César Alierta Izuel: Telefónica CEO

César Alierta Izuel was born on May 5, 1945 in Zaragoza, Spain.   In 1967, César received a Bachelor’s Degree in Law at the Universidad de Zaragoza (Spain).  Three years later after earning his degree, he obtained a Master’s Degree in Business Administration at Columbia University in New York, USA.

In 1970 César began working at Banco Urquijo as a Financial Analyst. Later he became General Manager of the Capital Markets at Banco Urquijo in Madrid. In 1985 César founded Beta Capital and served as President and Chairman.  From 1996 to 1999 he was the CEO of Tabacalera, the tobacco company.

In July 2000, César became the Executive Chairman and CEO of Telefónica. He has been an effective CEO and in September 2005 received the Global Spanish Entrepreneur award in New York by the Spain-US Chamber of Commerce. This distinction is an acknowledgement of his job as president of Telefónica, leading the firm to entry into the Dow Jones Global Titan 50 index. Telefónica is the first Spanish company and one of the very few in Europe to be part of this index, made of the world’s 50 most successful, global and largest companies. 

Carlos Brito: AB Inbev CEO

Carlos Alves de Brito was born in 1960 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  He earned a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. He worked for Shell Oil and Daimler Benz.

Carlos was working for Shell Oil and had been accepted to Stanford Business School but couldn’t afford it. This was in 1987 and through a friend of a friend met Jorge Paulo Lemann who along with partners at Brazilian investment bank Banco Garantia ran a scholarship program for promising young people in their early careers.  Carlos got the scholarship.

After earning an MBA degree at Stanford, Carlos joined Brahma in 1989. This was a Rio de Janeiro-based brewer Lemann and his friends just bought. Carlos worked under Marcel Telles, a partner of Lemann and learned the art of cost cutting. Carlos would later be known for being extremely accomplished as a cost cutting executive who also had a knack for solving problems.

He rose through the ranks at Brahma. The firm merged with Sao Paulo-based competitor Antarctica in 1999 to for Cia de Bebidas das Americas, or Ambev. Carlos was appointed CEO of Ambev in 2004. Just a few months later Ambev announced a merger with Belgian beer giant Interbrew which had brands like Stella Artois and Beck’s.  Interbrew, the third-largest brewery, bought Ambev, the fifth-largest, for $11.5 billion to form InBev which instantly became the No. 1 beermaker in the world.

Carlos became zone president of North America and moved to Toronto.  He became CEO of Inbev at the end of 2005 at only 45 years of age. In 2008 Anheuser-Bush (AB) was successfully taken over forming AB Inbev. Later 1,400 employees lost their jobs. Carlos also promoted bright stars from lower ranks at AB. He was able to shave-off $2.25 billion in expenses.

Carlos and his team are fond of numbers measuring employee performance and promotion is always based on merit, laggards don’t stay long in the company. Some like his management approach others don’t but one thing for sure it has helped AB Inbev continue to grow and profit.

Luiz Trabuco Cappi: Banco Bradesco CEO

Born on October 6, 1951, Luiz Carlos Trabuco Cappi began working when he was 12 years old at a textile factory before joining a small department store in Marilla, a coffee-producing town around 250 miles west of Sao Paulo. He spent his early years running errands to Banco Bradesco, the second-largest non-government bank in Brazil.  Perhaps even then he already harbored thoughts of running the bank one day.

Luiz graduated from Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciencias e Letras de Sao Paulo, with a graduate degree in Social Psychology at Fundacao Escola de Sociologia e Politica de Sao Paulo. In April 1969, he finally began his career at Bradesco where he once ran errands to as a young boy.  He has held a number of positions with the banking sector. Luiz has held the position of Chief Financial Officer, heading Bradesco Insurance where he excelled and ultimately responsible for the listing of Bradesco at Level 2 in the New York Stock Exchange.

On October 10, 2009 Luiz became the Chief Executive Officer of Banco Bradesco.

Hiroo Unoura: NTT President & CEO

Hiroo Unoura was born on January 13, 1949.  He obtained a B.A. in Law from the University of Tokyo in 1973. Hiroo joined Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT)  also in 1973. He has held various posts in different aspects of the company including traffic operation management, sales promotion, and human resource management including labor relations, and corporate strategy planning and implementation.

In 2002 Hiroo became Senior Vice President and Head of Corporate Strategy Department as well as becoming Member of the Board. In 2008 he was appointed Senior Vice President, Head of New Business Promotion Office and President of NTT Investment Partners.

Hiroo was a significant player in planning and promoting NTT Group’s Medium-Term Management Strategy, focusing on FTTH and mobile broadband service development and NGN (Next Generation Network) vision released in 2004, accelerating transformation from traditional network career business to global-IP-based solution company as a “Service Creation Business Group” released in 2008, and executing acquisitions of Dimension Data plc. in 2010 and Centerstance Inc., in 2012.

