Beyond The Border With Robert J. Coury

There are those who dream big and other who dream even bigger. Take the case of Robert J. Coury.  Mylan Laboratories, Inc. was the third largest generic drug company in the U.S. when Coury became its CEO. You may think Coury was planning to make the company the number one generic drug maker in the U.S. He had other plans though. Under his leadership the company went beyond the U.S. border on its way to becoming the third largest generic drug company in the world.

Prior to joining Mylan, Coury was running his own company being the principal of Coury Consulting. This was a boutique business advisory business he established in 1989. He also ran a financial and estate planning firm called The Coury Financial Group.

Since 1995 Coury had been a strategic advisor for Mylan. His career became fully involved with the company when he was elected to the company’s board of directors in February of 2002. Coury was subsequently made the vice chairman of the board and CEO in September 2002. He held this post until the end of 2011.

Before going outside of the U.S., Coury worked on having a strong domestic base for Mylan. The company’s manufacturing capacity was doubled and research and development increased.  The company also worked with policy makers so that there would be a more level playing field for generic drug makers.

Then in 2007, Mylan under Coury’s leadership made its big move. The company bought Matrix Laboratory a major producer of active pharmaceutical ingredients based in India. After a bidding war Mylan gained the global generics business of Merck KGaA of Germany.  These strategic acquisitions turned Mylan into the third largest generics drug maker in the world.

The company now has over 1,000 products and does business in over 150 countries and territories.  Mylan has a very impressive presence in the U.S. where one out of every 11 prescription dispensed whether branded or generic is filled with its product.

Robert Coury now sits as the executive chairman of the publicly traded company.

Early Business Leadership Training

Denise Morrison had very early business leadership training. How early? Her father who was an AT&T executive told her about the importance of profit margins when she was still in grade school.  To get a bicycle she and her three other sisters (no boys in this brood) had to do a business plan.  This upbringing resulted in all four sisters becoming business executives.

For Denise it helped her become the President and CEO of Campbell Soup Company on August 1, 2011. It was not a straight forward path as she worked for a number of companies before joining Campbell in a senior executive position. Highly competitive even as a young child Denise had always wanted to become the CEO of a company.

She certainly started off in the right foot graduating magna cum laude from Boston College with a B.S. degree in economics and psychology. Denise was likewise inducted in the Order of the Cross and Crown Honor Society for academic and extracurricular achievement.

She then started her career in sales at Proctor & Gamble in Boston, Massachusetts. Looking for new opportunities Denise moved to Pepsi-Cola then Nestle, USA in the 1980s. Always on recruiters’ lists she joined Nabisco, Inc. in 1995 as Senior Vice President. Then Denise joined Kraft Foods as Executive Vice President and General Manager for Snacks and Confections divisions.

She joined Campbell in April 2003 as President for Global Sales and Chief Customer Officer. Denise was promoted to various positions before becoming the President and CEO. Having worked for so many companies and maintaining an upward career trajectory showed her true worth. Denise also never lost focus on wanting to become a CEO.

Winning Multimillion Dollar Verdicts and Still Showing His Sentimental Side

A champion of the underdog and other plaintiffs in need of representation, Theodore H. Friedman has adeptly handled civil and commercial cases for nearly four decades. Since opening his private practice in Manhattan, he has tried hundreds of cases, rising at 4 a.m. to prepare for court. Theodore H. Friedman has argued successfully before the United States Supreme Court and served as trial and appellate counsel in numerous significant cases, including DeLima v. Trinidad Corp., related to ship owners’ negligence; and Nallan v. Helmsley-Spear, Inc., which established landlord liability in specific circumstances. In Penson v. Rosenberg, he used his expertise to win a jury award of more than $50 million in an auto-liability case.

For the Practising Law Institute, Theodore H. Friedman has taught classes in trial preparation and conduct in New York and nationwide. He also acted as an invited lecturer at Columbia Law School on similar topics. In other teaching roles, the well-known trial attorney educated students in Israel in various subjects related to U.S. law at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Faculty of Law and served as a Visiting Fellow and Scholar at the University of Oxford’s Wolfson College in Great Britain.

For his accomplishments, Theodore has gained recognition over the years in a number of publications. Outliers: The Story of Success, a book written by Malcolm Gladwell, included two segments on the New York attorney. Calvin Trillin wrote about him in The New Yorker magazine in an article on jury selection, and former New York Supreme Court Judge Donald Sullivan complimented him in the New York Law Journal. A sentimental man as well as an entrepreneur and talented attorney, Theodore H. Friedman joined his sister in commissioning an original clarinet concerto by Einojuhani Rautavaara in honor of Mary Kerewsky Friedman, their late mother. Musicians have performed the piece in Carnegie Hall, at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and around the world.

