EveryJoe » executive

Washington Post Executive Resigns

Mark Ellis — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 00:04:25 +0000

The Washington Post drew plenty of criticism when its plans to host $25,000-per-guest secret dinners that brought together reporters, editors and government officials became public in July. Now, Charles Pelton the marketing executive charged with putting these plans into motion, has decided to resign from his post following the immensely negative response to the plans.

The Post originally sent fliers to several important lobbyists and trade groups that advertised $25,000 sponsorship opportunities for salons at the home of Katherine Weymouth, the newspaper’s publisher. Journalists both involved with the Post and outside of it quickly criticized the plan, which was seen as a breach of journalistic integrity.

Pelton had only joined the Post last spring as the general manager of the newspaper’s new conferences and events business, which was mostly shut down after the salons became public and were abandoned. The Post released Pelton’s resignation letter to the public, as well as confirmation that Pelton left on good terms with the Post.

Image: Flickr

Post from: EveryJoe

Washington Post Executive Resigns

Former Qwest CEO Wins Appeal

Mark Ellis — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 00:33:32 +0000

Former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio faced the wrong side of the law when he was convicted of insider trading and sentenced to six years in prison. However, Nacchio may soon find his sentence reduced due to his recent victory in a federal appeals court, in which the convicted executive successfully argued that there was a miscalculation.

In the ruling, the Denver-based appeals court found that the trial judge miscalculated Nacchio’s earnings from the illegal sales of his stock, which may have extended Nacchio’s sentence by several years. While the trial judge found Nacchio’s earnings to top $44.6 million, Nacchio argued that his earnings actually stand at around $1.8 million.

This miscalculation could end up bringing Nacchio down from a six-year sentence to a yet-to-be determined sentence that can be no longer than 4 1/3 years. According to the appeals court, the miscalculation stemmed from the district judge’s inability to separate Nacchio’s illegal earnings from his legitimate earnings, instead lumping them together and sentencing him unfairly.

Image: Flickr

Post from: EveryJoe

Former Qwest CEO Wins Appeal

Former IBM Exec Allowed to Work for Dell

Mark Ellis — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 00:26:42 +0000

If IBM had its way, former head of mergers and acquisitions, David Johnson, would not be allowed to work for Dell because he would allegedly be able to provide his new employer with trade secrets that would give Dell an unfair competitive advantage. However, a U.S. judge has sided with Dell and turned down IBM’s injunction against Johnson.

In his ruling, the judge decided that IBM never quite proved what secret information Johnson could actually supply to Dell that would give the company an edge over its rival.

Johnson, who now works as Dell’s senior vice president of corporate strategy, still faces another legal battle with IBM, which plans to sue Johnson over the alleged violation of a non-compete agreement. IBM has also confirmed through its spokesman that it will appeal the ruling of the injunction suit.

According to Johnson, the non-compete agreement, which was drafted in 2005, is invalid because it was not properly signed. He has also stated that he never had access to IBM’s confidential information, but IBM has argued otherwise, accusing Johnson of exploiting IBM resources to create his own venture capital firm.

Image: Flickr

Post from: EveryJoe

Former IBM Exec Allowed to Work for Dell

Yahoo Executive Becomes LinkedIn CEO

Mark Ellis — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 23:46:10 +0000

Although he just left Yahoo Inc. a year ago in the middle of a messy battle between the company and an investor, Jeff Weiner has now signed on to become the new CEO of LinkedIn, a social networking website for professionals. Weiner joined LinkedIn in January as its interim president and has received the support of other LinkedIn executives.

Yahoo and Weiner parted ways when the company decided to get rid of some of its executives due to its proxy war with investor Carl Icahn. Microsoft offered to acquire Yahoo last year, but when Yahoo completely refused to entertain the offer, Icahn started the proxy war in order to remove Yahoo’s Board of Directors.

