Who Predicted the Financial Crisis - Economic ... - CEO Magazine

Content 

P06 - How to Evaluate a CEO? 

The Top 20 CEO Questions 

P10 - How to Evaluate the Board? 

The Board of Directors Scorecard 

P12 - Increasing Your Company’s Future Value 

An Interview with Leif Klingborg - Author of K-concept 

P16 - CEO Awards 2010 - Most Respected CEOs 

CEO Profiles 

• Carlos Ghosn - CEO of Nissan-Renault 

• Christopher Conner - CEO of Sherwin-Williams 

• David Blair - CEO of Catalyst Health Solutions 

• David Simon - CEO of Simon Property Group 

• Eric Schmidt - CEO of Google Inc 

• Jeff Joerres CEO of Manpower Inc 

• John Wren - CEO of Omnicom Group 

• Joseph Saunders - CEO of Visa Inc 

• John Stumpf - CEO Wells Fargo & Company 

• Matt Rubel - CEO of Collective Brands 

• Michael Dan - CEO of Brinks Inc 

• Mike Morris - CEO American Electric Power 

• Muhammad Yunus - CEO Grameen Bank 

• Paul Diaz - CEO of Kindred Healthcare 

• Robert Dutkowsky - CEO of Tech Data Corporation 

• Steve Jobs CEO of Apple Inc 

• Timothy Manganello - CEO of BorgWarner Inc 

• Tony Earley - CEO of DTE Energy 

P64 - CEO Awards 2010 - CEO Lessons 

Lessons from the Most Respected CEOs 

Q4 / 2010 | www.ceoqmagazine.com 03

Editor’s Letter 

Welcome to the CEO Q Magazine 

CEO Quarterly is a global executive magazine. Our mission is to 

encourage management best practices research and dissemination. 

We pursue this mission by publishing the work of top management 

experts in a format targeting business leaders. 

Every quarter, the editorial team identifies management best practices 

and lessons from the world’s most successful CEOs and their teams. 

The goal is to provide C-level readers with new perspectives, insights, 

intelligence reports, expert opinions, objective analysis, case studies, 

white papers, and decision-making tools to help them address emerging 

opportunities and challenges. 

The CEO Q editorial philosophy is to focus on breakthroughs in 

management thought and practice. The authors are required to frame 

their findings in a format that saves the CEOs’ valuable time and effort 

in developing and aligning their executive teams. 

CEO Q is not a news magazine. It is a CEO continuing education 

and organizational development tool. CEOs can share the magazine 

articles with their teams to promote best practices, with the board of 

directors to advocate new strategies, and with their clients to promote 

new products or services. 

Special Edition - CEO Awards 

In addition to our regular executive editions, we occasionally publish 

special management reports on major global or regional business 

opportunities, challenges, lessons and success stories. In this edition, 

CEO Q honors the Most Respect CEOs by profiling their achievements 

and sharing some of their executive insights. These are the CEOs to 

learn about and learn from. The research behind the CEO Awards was 

conducted in partnership with the International Institute of Management. 

IIM is a best practices research and executive education institute based 

in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. 

CEO Q Sponsorship 

This edition of CEO Q magazine is sponsored by the International 

Institute of Management (www.iim-edu.org) and its CEO Club (www. 

ceoclub.eu) We encourage you to learn more about the sponsors who 

made this special edition possible. 

04 www.ceoqmagazine.com | Q4 / 2010 

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Med Jones 

President of 

International Institute 

of Management (IIM) 

www.iim-edu.org 

How to Evaluate a CEO? 

The Top 20 CEO Questions 

A Self-Assessment Tool 

International Institute of Management 


The proper evaluation of the CEO 

and the executive team is critical to 

the company’s performance. The 

evaluation framework of the CEO 

can be summarized into two major 

areas; business strategy formulation 

and execution. 

According to a best practices study 

conducted by the International 

Institute of Management, the CEO’s 

key challenge in formulating and 

executing the business strategy is 

not in finding answers to the tough 

questions, the challenge is in asking 

the right questions. Asking the wrong 

questions will result in skewed 

operational or strategic plans. 

IIM developed a list of the top 100 

Board and CEO questions called 

the IIM100 Test. These questions 

provide a 360 degree view of the 

business. 