Richard D. Fairbank: Leveraging Information And Technology

There are some people who get a clear picture of what is to come and take advantage of it. This means though that you must also have fortitude as people may not fully understand what you want to happen.

Richard D. Fairbank is the founder, chairman and CEO of Capital One. This is a diversified financial services company on the Fortune 500 list. While starting out in the credit card business the company is now one of the top 10 banks in the U.S. This bank provides a host of financial products and services to consumers, small businesses and commercial clients. It has approximately 1,000 branch locations in Washington, D.C., Virginia, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Louisiana and Texas.

Before it grew to be so large what became the bank was simply an idea by Fairbank and co-founder Nigel Morris. Their idea was a major innovation in the credit card industry. The two were main believers of information and how it could be used.

They would offer teaser interest rates and zero balance transfers.  They would also drop the annual fee and instead offer different credit cards to targeted segments of the population.  This was a form of targeted marketing which is now commonly used today. The information needed about customers was already available in the financial industry. The emergence of computers and software made the concept possible since it would mean analyzing an enormous amount of data involving a large number of people.

The two approached a number of financial institutions before over one and a half years later Signet Bank operating in central Virginia tried their system. While met with skepticism and resistance by some senior officials the idea took off. Fairbank headed the bank’s credit card division in 1993 after the departure of its former head.

Signet spun off the credit-card business into a subsidiary in 1994 and this became Capital One Financial Corporation. A year later this subsidiary had higher sales and growth than the parent company. Signet was bought by another bank but Capital One remained independent.

Today Fairbank is head of Capital One which is now a publicly traded company. He placed information technology in a leading role for the company instead of the tradition supporting role. The result has been a runaway success.

Airline Industry Executive David Pflieger: Selected Career Highlights

A seasoned corporate executive and professional pilot with a comprehensive background in law, David Pflieger brings a wealth of experience to his current work at the helm of Fiji’s national carrier, Air Pacific Ltd. Mr. Pflieger laid the foundation for a career in the airline industry following the completion of his studies at the United States Naval Academy. Ranked first in his class, he accepted a cross-commission offer from the U.S. Air Force to serve as a Squadron Executive Officer and B-52 Instructor Pilot, a move that placed him in charge of high stakes nuclear alert, conventional weapons, and cruise missile missions. Garnering numerous accolades for his performance including an Air Force Commendation Medal, David Pflieger subsequently assumed a role as Air Force Reserve Officer supervising eight C-130 cargo aircraft, a post that required a great deal of tactical skill and psychological focus.

While still serving in the Air Force, Pflieger returned to academia to pursue dual law and business degrees at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. After obtaining a Master of Business Administration and a Juris Doctorate in 1997, Mr. Pflieger joined one of Atlanta’s top legal firms where he primarily focused on litigation, intellectual property, and white-collar crime. From 1998 to 2001, he functioned as Chief Operations Attorney for Delta Air Lines, supervising the carrier’s in-house defense cases and all relevant compliance matters. Earning a promotion to Director of Flight Safety, David Pflieger restructured an entire department and implemented a closed loop risk assessment program, enabling Delta to achieve a record year of safe operation. Prior to leaving Delta, he was installed as Vice President of Operations for Song, the organization’s budget carrier.

Leading up to his tenure at Air Pacific, David Pflieger oversaw the launch of U.S.-based operations for Virgin America. As the company’s Senior Vice President of Legal and Government Affairs, Mr. Pflieger instituted a multiplicity of initiatives that resulted in a “Best Domestic Airline” designation from Conde Nast and Travel & Leisure in 2008, 2009, and 2010.

At The Head Of Ronald’s Crew

The story of Jan Fields, the president of McDonald’s USA, LCC is very inspiring. She started out as a crew member in 1978. Today Jan is in charge of the strategic direction and overall business performance of all the McDonald’s restaurant in the U.S. which totals 14,000.

From cooking fries to sitting on the chair where the company’s founder once sat has been a long steady climb and did not happen overnight. Being a woman Jan had to juggle her priorities but still moved forward with her career. She considers herself a mother, grandmother and a wife which aside for her great job all required some form of sacrifices along the way.

She spoke of that fact the one can have everything but not at the same time. She passed on a number of opportunities to advance her career so that her daughter could finish her high school in one place. Yet everything has worked out in the end.

Starting with fries she knows the company very well having worked at all levels from restaurants to management.  Among the key positions she has held on her way to the top include as president and senior vice president of McDonald’s Central Division and regional vice president of the Pittsburgh region.

