Chief Executive (U.S.) articles from April 2005

Chief Executive (U.S.) archives from April 2005

Selecting a CEO of the year.(EDITOR'S NOTE)(chief executive officers)(Editorial)
April 1, 2005... The ghost of Carly Fiorina hung over our recent judging session for this year's CEO of the Year. Given that she was in office for five and a half years only to crash and burn, and that the median CEO tenure at a major company is only four...

The Sarbox blues.(FEEDBACK)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2005... Regarding your CEO Summit analysis on Sarbanes-Oxley (January/February 2005): We have determined that public companies worried that the 109th Congress will revisit and toughen the Sarbanes-Oxley Act are in for some good news and some bad news....

Situational integrity's slippery slope.(FEEDBACK)(Letter to the Editor)
April 1, 2005... I read with interest the article by Robert Hooijberg ("How to Ensure Integrity," January/February 2005). Professor Hooijberg pleas for accountability, clarity and definition of values. His article did more to mystify the topic than to assert...

Darts & roses.(CEO WATCH)
April 1, 2005... DART... * CARLOS GHOSN. Great job at Nissan, Carlos baby, but now that you're going back to head up Renault, face up to the facts: Nobody can be the CEO of two major auto companies on opposite sides of the world. Must be the old superman...

Can Detroit shine like a show car?(PENSKE'S NEW CHALLENGE)(Super Bowl XL)
April 1, 2005... ROGER PENSKE HAS WON the checkered flag as a Grand Prix driver, forged the biggest dynasty in racing, and built a $14-billion automotive industrial, retail and entertainment empire, Penske Corp. Now, he faces a new challenge: making Detroit...

Darts & roses.(CEO WATCH)
April 1, 2005... ROSE... * MARTHA STEWART. Her PR spin on getting out of the slammer was brilliant. A "new" Martha was born. Troubled CEOs of the world, start taking notes. DART... * Harvard's LARRY SUMMERS, for failing to resolve his...

They come ... and they go.(EXECUTIVE SLAPS)(briefs)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... HERE IS OUR decidedly irreverent analysis of the latest comings and goings in the corner suite: [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Harry Stonecipher. Perhaps the most spectacular crash and burn ever. The 68-year-old grandfather, who came out of...

Execs divided on compensation.(CEO CONFIDENCE INDEX)
April 1, 2005... OVERALL CONFIDENCE remains at high levels, but chief executives overwhelmingly do not believe that the issue of how they are paid is presented fairly to the general public. The benchmark CEO Confidence Index jumped 6.6 points in March to...

Are we losing the globalization debate? The free-trade message is failing because the U.S. doesn't get it.(CHIEF CONCERN)
April 1, 2005... American business leaders who believe in free and fair trade are at risk of losing a significant battle. The small but vocal anti-globalization movement has pushed its message forward with great force and tenacity. We're facing a significant...

Answering Peter Drucker: on defining what a chief executive really does.(CHIEF CONCERN)(Column)
April 1, 2005... What is the work of the CEO? That was the intriguing question Peter Drucker posed to CEOs gathered for a university symposium last fall. I believe the most important responsibility of chief executives today is to transform their...

Successful CEOs get women in the game: but women need guts--and the hunger to play.(THOUGHT LEADER)(chief executive officers)(Column)
April 1, 2005... Harvard University President Lawrence Summers drew fire earlier this year for comments that suggested gender may play a role in why seemingly fewer women have succeeded in the fields of science and math. Summers' comments were almost an eerie...

Nestle's market wars: the food giant is drawing on local expertise to put marketing at the heart of its global growth strategy.(GLOBAL)
April 1, 2005... Peter Brabeck's office in Nestle's headquarters in Vevey, a small town in French-speaking Switzerland, overlooks the glassy waters of Lake Geneva and the snow-topped peaks of the Haute-Savoie Alps. It is a fitting setting for the CEO- and...

Fixing America's future: to stave off a U.S. work force crisis, CEOs are getting more involved in improving the nation's schools.(chief executive officer)
April 1, 2005... At first glance, the imposing high school on Irving Avenue in one of the poorer neighborhoods of Brooklyn presents a bleak picture of urban education. The facade of the once-stately brick building with collegiate gothic touches is marred by...

High-tech's spree: big IT companies are buying up small fry to head off competition.(TECHNOLOGY)
April 1, 2005... Joe Tucci has a bold thesis about the current wave of technology mergers and acquisitions. The chief executive of data storage giant EMC believes the CEOs running today's large information technology companies--IBM, Microsoft, Cisco Systems and...

What's wrong with the FDA? Either too fast or too slow, the agency can't find the right balance.(POLICY)(Food and Drug Administration)
April 1, 2005... It is February 2004 and the scene is the Holiday Inn in Bethesda, Md.: One by one, parents, grand-parents, siblings and friends tell a committee of scientists advising the U.S. Food and Drug Administration how teenagers they loved had committed...

Eco-friendly CEO? Cinergy's Jim Rogers ponders coal's future in a "carbon-constrained world.".(ENERGY)
April 1, 2005... Cinergy's Jim Rogers wants to position himself as a leader on climate change, but that's hard when you're CEO of one of the country's most coal-dependent electric producers. Its plants are major emitters of carbon dioxide (C[O.sub.2])--the most...

Doing diversity: the question isn't why to do it--but how. Here are a few savvy strategies that really work.(MANAGEMENT)
April 1, 2005... To chief executives who "get it," corporate diversity is a no-brainer: Create an organization that respects and welcomes all employees regardless of gender, race, ethnic background and sexual orientation and you win top talent from every group....

