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.