On the civic side she serves on the board of United Cerebral Palsy, the Chicago Urban League, and other organizations.

James T. Hackett: Leading One Of The Largest Independent Gas And Oil Companies

Anadarko Petroleum Corporation was in need of direction. While many companies hire internally quite a good number also hire externally. Hiring an outsider has its cons like the new guy may end up not working well with insiders. It has its pros like you can get the best talent around if you have a larger pool to choose from.

Anadarko seems to have made the best decision in hiring an outsider since he has given the company new direction and has provided consistent profits year after year.  James T. Hackett was their choice. He may have been a company outsider at the time but he was and is a deep insider of the oil and gas industry having spent most of his career in that sector.

James was appointed CEO of Anadarko in 2003 as well as company president. He has made the company leaner and stronger. Three years after joining Anadarko he made an audacious move by acquiring two other energy companies involving a total of $21 billion. This move helped solidify Anadarko’s status as on one of the largest independent oil and natural gas exploration and product companies in the entire world.

For his achievements he became chairman of the board in 2006 and since May 2012 has been the executive chairman of Anadarko. Before joining the company James had been involved in the energy industry for a long time with a very impressive resume. He had been the head of a number of companies who were products of mergers.

Prior to joining Anadarko James was the president and COO of Devon Energy Corporation after it had merged with Ocean Energy where he was the chairman, president and CEO.  Ocean Energy was actually the product of a merger with Seagull Energy Corporation where he was also the chairman, CEO and president.

While mergers often cause the dislocation of senior executives for James it has always resulted in landing the top position; a testament to his business talent and managerial skills. He has lent his expertise in other fields such as being a former chairman of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and is vice chairman of the Baylor College of Medicine among other prestigious positions.

James earned a BS form the University of Illinois and an MBA from Harvard University.

 

The Next Leader Of General Dynamics

In June 7, 2012 General Dynamics announced that it current CEO Jay Johnson would be retiring on December 2012 and will be succeeded by Phebe Novakovic.  Only just May 2012 she was appointed as president and COO. In less than a year in her current position she will be the head of the entire company which is one of the major defense contractors of the U.S.

General Dynamics makes everything from Army tanks to nuclear submarines. It’s an accomplishment for anyone to be able to head it. Being the first woman to head a major defense contractor is an added feather in Novakovic’s cap.

She is no stranger to matters related to the country’s defense. She was formerly a CIA official and spent around four years as a special assistant to the defense secretary. Novakovic was deputy secretary of defense from 1997 to 2001.

Then she joined General Dynamics in 2001. Novakovic has served in a number of senior positions at General Dynamics including vice president of strategic planning from October 2002 to July 2005. She then was made vice president for planning and development from July 2005 to May 2010. Novakovic was EVP for marine systems since May 2010 before becoming president and COO.

Novakovic is part of the now growing trend of women heading large corporations.

Michael Duke: Running The World’s Largest Retail Store

Michael Duke is the president and CEO of Wal-mart, the world’s largest retail store chain. It is so huge that its performance is a bell weather for the U.S. economy. To be able to head such a large organization means Duke comes with exceptional skills. He certainly does and proven in his work performance.

Unlike other CEOs Duke did not graduate from an ivy league school or hold an MBA degree. He does have an industrial engineering degree from Georgia Tech which he has applied quite successfully in his professional career.

According to Duke his career path was guided by the advice he got from a high school physics teacher who told him to go to Georgia Tech and get an industrial engineering degree. His teacher also advised him not to get into the manufacturing industry but the service industry since that’s where the future lay.  Considering it was 1967 at that time it was quite a forward looking advice.

He did follow the advice and after getting his college degree worked for Rich’s Department Store in Atlanta.  In his early years he learned to manage stores and after 10 year moved on to logistics. Rich’s later became Federated and May Department Stores. He worked for that company for 23 years.

He was hired by Wal-Mart in 1995 to handle the company’s logistics. Being such an enormous company logistics is an integral component of what defines Wal-Mart as an efficient and successful company. Duke went about and made further improvements to the logistics component.

In 2005 he was appointed vice chairman and led Wal-Mart International.  With Duke’s guidance the international business became a fast growing segment of Wal-Mart with 3,500 stores and 680,000 associates in 15 markets outside of the contiguous U.S.  This segment of Wal-Mart is a behemoth in its own right having annual sales of almost $100 billion in 2008 when Duke was heading it.

In February 2009 he finally got the top post of president and CEO of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.  Perhaps Duke’s high school physics teacher never imagined how far and high his accomplishment would be.