Southern sprawl: expensive housing, crowded schools, long commutes. How can CEOs attract top talent?(REGIONAL REPORT)
April 1, 2005... Spectacular views of greater Atlanta dominate the 16th floor headquarters of Cousins Properties, a major real estate firm. Stone Mountain, a local landmark, rises as a purple smudge on the eastern horizon. The Atlanta skyline looms 10 miles to...

The future of mail: CEOs discuss how to head off postage hikes.(ROUNDTABLE)
April 1, 2005... Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night--nor even outdated regulations nor economic woes--will stray postal couriers from their rounds. The latter two additions to the oft-quoted postal service homily, however, threaten to bring a...

California spas: body wraps, massages and facials--now they're for golfers and stressed execs, too.(EXECUTIVE LIFE0)
April 1, 2005... Here at the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa in Southern California, usually the main attraction is the championship golf course rather than the state-of-the-art spa. But increasingly, CEOs are putting down their golf bags and discovering that massages,...

Lending a hand after retirement: volunteering in distant lands may be more satisfying than golf.(VOLUNTEERISM)
April 1, 2005... In his wildest fantasies of retirement, John Anderson never pictured himself crouched in a half-bow and clapping three times as he approached an African king with advice on tourism and economic development. But Anderson, former chief...

All in the family: is a family limited partnership the right structure for you?(NET WORTH)
April 1, 2005... Billed as one of the most effective asset protection tools in a financial planner's arsenal, family limited partnerships (FLPs) have been touted as a way to safeguard assets while cutting income and estate taxes. But recent IRS challenges...

The shoppers from hell: is it wrong to call your least desirable customers "devils"?(FLIP SIDE)(Best Buy Company Inc.)
April 1, 2005... Recently, I came across a staggering statistic in the Wall Street Journal. In an article discussing Best Buy's daring attempt to drive away its worst customers, the Journal reported that out of 500 million customer visits to the...

Allow competition in education.(EDITORIALS)
April 1, 2005... THE STATE OF AMERICA'S K-12 school system is reminiscent of the steel industry while in its long decline--every player fought to defend its interests, but in the final analysis, the industry failed, at least in its original form. ...

What's right about CEO compensation.(EDITORIALS)(Chief executive officer)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... IT'S THAT TIME of year again--when chief executives have to sit back and passively await the tireless barrage of headlines proclaiming that you get paid too much. Nothing to be done about it, right? Wrong. In a majority of cases, the...

Choice, competition and the future of education.
April 1, 2005... In February, Dave Bing told reporters about his hopes for a new charter school in his part of town, and the problems behind those hopes. As CEO of the Bing Group, a Detroit-based auto supplier, he has found it difficult to find young hires who...

Measure and learn.(SPEAKING OUT)
April 1, 2005... Being able to assess a student population's grasp of material is key to improving education and complying with the No Child Left Behind Act's mandate for better school performance. Typically, that performance has been measured though statewide...

A second chance for poor readers.(SPEAKING OUT)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... The third grade is a key point in education, and students who can't read well have a hard time keeping up. "Among the students who are not reading successfully by then, 85 percent will never read successfully," says Robert Bowen, chairman and...

Hands on, online.(SPEAKING OUT)(Harvey Dean)(Pitsco Inc.)
April 1, 2005... Students don't all learn the same way, says Harvey Dean, president and CEO of Pitsco, the Pittsburg, Kan.-based learning company. In particular, he says, "we know that the dominant learning style of approximately 30 percent of students is...

The CEO's role in the education revolution.(Chief executive officers)
April 1, 2005... As charter schools bring competition to education, they are making the process faster, cheaper and better, and ultimately delivering more value to students. CEOs should take note, because today's students are tomorrow's workers. ...

CEO Confidence jumps: growing concern over confidence in the future.(The CEO Confidence Index Report)
April 1, 2005... Montvale, NJ -- Bouncing back from a sluggish start to 2005, the Chief Executive CEO Confidence Index jumped 6.6 points this month to 170.1. Overall confidence, which jumped 4% from last month, mirrors the 3.6% increase in the Dow from January...

Special executive compensation section: CEOs call for stronger link between performance and compensation.(The CEO Confidence Index Report)(Chief executive officers)
April 1, 2005... This month, Chief Executive Magazine conducted extensive additional polling about all aspects of executive compensation. We asked what percentage of compensation is directly related to performance. The results below show that compensation...

Research and theory indicate CEO incentives are close to optimal.(The CEO Confidence Index Report)(Chief executive officer)
April 1, 2005... Economics 101 teaches us that wages in a competitive market should equal the marginal product of labor. That means with perfect competition we should pay people for what they produce: no more no less. As the hunting season for overpaid CEOs...

Compensation & incentives.(The CEO Confidence Index Report)
April 1, 2005... I'm sometimes surprised at the anger over high executive pay: it seems that running a major corporation is as rare and valuable a skill as slam-dunking a basketball or looking good in spandex. But on reflection, that outrage is perhaps more...

CEOs a great predictor of employment.(The CEO Confidence Index Report)(Chief executive officers)
April 1, 2005... The CEO Employment Index has continued to be a great predictor of employment in the United States. The graph below shows our confidence data shifted four months forward as compared to employment data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics....

The confidence gap: the growing difference between current and future confidence and what it means.(The CEO Confidence Index Report)(Chief executive officers)
April 1, 2005... CEO Confidence has been growing strongly since it's low of 89.4 in April 2003. It now stands at 170.1, only 6.3 points off it's highest mark ever. CEOs have become increasingly optimistic about hiring and with that the unemployment rate has...