Moving Up Through A Number Of Companies

Kirk S. Hachigian was a consultant with Bain & Company then worked in general management and sales positions with Oak Industries. While some executives stay with one company Hachigian moved on to a third company, GE.  He reached the position of President and CEO of the Asia Pacific Operations Unit of GE Lighting.

Hachigian then hitched his star with Cooper Industries Ltd in 2001 as Executive Vice President for Operations.  By June 2003 he was responsible for all of Cooper Industries Ltd. Electrical Products businesses. Hachigian went on to hold a number of senior positions until he became the President and CEO on May 2005. He was elected Chairman in February 2006. Cooper Industries Ltd is now known as Cooper Industries plc. 

Cooper is a multi-billion dollar company with a storied past.  It manufactured key components used in the oil and gas pipelines of America.  The company also built the engines used by the U.S. Navy’s minesweepers and the Liberty Ships in WW II.  Cooper has adapted with the times and now produces and markets electrical components and tools in the U.S. and around the world. 

Founded in 1833 by brothers Charles and Elias Cooper in Mt. Vernon, Ohio it has relocated its corporate headquarters to Maynooth, Ireland.  The company has a very capable head who knows how to move around too.

In His Own Right

Paul E. Jacobs is the current Chairman and CEO of Qualcomm the giant technology company. He was born on October 30, 1962. Paul earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1984 from the University of California, Berkeley. He also earned an M.S. in Electrical Engineering in 1986 and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1989 all from the University of California, Berkeley.

After a year of post doctoral research in France he joined Qualcomm in 1990. Paul was in charge of leading the mobile phone digital signal processor software team.  Five years later he became the vice president and general manager of the combined handset and integrated circuit division.  Paul held number of positions until his appointment as CEO in July 2005 and elected Chairman in 2009.

There is something that Paul has in common with one of the company founders. He shares the same surname with Irwin M. Jacobs the person he succeeded to the company’s top posts.  Paul shares more than the surname; he is also the son of Irwin M. Jacob.

Qualcomm is not a privately held company. To have the son succeed the father is something of a rarity and naturally raises a lot of eyebrows in a publically traded company.  While Paul is aware of this he has proven that he can lead.

He is respected in his own right as an engineer. Paul has several patents to his name. There are those who view that he is a much broader thinker and visionary than his father. He isn’t only developing technology for a specific sector but looks at its broader applications. 

He has viewed the mobile phone beyond just being a voice technology instrument. Paul sees the whole world connected together wirelessly with microchips implanted everywhere. These devices can be placed in such things as a Band- Aid which can monitor the health of the area of concern and send the information to a mobile phone or other devices.

His push in this direction has given Qualcomm a head start over such rivals as Intel with respect to mobile smart phone communication and applications.  This is why Paul is a well-compensated CEO and you don’t hear anyone challenging his leaderships.  He holds the top two positions in the company in his own right.

The Enemy Within

Success can breed complacency and a sense of invincibility. Success can be its own worst enemy. In the business world there are many successful companies. Trying to sustain the success for decades on end is quite challenging. When you’re on the top you become the hunted.

Coca Cola is one of the most popular brands the world has ever known. It has been so widely successful over the years that one sometimes wonders where else it has to go. Yet it has great competitors who are also successful most notably Pepsi. There is the continuous war of who will be number one.

Muhtar Kent who is the chairman of the board and CEO realized that Coca Cola’s greatest enemy is itself. After all its successes he sees the company as having become arrogant and inward looking.  He began making changes when he took over 2008. He has set a long term target of doubling revenue by 2020.

While many have viewed the U.S. market as being mature Kent sees it as a growth market. He points to the fact that the demographics of the U.S. show it will have less of an aging population than Europe and Japan.  What he is also driving home every day to the company’s large number of employees is to be constructively discontent. 

Business executives who make it to the top are also known to have large egos. For Kent he sees that arrogance is a key weakness of the company and this inward looking culture must be changed. It’s like asking his employee to deflate their ego and pride about being Coca Cola employees; a very innovative and challenging approach to lead the company to greater heights.

Wesley Bush Looks To The Future

A lot of company’s take pride in tradition. There are leaders who see that something needs to be done to improve the company’s future and they are willing to make the necessary changes so that it can be done. These are the kinds of business executive who take the risk to make bold changes.

This is the case with Wesley Bush. After being appointed CEO of Northrop Grumman in 2010 the first major change he announced was the moving of the company’s headquarters. The company is a product of the merger between Northrop Aircraft and Grumman Aerospace.

Northrop was founded and has been based in California since 1939. So 70 years later the newly installed CEO wanted the headquarters moved to the Washington D.C. area. Previous CEOs did not want to do so.

