Chief Executive (U.S.) articles from December 2002

Chief Executive (U.S.) archives from December 2002

What were we thinking? .(Chief Executive (U.S.))(Brief Article)(Editorial)
December 1, 2002... Things we learned in 2002 that we should have known all along: * If you have to offer 0 percent financing for your product, you're probably not generating new demand with innovations or customer value. More likely, you're stealing demand...

Feedback.(James F. Van Houten, Mutual Service Life Insurance Cos.)
December 1, 2002... Diversity in Dispute I read Miles White's "Paying More Than Lip Service to Diversity" (CE: October 2002) with interest. As a retired CEO, I understand how leaders evaluate trade-offs when making decisions. My disappointment with...

Last of the dot-com baby barons. (Compensation).(Chief Executive Officers who have just turned 30)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... The era of baby-faced dotcommers has definitely passed, but someone forgot to tell these guys. The CEOs of GSI Commerce, FragranceNet and eUniverse are the highest-paid chiefs in their age group, according to a report by Hoover's. They've all...

Fighting for Freedom. (Arrivals).(Freedom Communications Inc.)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... ALAN BELL, 70, PUT OFF retirement last August to take the top spot at Freedom Communications. Days earlier, the Hoiles family, which owns the large media holding company, had resolved to stay independent despite pressure from dissident third...

Profiting from Homeland Security. (View from the Hill).(United States)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... Corporate lobbyists in Washington are abuzz over security proposals emerging from law-makers. As The Washington Post recently reported, manufacturers are balking at a requirement that their ocean carriers give 24 hours' notice before loading...

More turnover at Soros reflects shakeout. (Departures).(George Soros, Soros Fund Management)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... Ever since George Soros passed off the management of his hedge fund, it's become hard to keep track of who's at the helm. The 72-year-old financier has been churning chief executives with the gusto of a day trader flipping shares. The...

Dilbert leaves the cubicle. (Lifestyle).(CEO Dad comic strip)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... You know things have changed when a previously successful executive recruiter like Thomas Stern resorts to moonlighting as a comic strip artist. His muse? A robotic but likeable chief executive who...must...control...everything. Stern calls the...

New criticism of combined titles. (Governance).(on chief executive officers who are chairman of the board)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... AMERICAN COMPANIES have largely skirted the controversy over whether CEOs should also be chairmen of their boards, but the drumbeat of governance reform has brought the debate back to center stage. A recent study may give it legs. Two...

Succeeding in a mature market. (Chief Concern).(chief executive officers)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... It's tough gaining a competitive edge when you're in a slow-growth industry. Business isn't yours for the taking, so you have to be that much more creative, efficient and visionary to succeed. But I like to think--and recent events have borne...

Russia's new "Wild East". (Market Horizons).(economy)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... Western investors still swap horror stories about their experiences in Russia in the 1990s. They call it the Wild East. Like the mythical frontier portrayed in Hollywood westerns, the ground is strewn with the sun-bleached bones of failed...

A kinder, gentler deficit. (Competing Interests).(Congressional Budget Office reports Washington D.C.)
December 1, 2002... For the first time in more than five years, budget deficit politics have returned to Washington. Remember that vaunted 10-year, $5.6 trillion surplus we were looking forward to in 2000? Easy come, easy go. The Congressional Budget Office...

Behind the scenes, an oil imbroglio brews. (Capitol Ideas).(America on Iraq)
December 1, 2002... Is America's confrontation with Iraq really about oil? Many times in recent months, Saddam Hussein has sought to rally support by asserting that President Bush's condemnation conceals a desire to seize Iraq's oil fields. Such declarations...

Steady as they go: in a year of chaos, the CEOs of CE's fifth MVA ranking added value to their companies by being just a little bit dull. (Performance Measurement).(Chief Executive (U.S.))
December 1, 2002... Humility, dependability and consistency weren't CEO personality traits sought by investors in the late 1990s. Yet those are exactly the characteristics cited by CEOs in this year's Chief Executive Top 25 Market Value Added (MVA) ranking as...

The Warren Buffett school: they have free rein, ready capital and the best boss a CEO could want. They run Berkshire Hathaway companies, and you've only begun to envy them. (Careers).(chief executive officer)
December 1, 2002... Successfu1, confident, well-adjusted...these chief executives don't mind working for another CEO, especially one considered by many to be the world's best. That CEO is Warren Buffett, the avuncular chief of the Berkshire Hathaway holding...

Coaching takes to the couch: CEOs' increasing use of coaches--often doubling as therapists--clashes with the image of the almighty leader. (Management).(chief executive officers)
December 1, 2002... For decades, CEOs burnished a reputation as paragons of leadership and strength: confident, decisive, embracing risk, Insecurities such as fear and self-doubt? Not in the corner office, the common thinking went. But in the past 15 years or...

Landed manager; Steven McCormick's goal for The Nature Conservancy: to transform the already vast charity into the most influential nonprofit on the planet. (Profile).(chief executive officer)
December 1, 2002... Staff members at the country's largest conservation organization often recite one of their boss' favorite quotations when asked about his style: "Execution is the chariot of genius." Steven McCormick, head of The Nature Conservancy in...

Left to their own devices: gadgets are more than just toys for these CEOs. They wouldn't be caught dead without them. (Technology).(chief executive officers)(Product/Service Evaluation)
December 1, 2002... The CEO's job hasn't changed much in 20 years. What has changed is where and when the job gets done. Thanks to personal computers, wireless networks and the Internet, the world is your office. The funny thing about tech fans is once they...

Moving at the speed of delight: it's not enough to merely "satisfy" customers if you truly expect to get value from your technology investments. (Roundtable).(chief executive officers)
December 1, 2002... What do Apple's iPod, Southwest Air flight reservation system and 3M's Post-It notes have in common? All three are shining examples of that most elusive of customer-oriented goals: delivering not just a satisfactory experience, but actual...

Personal behavior is fair game: in today's image-conscious and scandal-charged age, CEOs need to keep their quirkiness in check. (Reputation).(chief executive officers)
December 1, 2002... By fall of 1998, Joe Firmage epitomized the Silicon Valley rising star. USWeb, the prominent Internet consulting firm he'd cofounded, was thriving and, as its CEO, Firmage earned millions. All before the age of 30. But that November he declared...

Do we really need more legal help? (Flip Side).(Rubin Weser vs. City University of New York)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... Not long ago, newspapers across the country carried a story about an 80-year-old New York man who was suing to get into law school. According to The New York Times, Rubin Weser, a retired insurance executive, had applied to the law school of...