Filling A Big Shoe

Timothy D. Cook is the current CEO of Apple. He took over the position in August 24, 2011 succeeding Steve Jobs who died from pancreatic cancer in October 5, 2011. Cook had been the acting CEO since January 2011 when Jobs began a medical leave.

Filling the shoes of Jobs is certainly a big shoe to fill. Cook though does not seem to want to be another Jobs and has been steering the company quite nicely. Some had feared that the company’s value would go down dramatically after Job’s death but that hasn’t happened.

Cooked joined Apple in March 1998 as SVP of Worldwide Operations and also served as EVP of Worldwide Sales and Operations. He was the COO until appointed as CEO.

What many people may not know about Cook is his joining Apple then could have been considered a career risk. Apple was then not producing the great products it has now. In fact many were thinking about its extinction.  Soon after he came on board things started to look better at Apple.

Cook was responsible for managing all sales and operations worldwide, including sales activities and service and support. Aside from this he was a leader of the Apple’s Macintosh division and in developing reseller/supplier relationship strategies. Less than a year after he joined Apple the company was reporting profits in fiscal year 1998. This is was a complete reversal of the previous fiscal year which produced a staggering net loss of $1 billion.

Cook was born in Alabama on November 1960 and obtained a B.S. degree in industrial engineering from Auburn University in 1982. He earned his MBA at Duke University Fuqua School of Business in 1988.  Cook worked at IBM and other technology companies before joining Apple.

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.

Successfully Piloting A Supertanking

One thing about technology is it can bring about change that catches companies and industries flat footed. Such as when people were using horses and stage couches. Then the car came along and the horse and stage couch lost its place as a primary means of land transportation.

In the technology industry companies must be up-to-date and watch for changes in the horizon that could severely affect them. The disadvantage with a large company is if it has invested or is known for one technology and other technology comes along that will replace it, it could put the company’s existence into question.

Large companies are like supertankers; their size allows them to weather huge waves and storms. Maneuvering these behemoths is another thing. There may be a huge coral formation up ahead and if it doesn’t see it on time it cannot turn fast enough to avoid the danger.

IBM is a technology company. It was and is still big on large computers for large companies. Many observed though that it initially missed the PC market boom and they basically gave away the software market to Microsoft by having Bill Gates handle the OS for their products.

Samuel Palmisano is the chairman of “supertanker” IBM. He has successfully piloted IBM through changing times. Palmisano was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1951 and graduated with a BA in History from John Hopkins University in 1973. He was actually good enough of a football player to be invited by the NFL’s Oakland Raiders to try out for the team.

Instead he took a sales job with IBM and has been with the company ever since. He proved to be great at sales but was also in touch with the technology side of the business.  Rising through the ranks he became the CEO in 2002.

He had a big shoe to fill since predecessor Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. was largely responsible for saving IBM from collapse and guiding it to surprising recovery. For Palmisano he had his own ideas for the company. He continued the push for making IBM a service company. He also championed on-demand service which today is better known as cloud service. He took the bold step of selling the multi-billion PC business to focus more on service pointing out the low margin model did not fit IBM.

Palmisano took bold steps that are benefitting IBM today.

The Bold Moves of Ginni Rometty

There are many intelligent people out there, what separate leaders and shakers is they are willing to take the risks and execute plans which they believe will make their company better.  This has been the trait that defines Ginni Rometty.  It helped her become the CEO of IBM in January 2012. What cannot escape notice is that she is also the first female head of this venerable institution. As the former CEO and current chairman Samuel J. Palmasino noted it had nothing to with her being a woman.

Ms. Rometty pushed for the purchase of behemoth consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2002 which cost $3.5 billion. There were widespread concerns that the two companies did not culturally fit. The more independent style of PricewaterhouseCoopers was so different from the more regimented approach of IBM. The fear was that the consultants would eventually go away in droves and just leave the shell of a company.

Ms. Rometty proved these fears wrong by working closely with the consultants and having them come on board. This was a defining moment in her career. Yet this was not her only achievement.  For over a decade she has been at the helm of the giant services business of IBM and has been an influence in its development.  This business has played an integral role in IBM’s offering services and solutions and not only products in terms of hardware and software.

Prior to her position as CEO, Ms. Rometty headed IBM Sales, Marketing and Strategy.  As the overall sales leader she was responsible for the more than 170 international markets that IBM operates in. In 2010 performance was in excess of $99 billion.  She created IBM’s Growth Markets organization that is expected to provide around 30% of the company’s revenue by 2015.

Ms. Rometty graduated with a B.S. degree in computer science and electrical engineering from Northwestern University with high honors.  She has been in Fortune magazine’s “50 Most Powerful Women in Business” list for the past 7 years.

Those who have great ideas and are willing to take the risk often wind up on top.

Career Executive

John W. Thompson has been a career employee and executive. While many employees have transferred from one company to another in search of higher rank and compensation, Thompson was a dedicated employee of IBM for 30 years.  It was a fruitful career. He started as a storage sales representative and worked his way up the ladder.  He held many executive positions until he became the general manager of IBM Americas and a member of IBM’s Worldwide Management Council.

This was not the end of Thompson’s corporate career. In 1999 he joined the growing company Symantec Corporation as CEO and Chairman.  The company was already making $600 million in sales revenue when he came on board. Under his 10 year leadership he guided the company to more growth.  The company became one of the top providers of security, storage and systems management solutions in the world. Its products cater to all segments in the market from individuals to the world’s largest corporations. When he relinquished his CEO post in 2009, company sales totaled over $6 billion. He held on to the chairmanship until October 2011.

His top level position has made him wealthy affording him to make investments in promising startup companies.  Yet again he has taken on the role of CEO this time for Virtual Instruments, in 2010. Thompson has been a board of director for the company since 2009. He also serves on the board of UPS, the huge logistic provider.  Recently Microsoft announced his joining of their board.

Aside from his business undertakings Thompson has also served on the National Infrastructure Advisory Committee (NAIC).  This committee makes recommendations concerning the critical infrastructure of the U.S.  He served on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to look into the cause of the 2008 financial crisis and make recommendations to Congress on how this can be avoided or mitigated in the future.  He once served on the national board of Teach America. This group is focused on removing educational inequities among children.

Thompson is not known for having started a company, but he has made a significant impact by vastly improving companies or entities he has been a part of.