Hiroo was promoted to President and CEO in June 2012. He has been taking the initiative in developing a new vision, “Towards the Next Stage” released in 2012, introducing a concept of a “Value Partner” for supporting customers’ transformation through offering global cloud services.

NTT is one of the largest companies in the world but just like any company it has it vulnerabilities. This comes primarily from the domestic front due to the fact that the Japanese telecommunications market is fast approaching the point of complete saturation. Thus NTT will be stuck in a market which will eventually have no growth. It had to rethink its approach in order to survive and prosper.

It is not the only Japanese company that has realized this and competitors like Softbank have already acquired a major U.S. mobile phone carrier, eAccess and also announced plans to take over Sprint Nextel by purchasing a 70 percent stake.

Given the huge resource at Hiroo’s disposal he can make many things happen and hopefully they are the right ones.  

Joe Kaeser: Siemens CEO

Joe Kaeser was born on June 23, 1957 in Arnbruck, Germany. Joe earned a degree in business administration from the Regensburg University of Applied Sciences. He then began his professional career joining the Components Group of Siemens in 1980.

Joe rose through the ranks of Siemens holding various management positions. Among them was a term at the Siemens Components Operations in Malacca, Malaysia from 1987 to 1988. He was named Vice President of business administration of the Opto Semiconductors Division in 1990.  Joe was promoted in 1994 to Executive Vice President and Chief Finance Officer aND later as CEO of the Group’s American subsidiary Siemens Components, based in Cupertino, California and also at Siemens Microelectronics, in nearby San Jose.

More promotions followed including the role of Chief Strategy Officer. Joe was eventually appointed as CEO of Siemens AG on August 1, 2013.

Siemens is a dominant global player in the industries it does businesses in. The firm groups its businesses in four sectors. These are: The Energy Sector, The Healthcare Sector, The Industry Sector, and the Infrastructure and Cities Sector. 

Henri Proglio: EDF CEO

Of Italian origin, Henri Proglio was born on June 29, 1949 in Antibes, France. He graduated from HEC Paris.

There are individuals who possess the character, skill and drive to become leaders and Henri fits in this category. He began working for Compagnie Générale de Eaux in 1972.  Henri reached the top position in the firm in a little less than twenty years becoming Chairman and CEO in 1990. Almost a decade later in 1999 he was named Vice-President of Vivendi Universal and Chairman and CEO of Vivendi Water. Henri became Chairman of Violia Environnement in 2000 and was also appointed CEO three years later.

In November 2009 Henri was named Chairman and CEO OF Electricité de France (EDF). EDF is one of the largest companies in the world. Running it has its challenges. To be efficient and profitable it has to be run like a private company but EDF is basically a state-owned utility company with the French government owning 84 percent of it. It is the French president who appoints the head of EDF from a short list of candidates.

EDF is also the world’s biggest operator of nuclear plants. Henri has performed very well. Although he was appointed by a conservative government, the current government of French President Francois Hollande kept him in place. Henri has had a good working relationship with the socialist government which has allowed EDF to increase its tariffs by 5 percent last year.

During Europe’s energy crisis of recent years, other European utilities suffered while EDF stocks have broadly outperformed the sector. Henri has also cut debt, pulled EDF out of its struggling North American nuclear business and ended legal dispute with water group Veolia over their energy services joint venture Dalkia. With his five year term ending in November 2014 there are even talks that the current government may extend his term.

Outside of EDF Henri is a non-executive director of CNP Assurances, Dassualt Aviation and Natixis. He was decorated Commander of the National Order of Merit of the Legion of Honour. 

Roberto Egydio Setubal: Itaù Unibanco Holding CEO

Roberto Egydio Setubal earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Production Engineering from Escola Politécnica Da Universidade De São Paulo in 1977. He went on to earn a Master’s Degree in Engineering from Stanford University.

Roberto has had a distinguished career in the banking industry. Among various positions he has held at Utaù Unibanco include being general manager from 1990 to 1994. Roberto has served as executive vice president of Itausa since May 1994 and has served as director since April 1995 and president and chief executive officer since April 1994.  He has been vice chairman of the board of directors since March 2003.

Outside of the bank he was the president of the Brazilian Federation of Banks (Federacao Brasileira de Bancos – FEBRABAN) and of the National Federation of Banks (Federacao Nacional de Bancos or FENABAN) from April 1997 to March 2001. Among others Roberto serves on the international advisory committee of the New York Stock Exchange.

Itaù Unibanco Holding is one of the largest companies in the world. Founded in 1944 and based in Brazil it has sales of $67.16 billion with 95,696 employees.