IIM100 questions can be used as a 

self-assessment test, as a planning 

session tool or as a framework for 

evaluating potential CEO/CXO 

candidates for succession planning. 

In this article, IIM shares the top 10 

questions that every board must ask 

its CEO and the top 10 questions 

that every CEO must ask his/her 

executive team. 

The top 10 questions every board 

must ask its CEO: 

1. Are we in the right business and 

markets? What are the growth 

areas to invest in and declining 

areas to divest? 

2. What are the economic and 

market research data that 

support our strategy? 

3. What are our strengths, 

4. 

weaknesses, opportunities and 

threats (SWOTs)? 

What are we doing to address 

each one of the SWOTs? 

5. What are our core 

6. 

competencies? How we can 

leverage them? 

What are the key strategic and 

operational risks? How do we 

manage them? 

7. What are our key performance 

targets? 

8. How do we plan to achieve those 

targets? 

9. How can we build a sustainable 

competitive advantage? 

10. How can we improve 

governance, control and 

reporting functions? 

The top 10 questions every CEO 

must ask her/his executive team: 

1. 

2. 

Do we have a big growth idea? 

Do we have the right growth 

3. 

4. 

5. 

6. 

7. 

8. 

9. 

engine (business model, infrastructure, 

resources and network)? 

Does our operations management efficiently 

and effectively support our performance targets? 

How do we know? 

Which vendors, partners, clients and employees 

are delivering the real value? How do we get 

more out of the rest? 

What are the key SWOTs in each function, and 

how do you manage them? 

How can we build a sustainable competitive 

advantage in each function (Marketing, R&D, 

SCM, IT, etc)? 

What initiatives/programs/projects are needed 

to execute our strategy? How do we ensure 

that they are aligned and executed with the right 

quality, on time and within budget? 

What are the key performance targets and 

incentives for each executive (CMO, CFO, COO, 

CIO, and CHO)? 

Do we have the appropriate organization in 

place to meet those targets? (IIM’s 5D strategy 

framework: budget, tools, products, processes 

and people)? 

10. How can we communicate our plans better to 

our stakeholders in order to win their support 

and achieve our goals? 

Every CEO/CXO must be able to provide the 

answers to the preceding questions, readily, clearly, 

and precisely. The executive team members must 

be able to provide qualitative and quantitative 

answers. 

The CEO’s key challenge is not in finding 

answers to the tough questions, the 

challenge is in asking the right questions. 

Asking the wrong questions will result in 

skewed strategic or operational plans. 

If the executive team is not able to answer all of 

the preceding questions, then the leadership team 

suffers from management blind spots or a potential 

weakness. 

IIM developed strategic executive retreat and 

coaching programs to help the CEOs and their 

executives in answering these questions. The goal 

of the strategic retreat programs is to provide crossfunctional 

collaboration to ensure a 360 degree 

business view and formulate comprehensive 

executive action plan. 

The strategic retreat sessions are facilitated by 

executive leadership and strategy experts. The role 

of the experts is to facilitate the planning sessions 

and provide an external point of view to objectively 

validate the answers to each question. The strategic 

planning program can be followed by custom 

corporate action-learning and support programs 

to help the management teams in executing and 

aligning the formulated strategies. 

Which vendors, partners, clients and 

employees are delivering the real value? 

How do we get more out of the rest? 

What are the key strategic and 

operational risks? How do we manage 

them? 

What initiatives/programs/projects are 

needed to execute our strategy? How 

do we ensure that they are aligned and 

executed with the right quality, on time 

and within budget? 

If the executive team is not able to 

answer all of the preceding questions, 

then the leadership team suffers from 

management blind spots. 

About the Author 

Med Jones, is the President of the International 

Institute of Management (IIM). IIM is a management 

best practices research and education institute. IIM 

provides board and executive support services, 

strategic planning retreats and custom corporate 

training courses for the Global Fortune 1000 

companies and governments. To learn more, please 

visit: www.iim-edu.org 



How to Evaluate the 

Board of Directors? 

The Board of Directors Scorecard 

One of the by-products of the global financial 

crisis is that more attention is being directed 

toward the board of directors. There is a significant 

rise in investors’ dissatisfaction, class-action 

lawsuits and shareholder activism. Shareholders’ 

complaints include issues such as excessive 

executive compensation, conflict of interest, lack of 

governance, and passive participation of the board 

members. 

