Energy Industry Focused

Some business executives wind up at the top of the heap by joining a company after having had a stellar career in another company which may not even be in the same industry.  For others they reach the top by being in the same industry for quite some time. They have the advantage of having a deep understanding of the industry.

The latter is the case with Ryan M. Lance who is chairman and CEO of ConocoPhillips since May 2012. In fact his college degree would tell you his dead set intention of being part of the energy industry. Lance graduated in 1984 with a Bachelor of Science degree in petroleum engineering from Montana Tech in Butte. The same year he graduated, he joined ARCO.

Lance spent 17 years of his career at ARCO. He held a number of management, engineering and operations positions in Alaska, the U.S. Lower 48, and globally. Lance reached the position of vice president of Western North Slope operations in Alaska.  As fate would have it this was bought by Philips in 2001.

Changes in ownership could adversely affect employees in the acquired company. For Lance it opened more doors. Lance became the general manager of the Lower 48 and Canadian operations for Philips in 2001. This position took him back to Houston.  He became vice president of Lower 48 in 2002. More promotions came in the way. Lance was responsible for Asia Pacific exploration and production in 2003 and was appointed as president of downstream strategy, integration and specialty function in 2005.

After more promotions and increasing responsibilities Lance was promoted to senior vice president, Exploration & Production-International in May 2009. Having climbed the corporate latter and a good grasp of the company he was appointed chairman and CEO in May 2012.

ConocoPhillips is the product of two companies Conoco and Phillips Petroleum. The two companies merged in Augusto 30, 2002. This is now the third-largest energy company in the U.S. Leading this giant is Lance with more than 28 years of oil and natural gas industry experience.

High Flying Lawyer

Richard H. Anderson is literally a high flying lawyer being the chief executive officer and member of the board of Directors of Delta Airlines. With all the legal and safety concerns relating to running an airline nowadays it seems t make sense to have a lawyer head an airline company than a former pilot.

Anderson was born in Galveston, Texas in 1957 and earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Houston-Clear Lake and Juris Doctorate from South Texas College of Law. He was in law practice then entered the airline industry in 1987 serving as deputy general counsel for Continental Airlines.  Then Anderson has a 14 year stint at Northwest Airline where he rose to become the CEO from 2001 to 2004. He then worked at UnitedHealth’s Commercial Markets Group holding the positions of executive vice president and president.

In September 2007 he became the new CEO of Delta. Anderson has initiated many changes at Delta to keep the company relevant given the competition and the every rising cost of aviation fuel.  The company also has partnership tie-ups such as its trans-Atlantic joint venture with Air France-KLM and Alitalia and other arrangements with other airline companies.

Anderson’s stature goes beyond Delta; he is currently the chairman of the Airlines for America Board of Directors and has been elected to become the chairman of the International Airline Transport Association Board of Governors effective June 2013.

He’s a lawyer who is flying high.

Leading A Mining Giant

Tom Albanese is the chief executive officer and board member of Rio Tinto one of the largest mining firms in the world. Albanese was born in New Jersey on September 9, 1957.  He equipped himself well academically for the job earning a bachelor’s degree in mineral economics from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Later Albanese got a master’s degree in mining engineering from the same university.

As it often happens the path to the top is not programmed. Early on Albanese did not imagine himself heading Rio because he worked for another company called Nerco.  In 1993, Nerco was acquired by Rio and Albanese was on his way to getting the top job.

He held various management positions and was appointed chief executive of the Industrial Minerals group in 2000. Albanese was then named chief executive of the Copper group and head of Exploration in 2004. 

Outside of Rio he has been a director of Ivanhoe Mines Limited from 2006 to 2007, director of Palabora Mining Company from 2004 to 2006. On the academe Albanese since 2009 has been member of board of visitors, Duke University, Fuqua School of Business.

The company that Albanese heads has a unique structure. There is Rio Tinto plc, a London listed public company based in the U.K. and Rio Tinto Limited, which trades on the Australian Stock Exchange and has headquarters in Melbourne. These two companies are called the Rio Tinto Group, joined in a dual listed companies (DLC) structure as a single economic entity. Rio has five principal product groups – Aluminum, Copper, Diamonds & Minerals, Energy and Iron Ore; with two support groups: Technology and Exploration.

Due to its size a whole country’s economic situation can have a huge impact on the company.  Take for example the case of China. Rio and Albanese watch closely the economic growth of this country as it has a significant impact on its bottom line. Last year with the cut in the forecast for Chinese growth Rio had to also cut its on sales and profitability forecast.  Albanese had to also make the tough calls to cut costs including jobs.  He also refused to receive a bonus when the company did not do well.

Davide Grasso: Developing of Innovative Nike Campaigns Such as “Write the Future”

With more than two decades of corporate leadership experience, Davide Grasso works from Nike, Inc.’s Portland, Oregon, headquarters as Vice President Global Brand Marketing. He has engaged with the footwear and apparel firm in a number of key marketing capacities, and has guided the firm’s style and branding direction for more than a decade.