Weiner joins LinkedIn as the website continues to surge in popularity, with over 42 million members all over the world. The company’s outlook is optimistic for the rest of the year and next year, as it anticipates an increase in profitability as Weiner takes the reins.

Image: Flickr

Post from: EveryJoe

Yahoo Executive Becomes LinkedIn CEO

Citigroup Executive Leaves for MasterCard

Mark Ellis — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 19:04:49 +0000

Citigroup Inc. lost its most senior executive in Asia to MasterCard Inc. when Ajay Banga, 49, left his executive role at Citigroup to become next in line for the title of CEO of MasterCard. On August 31, MasterCard president and CEO Robert Selander will cede his president title to Banga, who will also serve as the chief operating officer.

MasterCard Worldwide debuted in 2006 and has done very well since its launch, with its stock more than quadrupling in value throughout the last three years. Banga leaves behind a troubled Citigroup, which recently took $45 billion from the U.S. government as part of the rescue package and continues to lose money.

Banga’s compensation for joining MasterCard is significant, with an $800,000 salary, a $4.2 million signing bonus, and $4.9 million in stock options. As part of his signing benefits, he is guaranteed to either be named CEO by June 30, 2010, or to not have to give up any of his signing bonus.

Image: Flickr

Post from: EveryJoe

Citigroup Executive Leaves for MasterCard

Knowing Yourself and Communicating It

Bob Turek — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 12:00:00 +0000

I listened to Karl Rove on the radio talking about how John McCain can win in November. He focused on developing the story about John and gave many examples: the McCain’s adoption and raising a foster child, his father and grandfather’s committment to their country through militaty service, and his own story of captivity during war as a character builder.

The point that Rove made was that voters want to know the people they are voting for; once they do, assuming the “story” is a good one, they are more likely to listen to the candidates positions. Note I did not say “agree with”- simply listen to them with a mind “opened” by knowledge of a person.

This sounds like a good personal strategy to adopt in all relationships whether they be political, business or personal, or through the medium of TV, email or blogging. The execution of this strategy is more difficult however. I’ve resisted sharing personal details that might benefit others in “getting to know me” through blogging, but readily share these types of things on a face-to-face level. Some say that “transparency” is always good- I’m not sure I agree. I think you have to first know yourself very well before you start “sharing”.

How have you shared your “story” with others to assist relationship building in business? In politics? In a group you belong to? Do you consciously resist sharing personal details? Is there a logic to your actions? How about an example of where sharing turned out to be disastrous?

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via EMAIL or RSS.

Post from: EveryJoe

Knowing Yourself and Communicating It

Projectmanagement411 on Draining the Swamp to Get at Root Causes

Bob Turek — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 10:00:00 +0000

My post on the PMO relieving pain prompted a response by ActiveEngine about pain being crucial to gain people’s attention. Pain and uncovering it can be a multi-layered process seemingly without end- i.e., dealing with one problem inevitably leads to having to deal with others which can get discouraging. This is probably because the “swamp is being drained”. Read my response below:

Pain is an interesting phenomenon. One of the analogies used for improvement is “draining the swamp”. When you drain the swamp you start seeing a bunch of ugly rocks. In project management this means getting rid of the projects you don’t need by doing a project inventory and then getting rid of some more by eliminating those that don’t align with strategies. What this does is focuses resources on the remaining projects and the problems they have which now beg to be solved. Same thing when you do a lean manufacturing program and eliminate wasteful processes- the real problems (pain) start to emerge; you are now on the road to solving real problems and root causes, not just symptoms. Back to software development- do you find that excessive documentation can hide problems in the process? I’ve heard that documentation is the “excess inventory” of software development.

Do you have situations where dealing with one problem led to several others? Did you give up on a project because of this? Do you think it was because you were involved in the “draining the swamp” process and simply uncovering more, but better, rocks (problems)? I KNOW you’ve been there! Tell us about it. What you say could make the difference in someone completing or stopping their project.