President Barack Obama’s reform of financial 

regulations brings more focus to prompt corrective 

actions by federal banking agencies including one 

or more of the following; 

• Improving management 

• Ordering a new election for the institution’s board 

of directors; and/or 

• Dismissing directors or senior executive officers. 

While the target of the new regulations is the 

financial sector, the influence of these regulations 

will also impact publicly traded companies. 

Wall Street financial analysts, news media and 

internet blogs are paying more attention to executive 

compensation in relationship to the performance of 

the company. 

There are several infamous examples where 

some boards compensated their CEOs with 

hundreds of millions of dollars even though the 

company lost money during their leadership. The 

boards are accused, in these cases, as either 

lacking the competence or the will to govern CEO 

compensation. 

In these tough economic times, investors are 

becoming more proactive; they cannot afford to leave 

the governance of their investments to unqualified 


directors or to special interest groups. 

Boards are given more power to govern and control 

the performance of the CEO and the corporation. 

Investors are starting to ask the following 

questions: 

• Are the interests of the board members aligned 

with the shareholders or the CEO? 

• Are the board members qualified to govern on 

behalf of the shareholders? 

• How does the board evaluate the company’s 

direction? 

• Is the board of directors required to direct the 

company or just govern the CEO? 

• Does the board have the right skill-set, decisionmaking 

processes, and tools? 

The two questions that board members must ask 

themselves are: 

• Do we have the right information and tools to 

manage and improve our own performance as a 

governing board? 

• Do we have the power, knowledge and tools 

to conduct a comprehensive and fair CEO 

evaluation? 

Few organizations have come up with formal 

solutions to help investors evaluate both their CEOs 

and their board of directors. A number of leading 

experts suggest board self-assessments. This 

solution involves the use of management evaluation 

frameworks that only need to be applied once or 

twice a year. These formal evaluation frameworks 

not only define and clarify the overall standards 

of performance for the board, they also serve as 

educational, collaborative and consensus-building 

tools. 

The International Institute of Management created 

a board of directors scorecard as an effective selfassessment 

tool. The scorecard covers the essential 

elements of the board’s duties and qualifications and 

is therefore a good starting point for an evaluation. In 

addition, the scorecard covers the board’s structure, 

culture, performance standards, quality of meetings, 

and strategic planning processes. 

Top 12 Board Questions 

The following partial list provides a sample of the 

evaluation questions: 

1. 

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

6. 

7. 

8. 

Is there a formal policy document that defines the 

standards and procedures for the qualification, 

duties, nomination and selection of the board of 

directors? 

What is the qualification of the chairperson of 

the board? 

• His/her independence? 

• What is his/her educational and industry 

background? 

• His/her board leadership and networking 

skills? 

What is the optimal size of the board? 

• The number of board members can range 

from 3-33 depending on the company’s size. 

The average number is 9 members. How 

does the size and the geographic location 

help or limit board communications? 

What is the composition of the board? 

• What knowledge and qualifications does 

each member bring to the board? 

• What value added networks do they bring to 

the board? 

How independent is the board? 

• The compensation and the audit committees 

must be made up of independent members. 

What percentage are insiders vs. outsiders? 

• What special interest groups do they 

represent? 

• Is their compensation aligned with the 

company’s performance? 

• Do the members have a conflict of 

interest? Are they declared, monitored and 

managed? 

Are the board members fully aware of their legal 

and ethical duties? 

Is most of the CEO’s compensation performancebased? 

Are the inside directors qualified to review 

and approve high-level budgets prepared by 

upper management? Are they qualified for 

monitoring business strategy and core corporate 

initiatives? 

9. Are the outside directors qualified to review and 

approve the strategic direction and key corporate 

policies? 

10. Does the board evaluate their own performance 

on a regular basis? 

11. How often and how well does the board 

communicate with investors? 

12. How often and how well does the board 

communicate with the CEO and the executive 

team? Is the communication style active or 

passive? Political or cooperative? 

Every board must be able to provide clear answers 

to the preceding questions. If the board is not able 

to answer all of the preceding questions, then the 

board members suffer from governance blind spots 

or a potential weakness. IIM created strategic 

board retreats and development programs to help 

the board and their CEOs in answering these 

questions. In addition to developing board-level 

governance competencies, the goal of the strategic 

retreat programs is to improve the board and CEO 

collaboration, ensure a 360 degree business view 

and develop proper governance action plans. 

