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.