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe by EMAIL or RSS.

Post from: EveryJoe

Projectmanagement411 on Draining the Swamp to Get at Root Causes

Projectmanagement411 Engages: The PMO and The Mythical Project Queue

Bob Turek — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 10:00:00 +0000

Following up on Margaret Rouse’s post on my Choosing the Right PMO Vision Series, today we deal with the mythical queue:

Margaret: You really got me thinking. I think what REALLY blew me away was when you said that 74% of all projects fail — and that the number could be even higher for IT projects. I’m interested in any concrete strategies you can offer for avoiding getting small projects lost in what we used to call the mythical queue.

Bob: The PMO or, for smaller firms, some type of project control function, succeeds with excellent business processes for project visibility, strategy alignment, and prioritization. My guess is that the “mythical” queue is bloated because a project inventory isn’t done regularly and many projects are not aligned with strategies. These two things would decrease the amount of, and increase focus on, projects. Lack of prioritization criteria, and working the priorities as strategies change, contributes to “bad” muti-tasking (stop, restart, relearn). You end up with a mess that allows people to move from project to project without accountability and very bad estimating.

The PMO should be doing the type of support to standardize visibility, strategy alignment, and prioritization processes plus does everything it can to help projects accelerate. All of this is largely “outside” whatever software development process is used, as it should be.

************

Do you suffer from the mythical queue? Tell me about it!

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL.

Post from: EveryJoe

Projectmanagement411 Engages: The PMO and The Mythical Project Queue

Projectmanagement411 Engages: The PMO Relieves Pain

Bob Turek — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 10:00:00 +0000

Margaret Rouse blogs at IT Knowledge Exchange on an amazing variety of topics. Read it and be informed! I find some of the most interesting blog commentors are IT people who engage with me about innovative project management processes- clearly they are making an effort to bring IT and the user together. Her post about my Choosing the Right PMO Vision Series led to a very nice conversation, edited for brevity, and repeated here today and tomorrow:

Margaret: The line that stuck in my head from [your] post was: Usually something painful drives the creation, or reevaluation, of a Project Management Office (PMO). Amen.

Bob: That same pain that drives creation of a PMO can be it’s undoing: PMOs are often eliminated after the pain goes away. The pain also tends to create a PMO that is monitoring/cost based instead of value based- i.e., focusing on the value that can be created by projects vs. merely working to a budget. The value based PMOs tend to spur innovation and have projects aligned with strategies.

************

What pain created your PMO? Is the pain gone? How about the PMO? Contribute your thoughts to the conversation!

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL.

Post from: EveryJoe

Projectmanagement411 Engages: The PMO Relieves Pain

How to Make An Organization Fly

Bob Turek — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 10:00:52 +0000

A great article in Strategy+Business, “A Blueprint for Strategic Leadership”, concentrates on how to lead innovation. In it the authors emphasize that the best leaders pay a great deal of attention to the design of the elements around them. Seemingly basic, but powerful, things to do are:

1. Articulate purpose,
2. Create effective teams,
3. Prioritize and sequence initiatives, and
4. Redesign the organization to make execution easier.

Apart from revealing the importance of doing the right projects, the article is full of fascinating examples of the deployment of these principles by the best executives; two from the experiences of A.G. Lafley, chief executive of Procter and Gamble, stood out:

1. Moved the divisional presidents’ offices nearer their staffs, converting the old executive space into an employee learning center. This is not only practical but sends a message that they are serious about creating an environment for innovation.

2. Plans careers of top 500 people by reviewing assignments, capabilities, and how he can help them grow. This goes beyond periodic performance reviews to showing a genuine interest in how the organization can help develop the careers of people.

You don’t have to be a CEO to pay attention to the design of the elements around you. How can you incorporate the four “things to do” into your management style?

Don’t miss a post, SUBSCRIBE via RSS or EMAIL.

Post from: EveryJoe

How to Make An Organization Fly