The move was intended to bring the company closer to its major customer the U.S government. Northrop Grumman is not an ordinary company. It is the second largest defense contractor in the U.S. It makes nuclear powered aircraft carriers, nuclear powered submarines, and stealth bombers to name few of its products. There are many national security secrets kept by this company due to the nature of the business it is in. 

To be elected to head this kind of a company takes exceptional intelligence and talent. He is a corporate executive who rose through the ranks.  Bush obtained a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned a master’s degree in the same prestigious institution as well.

Bush worked for two other technology related companies as an engineer before joining TRW in 1987.  He was employed as a systems engineer in TRW’s space technologies operations. In 1999 when he was still 35 years of age he was already leading the company’s multi-billion dollar military space program.

Bush has been described as having an analytical mind while possessing the ability to think broadly about business. TRW was bought by Northrop in 2002. This development did not stop Bush’s rapid rise. He became the youngest senior executive at Northrop. In 2006 Bush was appointed president and in 2007 he became the chief operations officer.

Bush became president and CEO in 2010 and chairman in 2011; a top notch executive in a demanding industry.

Dr. Sagun Tuli’s Distinguished Career in Neurosurgery and Spinal Care

An experienced neurosurgeon and specialist in complex spinal cases, Dr. Sagun Tuli has held instructor responsibilities with Harvard Medical School for the past decade. The only female spine surgeon employed within the Harvard system, she has served as Assistant Professor since 2005. She has additionally practiced at the Center for Advanced Brain and Spine Surgery in Natick since 2011, assisting patients with diverse infectious, traumatic, neoplastic, and degenerative conditions.

Originally from India, Sagun Tuli, M.D. pursued her higher education in Canada, initially through an undergraduate degree in the sciences at the University of Toronto. Reflecting sustained academic achievement, she received a Marianno A. Elia Scholarship, a University Women’s Club Year II Book Prize in Sciences, and a Dean’s Honor Award during this time. Beginning medical studies at the University of Toronto in 1989, Dr. Tuli earned several prestigious medical scholarships and entrance into the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society.

From 1993 to 2000, Dr. Sagun Tuli completed a neurosurgery residency at the University of Toronto, additionally earning a Harvard School of Public Health M.Sc. in Epidemiology in 1998. She became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Canada while still engaged in residency training, also achieving award recognition from the Congress of Neurological Surgeons and the Hospital for Sick Children. Following a spine surgery fellowship at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Dr. Sagun Tuli accepted a position as Attending Physician and Associate Surgeon from.

Over the past decade, Dr. Tuli has achieved numerous academic publications and made regular public presentations. In 2007, she notably spoke before the Department of Neurosurgery, Children’s Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, on the topic “Methylprednisilone - the two edged sword.”

Running A Multi-billion Dollar Company

Some individuals work for so long and don’t make it to the top. We are not saying that they are failures. Just having a job means you’re not a failure already. There are just those special breed of individuals who make it to the top and stay there performing their jobs well.

This is the case with H. Laurence Culp, Jr. the president and CEO of Danaher Corporation. He graduated with a B.A. from Washington College in 1985 and later earned his MBA at Harvard Business School. Culp first worked at Accenture which was previously known as Andersen Consulting.

Then he joined Danaher Corporation in 1990 through Veeder-Root a Danaher subsidiary.  Three years later he became the president of this subsidiary.  Culp was then promoted as a group executive and corporate officer in 1995. His responsibilities included heading the corporation’s Environmental and Testing Measurement businesses.

It was all uphill after that. In 1999 Culp was promoted as executive vice president and the following year he became the COO. Then the following year again in 2001 he was appointed president and CEO of Danaher and holds these positions till now.

Danaher is a Fortune 200 publicly listed company that designs, manufactures and markets products and services to professional , medical, and commercial customers. It does business in 125 countries and had revenues of $16.1 billion 2011.

Culp has held his position for over 10 years now. Under his watch the company’s revenue and market capitalization increased four times to more than $16 billion and $35 billion respectively.  With this kind of performance it looks like he’ll be at the top post for some time to come.

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.

Managing Change At Exxon

Oil companies have the same high regard in the eyes of the public as those firms in Wall Street. To belabor the point, they’re not really well liked.  Yet ironically the same people who basically hate them have to sooner or later fill up their gas tanks. Unless of course if they’re using some sort of alternative fuel.

Since 2006 Rex W. Tillerson has been the Chairman and CEO of Exxon, one of the largest oil companies or any type of companies in the world. The position carries with it immense influence, wealth, and of course the accompanying scorn.  There is greed associated with oil companies and the “we don’t agree” with the findings of environmentalist about climate change.

Unlike his predecessor, Tillerson has acknowledged the existence of climate change. This is a very huge step in the right direction; whether it’s just maneuvering to assuage public opinion, that’s up for debate. Nevertheless even with Exxon’s size, investing $600 million (in 2009) for producing liquid transportation fuels from algae is serious money. It’s an amount that can go a long way to look for alternative fuel solutions.