Prior to taking his current position in 2010, Mr. Grasso served as the company’s Vice President of Global Football Marketing and spearheaded development of the innovative, “Write the Future” marketing campaign. Nearly three minutes in length, the film captures the kinetic energy of professional soccer and features the achievements and failures of stars such as Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo, Ronaldinho, Fabio Cannavaro, Thiago Silva, and Landon Donovan. It also shows the real time effect that these exploits have on fans around the world. In addition to top-flight soccer stars, the extended commercial featured cameos by NBA legend Kobe Bryant, tennis great Roger Federer, and Homer Simpson. In its debut week, the film set a record for the highest number of viral video advertisement views ever, and it ultimately earned the Cannes Grand Prix award.

Earning his Bachelor’s degree in Business & Economics at the University of Turin, Davide Grasso began his career as Account Executive with the consumer goods investment enterprise Armando Testa, SpA, He subsequently received his MBA from Bocconi University in Milan and joined Nike Europe as Product Line Manager. As Director of Marketing with Nike Italy for three years, Mr. Grasso achieved business growth of 200 percent and led the brand’s emergence as a national market leader. In particular, Nike’s footwear market share in Italy doubled from 18 percent to 36 percent. Davide Grasso has since fulfilled diverse corporate roles with Nike, including Apparel Marketing Director Europe, and Asia Pacific Region Vice President of Brand & Category Management.

Big Litter Sister

Maggie Wilderotter is the younger sister of Denise Morrison who is the CEO of Campbell Soup. She may be the little sister of Denise but she is a big little sister; she herself is a CEO. Maggie is the CEO of Stamford, Connecticut-based Frontier Communications Corporation. She came in as President and CEO in 2004 when the company was still known as Citizens Communications. In 2006 Maggie became the Chairman and CEO.

The company was renamed Frontier Communications in 2008. Maggie navigated the company as it grew to become the largest communications provider concentrating on rural America.  She has made it a priority to hire military veterans and reservists. The company has more than 15,200 employees who are all based in America serving customers in 27 states.

Before heading Frontier, Maggie worked at Microsoft as Senior Vice President of Business Strategy from 2002 to 2004 and was tasked with developing the company’s global business strategy.  Prior to that Maggie was the CEO of Wink Communications, an interactive television company. Microsoft invested in this company in 1998 and it was then bought by Liberty Media in 2002.

Born Mary Agnes Sullivan, she came from a family comprising 4 sisters who were taught the value of education and hard work by their parents. She earned her B.A in economics and business administration from Holy Cross College in Massachusetts and married her childhood sweetheart, Jay Wilderotter. Then her journey began that would lead her to head a company of her own.

Turning Around ING

Financial giant ING was in trouble in 2008 with a fourth quarter loss of €3.3 billion. Just how bad was it? It had to draw £22bn of government money to stay alive.  It already had in place a plan to enter Japan which had to be shelved. ING was also going to lay off 7,000 workers.

It was under these conditions that Jan Hommen became the CEO of one of the largest banking and insurance group in the world, ING.  Given the fact that he had only been with the company for around 4 years some were a bit skeptical with his appointment. It didn’t help that prior to joining ING he didn’t actually work at another financial institution but with companies in the heavy industry and electronics. He had previously been working with Alcoa and then at Philips Electronics.

He took on the job through and he acted quickly. There were three main tasks that had to be done as he later stated: correct and strengthen the financials, reduce the number of business interests and reinforce franchises in the company’s core markets.  Moving decisively, he acted to have the group exit from 10 of the 45 countries it operated in. The goal was to become a bank focused on Europe once again while keeping some smaller operations in strategically global locations.

The results of the changes led to a net loss of only €712 million for the first three months of 2009 as compared to a loss of €3.7 billion in the same quarter of 2008.  The banking division also recorded a profit of €132 million as compared to a €1.84 billion loss in the same quarter of 2008.

Other changes included the restructuring of the management team of the insurance division and partial sale of some assets.  All in all Hommen’s reforms have helped ING get back on its feet. There are fewer doubters now that he has shown result. Hommen became chairman of the Supervisory Board on January 2008.  His current positions are CEO, chairman Executive Board ING Group, Management Board Banking, and Management Board Insurance.

When the going got tough for ING they were fortunate to have leader who acted quickly and decisively.

A Trillion Dollar Responsibility

Heading a multimillion dollar business is already a lot of responsibility so you can imagine what kind of responsibility (and pressure) is involved in handling over a billion dollars worth of assets.  There are very few people in the world doing that and one of the few is Kathleen Murphy. She is the president of Fidelity Personal Investing.  This enterprise offers retail brokerage, managed accounts, annuities, mutual funds as well as other financial products and services to individual investors that number in the millions.

Aside from this Kathleen is also responsible for the annuities and life insurance business of Fidelity. This includes workplace savings business for tax exempt organizations, the entire advertising and brand programs of Fidelity as well as online strategies of Fidelity via Fidelity.com.

Among Kathleen’s outsized achievements was increasing last year’s customer account from 12.7 million in 2010 to 13.5 million in 2011. Under her watch assets under management increased to $1.1 trillion.

Before joining Fidelity Kathleen was the CEO of ING U.S. Wealth Management.  Kathleen who is a 25 year industry veteran began her career at Aetna where she stayed for 15 years.  She has always been an achiever.  In 1984, Kathleen graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. degree in economics and political science from Fairfield University. She finished her juris doctorate from the University of Connecticut in 1987 with highest honors.