All Articles Tagged "CEOs"
Have What it Takes to Be CEO?
(Inc.) — Sooner or later, every growing company reaches a point at which the entrepreneur behind it should start wondering whether he or she is the right person to be CEO. The answer has a lot to do with the company’s stage of development. The person who’s right for the start-up phase may not be right when the business reaches the management stage. Veteran entrepreneur Norm Brodsky found out the hard way that he was a terrible manager.
Boot Camp Boss That Bosses Your Boss
(Inc.) — Imagine this for leadership training: It’s midnight, and you’re dropped into the San Diego Bay. The water temperature is a brisk 57 degrees, and you’re surrounded by strangers. Ex-military-types begin screaming at you to swim—but you have no idea where you’re going. When you finally reach the beach, two miles later, you collapse in exhaustion. Welcome to Leadership Under Fire—you’ve just begun your 72-hour lesson in becoming a better boss. ”The purpose is to tell them that they can walk into any situation and come out ahead,” says Rob Roy, the founder of the Leadership Under Fire series and a former Navy SEAL officer. “They can’t walk into a boardroom and think they can’t make it. They’ll refer back to this time, and say ‘Yeah, this is difficult, but I can make it through.”
Since 2005 Rob Roy has been teaching—and enforcing—leadership through his own unique vision. His company, SOT-G, which puts on the Leadership Under Fire series in partnership with the Young Presidents Organization (YPO), has three full-time staff members, but will contract with 35-40 ex-Navy officers during a session. With over 25 years experience in the Navy and time served as a Navy SEAL, Roy has come to understand leadership in a way most leaders in corporate America don’t get to experience. For Roy, leadership has literally made the difference between life and death. “We offer something that you are not going to get from reading a book,” says Roy. “Motivation is not leadership—real leaders inspire, guide and give hope.”
Priming Black Women for Corporate Leadership
(Seattle Medium) — In the corporate world—the land of office supplies, paper cuts, and ink stains—there has long existed a glass ceiling. At first glance, the mailroom clerk sees the CEO chair within her grasp, just up the ladder of success. But, alas, there is an invisible barrier. Maybe they are not the “right” race or sex. Or both. Many Black women who aspire to one day furnish an executive corner office are faced with a “double outsiders” status in today’s organizations. “Right now there is only one Black woman CEO of a Fortune 500 company; that’s Ursula Burns at Xerox,” Michael Dutton, director of communications for the Executive Leadership Council (ELC) said. “Our members have achieved success on their own terms, and ELC shares their knowledge with leadership development opportunities.” According to the Black Women Executives Research Initiatives conducted by the ELC, there is a potential road map that can help Black women executives prepare for “C-suite” roles. “The C-suite is the staff of the CEO,” Dutton explained. “Those folks (who) support the CEO’s decision process—the chief operating officer, the chief financial officer, the executive vice presidents and the senior vice president. The CEO is occupied with reporting to the board of directors. It’s his staff that is managing the business and keeping the CEO informed.”
Executives Look for Place on the Obama Team
(New York Times) — Terry McGraw, the chairman and chief executive officer of the McGraw-Hill Companies, said he had been “very pleasantly surprised” by President Obama’s recent efforts to promote the interests of American business. But Mr. Obama could do better, he added, if he had a high-powered adviser with more of a business bent in the White House. “You’ve got to strengthen the team,” Mr. McGraw said in an interview on Tuesday. “You’ve got to get some gravitas.” Nearly halfway through Mr. Obama’s term, the dearth of business and Wall Street types in his administration rankles many executives, if only as a proxy for their unhappiness with his policies and occasional antibusiness political speech. And the White House has struggled to find such a person to fill the one spot about to open in Mr. Obama’s inner circle, the director of the National Economic Council, the job being vacated this month by Lawrence H. Summers.
Obama Woos CEOs as Frictions Ease
(Wall Street Journal) — President Barack Obama will convene a one-day summit of corporate chief executives Wednesday as part of a renewed White House effort to build support among business leaders for his economic agenda. Chief executives from Google Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., International Business Machines Corp., American Express Co., Dow Chemical Co. and Pepsico Inc. have been invited to the meeting at Blair House, next to the White House, to discuss trade, tax, regulatory issues and the deficit. The administration wants to persuade U.S. companies to unleash some of the $1.93 trillion in cash and other liquid assets in their treasuries. Cash as a share of total assets is at the highest level it has been in a half-century, the Federal Reserve said last week. Mr. Obama wants the nation’s biggest companies to invest that money in expansion and new hires in the U.S. But business leaders are slow to do so, in part due to uncertainty over taxes and coming regulations connected to the health-care overhaul and other initiatives.
CEOs Don’t Need an MBA to Get Rich
(Businessweek) — Ever since the dot-com bust, and particularly after the financial meltdown that began in 2008, all anyone in business schools seems to talk about is whether or not the MBA is still a relevant and practical degree. Do people need MBAs—particularly degrees from elite b-schools—to become successful chief executive officers with hefty paychecks? Exclusive new research suggests the answer is “no”. Bloomberg Businessweek asked compensation consultancy Equilar to analyze the pay disclosures of companies with annual revenue of more than $1 billion and to compile a list of the highest-paid CEOs.Aaron Boyd, head of research at Equilar, reports that more than half of the 50 highest-paid executives on the list lacked MBAs.
More Board Members Getting Hired as CEOs: An Unwise Corporate Trend
(Daily Finance) — So why has the number of directors being tapped for CEO posts more than tripled in the past year? “The main reason is a lack of proper succession planning by companies,” says Anita Skipper, corporate governance director of Aviva Investors. “The need for prompt management changes during the financial crisis may also have compounded the trend. Boards are more risk-averse. If no one from management can quickly step into the CEO’s position, the ‘safe’ alternative is to choose someone well known to the board, who understands the strategy and business, and may have previous experience as a CEO.”
Most Big-Company Women CEOs Are Also Moms
(Wall Street Journal) — Ursula Burns joined a rare breed when she took command of Xerox Corp. in July 2009: She became just the 22nd woman ever to run a Fortune 500 company. What isn’t so rare is that she’s a mom. In fact, all but two members of the female CEO elite at big U.S. businesses have motherhood in common. The finding, uncovered by author Douglas Branson, throws a curveball at the “mommy track” idea, and the belief that women must choose between being mothers and reaching the corner office. “You have a better chance of being a mother and becoming a company CEO than you did 15 years ago,” says Mr. Branson, a University of Pittsburgh law professor whose new book, “The Last Male Bastion,” examines female chief executives.
CEO Group Says Economic Risks Remain High
(WSJ) — The global business environment is riskier than ever and open to further devastating “black swan” events, according to a survey of senior U.S. executives released Thursday. The latest poll by The Business Council said optimism about the global economic recovery had subsided, and called for fresh measures to deal with economic, financial and environmental challenges, though business leaders don’t support further stimulus measures.
Virtustream Goes on Hiring Spree
(Washington Business Journal) –
Bethesda-based cloud services provider Virtustream Inc. plans to nearly double its staff over the next year and a half as part of a $40 million expansion, with an eye toward moving into European and Asian markets. Virtustream — whose clients include MicroStrategy Inc., Pepco, Fannie Mae and The World Bank — plans to hire 70 employees by the end of 2011 and move into a full floor of office space at 4800 Montgomery Lane. The new hires, about 40 of whom will work out of the Bethesda office, bring the company’s work force to 150.