Tillerson is an Exxon company man having joined the firm after graduating with a civil engineering degree from the University of Texas.  He rose through the ranks reaching the highest company position. Tillerson leads the company through a challenging time of lessening oil supply and climate change.

Transportation Pioneer Perry Mandera Has Led the Way in Shipping Innovations

A pioneer in the transportation industry, Perry Mandera leveraged his knowledge and skill as a truck driver, turning it into a $100 million-plus business. After starting The Custom Companies, Inc., in 1986, he broadened the scope of services traditionally provided in the shipping field. The full-service firm does it all: truckload and less-than-truckload shipments, domestic and international airfreight forwarding, and local and dedicated-contract cartage. Perry Mandera and his staff use the personal approach while working to meet and exceed shippers’ needs. Under his direction, The Custom Companies received the Pat Summerall Award in transportation as Champions of the Industry.

Following his graduation from high school, Perry Mandera joined the United States Marine Corps Reserves, where he gained his truck-driving savvy. Upon completing his active duty, he bought a cargo van and picked up and delivered shipments throughout the greater Chicago area before getting into the transportation business in a major way. Active in the industry, he serves on the Board of Directors of the Illinois Trucking Association, which named him one of the Top 100 American Transportation Executives of the Millennium. Mr. Mandera also serves on the boards of the Walter & Connie Payton Foundation and the Jesse White Tumbling Team.

With a heart as big as his business mind, the entrepreneur has gone above and beyond in providing community service. In response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, for instance, he sent more than 40 truckloads of food and other necessities to Mississippi and Louisiana. Focusing mainly on cancer research and children’s causes, he formed his own nonprofit organization, Custom Cares Charities. In other firsts, which entrepreneurs tend to accumulate, Perry Mandera became the youngest person elected as a Ward Committeeman in Chicago and the youngest fellow named Man of the Year by the Italian American Executives of Transportation.

The Good Investor

There are many people who have gotten very rich operating hedge funds. There are a host of arguments against hedge funds since they are just basically short-term traders and some do not see any value added in what they do. Some say they just sell to one another and make profits.  If one does manage a hedge fund and gives returns to the fund owners isn’t that providing value, too? After all isn’t this all about making money?  The arguments on this topic can be long. Other businessmen take different strategy.

There are those who take a long term approach to buying into a company like Warren Buffet through his Berkshire Hathaway. It looks for value stocks and holds them for a long period of time. Right now the value that Buffet gives is if he buys a company’s stocks it seems to indicate that this is a very well run company. It attracts a lot of good publicity for the said company.

Another man by the name of Ian M. Cumming takes a very similar style to Warren Buffet. He is the Chairman and CEO of Leucadia National Corp. This is a multi-billion dollar company that has been described as a “mini Berkshire Hathaway”. Historically it has been giving an annual return of 22%.

Yet the approach of Cumming has been more participative. He looks for distressed companies at cheap prices and gets involved in running the company by often taking controlling interest. Then a way must be found to increase productivity. With the company value significantly raised Cumming then sells the company at a profit from its investment.

Mind you he is not known as a corporate raider who buys a company often using its own assets as collateral to fund the acquisition and then selling it piece by piece. Cumming and Leucadia National bring something more positive to a company it acquires; fixing and improving it.

For companies that are struggling these are the kinds of investors needed. Ian M. Cumming brings to the table the type of investment practice that benefits everyone, the employees, management, and the shareholders.

Great Talent Knows No Nationality

If you’ve got great talent sooner or later people will take notice. One thing about talent is it is not a monopoly of one nationality. There are many business leaders who come from different nationalities.  Companies who know they have a great talent will seldom look at the person’s nationality but more on his competence and performance.

An example of this is United Technologies Corporation (UTC). This is a U.S. company whose subsidiaries include Otis (elevators), Pratt & Whitney (aircraft engines), Sikorsky (helicopters), and UTC Power (fuel cells). It had net sales of $58.2 billion in 2011 and had 199,900 employees.  Now America has an enormous pool of talent especially in business, but this U.S. company chose instead an individual from neighboring country Canada to head the firm.

This man is Louis R. Chênevert who became the president and CEO on April 2008. Less than two years later on January 2010 he was also elected Chairman. Chênevert began his career at General Motors in Canada working there for 14 years. He reached the position of general production manager. In 1993 he moved to Pratt & Whitney Canada as vice president for operations. His skills and talent eventually promoted him to president, a position he held until 2006.

His performance led him to become the president and COO of UTC in 2006. Two years later he became the CEO. His rise shows that talent can get you to the highest position where one can further influence change and direction.