Chief Executive (U.S.) articles from July 2008

Chief Executive (U.S.) archives from July 2008

Dept. of poverty creation.(EDITOR'S NOTE)
July 1, 2008... Last, the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, an independent research group, reissued a petition signed by 31,000 scientists asserting that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane were actually beneficial to the environment....

New CEO, Old Team.(FEED BACK)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2008... In "New CEO, Old Team" (Chief Executive, April/May 2008) the authors said, "CEOs have had little guidance on how to judge whether to keep most of their inherited team, or look for new blood." [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A simple but...

Moral hazard problem.(FEED BACK)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2008... The cliche, "What's good for the goose is good for the gander," like all other cliches, exists because it represents the culmination of the best practices discovered during the course of human interactions. In his article "Weathering the...

Global enterprise 2020.(FEEDBACK)(Letter to the editor)
July 1, 2008... I thoroughly enjoyed the Gupta and Wang article (Chief Executive, June, 2008) and agreed with most all of the cogent points. Nonetheless, after teaching in China, and after years of study and consulting work with U.S. companies aspiring to...

Skin deep.(CEO CHRONICLES)(Company overview)
July 1, 2008... Like all the other assets of his specialty pharmaceuticals company, Alfred Altomari, the newly appointed CEO of Princeton, N.J.-based Barrier Therapeutics, hails from Johnson & Johnson. But while most of those assets--namely patent licenses for...

Nascent Nigeria?
July 1, 2008... Can Nigeria, long plagued with political instability and corruption, become the next new frontier for global expansion? Tom Iseghohi, CEO of Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc. (Transcorp), thinks so--and he's gambling his career on it....

The greatest threat comes from China.(INBOX)(Brief article)
July 1, 2008... Among executives at companies based outside China, 41 percent say that they face more competition from China than from any other emerging market. The pressure is particularly acute for companies elsewhere in Asia, where the Chinese have focused...

Who you gonna call?(CEO WATCH)
July 1, 2008... Robert S. "Steve" Miller, 66, gained a reputation for fixing ailing companies, something that became an unanticipated career for the Oregon-born executive who worked at Ford and was recruited by Lee lacocca as part of the team that saved...

Thorns & Roses.
July 1, 2008... ROSE... Let's raise a pint of Guinness in toasting the voters in Ireland who trashed the EU'S LISBON TREATY, sending a signal that an unsubtle reworking of the EU constitution--a power-grab by Brussels bureaucrats already rejected by...

A scion's test.(CEO CHRONICLES)
July 1, 2008... Some of the world's best-known architects wait years to see their designs built. Frank Gehry was 68 when the Bilbao Guggenheim made him a star. Daniel Libeskind sketched striking forms until finally, at age 52, he saw one constructed. ...

In fact.(CEO CHRONICLES)
July 1, 2008... Information begins with facts, which can be assembled to identify trends. Put it all together to derive knowledge. Presenting Chief Executive's INfact. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] (1.) Percent of S&P 500 companies in 2007 that had active...

CEO confidence continues to fall.(CEO CONFIDENCE INDEX)
July 1, 2008... AMID A 10 PERCENT DECLINE in the Dow Jones Industrial Average over the last 30 days, the CEO Confidence Index plunged 11.3 points this month according to 129 top executives polled by Chief Executive between June 13 and June 27. The leading...

Pandemic proposal: the government says the private sector should play a part in a flu strategy.(CHIEF CONCERN)
July 1, 2008... In its National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza, issued November 2005, the federal government cited the important role of the business community, noting that the private sector "should play an integral role in preparedness before a pandemic...

Election education: what CEOs can learn from presidential elections.(UN COMMON WISDOM)
July 1, 2008... As we enter the high season of the quadrennial circus called the U.S. presidential election, and as I hear the positions and watch the behaviors of the major candidates, I am compelled to compare CEOs of countries with CEOs of companies. How...

Are you carbon beta rated? Here's a look at the likely winners and losers in the carbon rationing age.(REGULATION)
July 1, 2008... American business executives are increasingly resigned to the fact that carbon controls are coming. Some 17 bills for cap-and-trade schemes to limit greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel energy sources are floating through the halls of...

The anxiety advantage.(MANAGEMENT SKILLS)
July 1, 2008... For any chief executive, anxiety is a fact of life. To thrive in today's world, CEOs must achieve top-line growth, push innovation and creativity, align strategy with performance, and manage for value. They must build their leadership bench...

What's your software worth? Most companies undervalue--and under-manage--their software assets.(INSIGHTS FROM INSEAD)(Company overview)
July 1, 2008... Executives today are faced with the difficult challenge of continually improving the business value of the unit or company they are managing. The challenge is daunting given the competitive environment faced by firms. Cost pressures are...

Surviving the patent shakeup: proposed reforms aim to fix a broken system, but the changes may have unintended--and unwelcome--consequences.(LAW)
July 1, 2008... In 2004, casino gaming systems company Bally Technologies found itself being sued by a competitor named Shuffle Master, as well as International Game Technology, a giant in its industry. Bally had been trying to expand into the casino data...

Lafley's law: if you want to win become a Game-Changer.(Company overview)
July 1, 2008... The best way to drive growth and win competitively is to innovate. Simple, but hard to do consistently. In June 2000, A.G. Lafley received a call from former Procter & Gamble CEO John Pepper asking him if he was prepared to accept the CEO...

Do intangibles matter? Ideas and servies may be the true coin of the 21st century.(ROUND TABLE)(Company overview)
July 1, 2008... In the new economy, value isn't where it once was. Solid, quantifiable assets like plants, equipment and inventory are now often far less indicative of a company's value than intangibles like ideas, relationships and expertise. For companies...

This is just not happening: bring on the futurists, curmudgeons and whack-jobs.(FLIP SIDE)
July 1, 2008... Newspaper readers instinctively turn to the same section every morning. For many it is the sports, for some the financial section, some actually start on page one with the bad news about the war, the stock market, Medicare. Not me. When I get...

Jobs will be hard to come by for a while.(EDITORIAL)
July 1, 2008... THE MARKETS WERE RECENTLY JOLTED by the largest increase in unemployment since 1986. The rate increased to 5.5 percent in May a half point monthly increase. Analysts say the jobs picture is grim and with equities having officially entered bear...