It’s All About Bargains For Carol Meyrowitz

Most women are in the lookout for great bargains. There are actually branded clothes that can be bought at deep discounts when they are no longer in season or stocks levels need to be lowered. Like any woman Carol Meyrowitz is also after bargains, but it’s not just when she does shopping. It’s also when making deals with manufacturers. She after all is the CEO of TJX the top off-price retailing store in the U.S.

Carol began her career with TJX in 1983 starting out as a buyer.  Then in 1987 she started holding senior management positions with Marmaxx, Chadwick’s of Boston, and Hit or Miss until 2001. These were former divisions of TJX. Carol climbed further up the TJX hierarchy. She became executive vice president from 2001 to 2004 and then senior executive vice president from 2004 to 2005.  Carol was also president of The Marmaxx Group from 2001 to 2005.

Then her rapid rise came to an abrupt halt. From January 2005 to October 2005, her employment status changed to that of an advisor for TJX and she also did consultancy work for private equity firm, Berkshire Partners LLC.  This was actually part of her plan to look for a career outside of TJX.

TJX must have very much valued her talent; by October 17, 2005 she was appointed as president and became a member of the board of directors the following year.  On January 2007 Carol was promoted as the new CEO to TJX.

She heads a powerhouse retail chain that has over 1,700 stores. While TJX is associated with deep discounted prices, Carol has talent that the TJX board simply couldn’t discount.

Randall Stephenson: Leading AT&T

College degrees count but it’s not the only indicator for success.  People who are successful put in a lot of hard work and have a track record of achievements as they rise through the corporate ranks. A company like AT&T is more on the technology side of things. Yet it is led be someone who was into accounting and learned what he needed to know along the way.

Randall Stephenson graduated from the University of Central Oklahoma with a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting.  Later on he would also earn a Masters in Accountancy from the University of Oklahoma.  Stephenson started his corporate career with Southern Bell Telephone (SBC) in 1982.

From there he climbed the corporate ladder getting a number of leadership promotions in finance. Stephenson also got international exposure having been assigned in Mexico City as the director of finance for SBC International.  He was in charge of looking over the company’s ownership interest in Teléfonos de México. 

Stephenson then became the controller for SBC, then senior vice president for Consumer Marketing.  He became senior executive vice president and chief financial officer for SBC from 2001 to 2004. It was during this time there that the company was able to reduce its net debt from $30 billion to nearly zero in the early part of 2004. This financial condition allowed the company to make key acquisitions of AT&T wireless, AT&T Corp. and BellSouth.

From 2004 to 2007 Stephenson was the COO even through the acquisitions of AT&T and BellSouth. For all his hard work and accomplishments he got appointed as chairman and CEO of the company in 2007. SBC is now known as AT&T.  Ironically AT&T was the parent company otherwise known as Ma Bell which used to dominate the telecommunications scene in the U.S.; it was broken up and SBC and BellSouth were amount the spun off entities.

While not possessing a technology background Stephenson understands the technology game very well.  He has strengthened the company’s position as the world’s largest telecommunications company.  He also transformed the company into an international leader in mobile Internet services and IP-based business and communications solutions.

This accountant has become very astute and accomplished in the field of technology.

Patricia Woertz: Conquering The World Of Men

We try at best to emphasize that a person is hired or promoted based on qualification; it’s hard not notice the achievements of Patricia Woertz in what is basically the world of men. 

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1953 Woertz was often taken on summer tours by her parents to look at the business side of America. They visited an oil refinery and at another time a window factory. She also saw the headquarters of Gulf Oil and Mellon Bank.

In 1974 she graduated from Pennsylvania State University with an accounting degree. Woertz was already something of odd thumb back then. She took the job offer coming from Ernst & Young and was one of only two women comprising the 200 recruits.

One of the accounting firm’s clients was Gulf Oil Corp. who eventually hired her in 1977. Woertz proved her worth.  Even when Gulf Oil merged with Chevron she was given the critical task of looking for ways to pay down debt while divesting assets to meet federal regulatory requirements.  By 1991 Woertz became head of strategic planning at Chevron.

She then became president of Chevron Canada and later Chevron International in 1995.  In 2001, Woertz became executive vice president in charge of downstream operations when Chevron merged with Texaco. She had a rough first year in charge of 19 refineries in 180 countries. Losses caused her to act decisively including the firing of senior executives.  By 2004 profit stood at $3.25 billion.

She retired from Chevron on February 2006 only to wind up as CEO and president of Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) on April 2006; the chairmanship was added in 2007. ADM is one of the world’s largest farm-commodities processors.