The strategic retreat sessions are facilitated by 

leadership and governance experts. The role of 

the experts is to facilitate the planning sessions 

and provide an external point of view to objectively 

validate the answers to each question. 

These formal evaluation frameworks 

not only define and clarify the overall 

standards of performance for the 

board, they also serve as educational, 

collaborative and consensus-building 

tools. 

About the Author 

International Institute of Management is a 

management best practices research and education 

institute. IIM provides board and executive support 

services, strategic planning retreats and custom 

corporate training courses for the Global Fortune 

1000 companies and governments. To learn more, 

please visit: www.iim-edu.org 


CEO Q: How do you see your role as a leader in 

your company? 

Klingborg: My role as leader is to connect everyone 

in my team to our future opportunities and then 

support them, step-by-step, to move there. The 

closer our hearts and minds are connected to our 

future, the more we can grow and develop our 

potential. Responsible leaders “gather their team” to 

build a common vision of the team’s ambition, value 

stream, future market, how to cooperate and so on. 

They regularly secure discussions supporting the 

common progress toward desired targets. 

CEO Q: How do you build momentum to achieve 

results? 

Klingborg: Successful leaders build momentum in 

each project and at each level of the organization 

by: 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Book Author Interview 

Increasing Your Company’s Future Value 

Leif Klingborg 

Author of K-concept 

Securing choices about the company’s direction; 

“who we want to be” and “what we are building 

on”. 

Identifying and developing the unique 

competences that will bring the company toward 

the edge of our market. 

Communicating values important for building 

solid progress. 

Creating supportive blueprints of how to 

accomplish this momentum in a well-organized 

way. 

CEO Q: What is the role of training and support in 

achieving company results? 

Klingborg: The CEO is supported by key team 

leaders with the goal of mobilizing all the company’s 

human resources to become the driving force in 

building their “Interesting Tomorrow”. To accelerate 

the momentum every co-worker needs to be more 

self-dependent, take more initiative, take on more 

responsibility and extend their desire to learn. Coworkers 

need support and training to achieve this! 

They want to release their potential and grow in 

their profession. The team leader’s role is to develop 

training and support to close this gap and make the 

difference. More skilled and better trained leaders 

in an organization will accelerate the development 

of the human capital and the company’s overall 

performance. The balance between short-term 

and long-term team development is crucial to our 

ambition of building future value. 

CEO Q: What are the team’s expectations from their 

leader? 

Klingborg: My experience sums up the workforce 

expectations as follows; “We have lots of ambition 

inside our teams and we want our leaders to keep 

up our positive constructive mindset about our 

opportunities. We expect them to take responsibility 

so we will have the best plan and make sure that 

we are connected with the top expertise in our 

area. The better our leaders facilitate the common 

thinking process within our team, and support us 

with external connections, the faster we will move.” 

Team members want to feel ownership in their 

projects. People are expecting to be helped with 

this foundation; the context in which they deliver. 

Today, people have access to all crucial knowledge 

available in the world and the tools to connect and 

interact in new ways. They still need a method, a 

way of cooperating, that is fast, efficient and will 

support interaction with their surroundings. 


CEO Q: How do you develop future leaders? 

Klingborg: Great companies are eager to make 

choices about how to act today and in the future. 

They develop leadership behavior and company 

architecture to better fit with technological 

development opportunities and new behaviors that 

our environment is challenging us to find. Every 

generation’s needs are different. Each wants to find 

their unique style, way of thinking, communicating 

and acting. Leadership is about creating and 

facilitating the common thinking process of the 

people in the loop, it’s about them, it’s a living thing 

and it’s about today and the future. 

CEO Q: Can you share with us some of your key 

leadership concepts? 

Klingborg: Understanding and participation are 

two key concepts when we first involve everyone. 

By providing insight and including them, each 

team member becomes an empowered part of 

the decision making process. Then they will make 

individual choices connected to the common 

direction of the team. There are choices behind 

every developmental step. Building “Our Tomorrow” 

will happen when we establish a learningdevelopment 

process better and faster than the 

competition. Team members look for individual 

discussions/coaching about their contributions, their 

competences, their role and how to follow the plan. 

They feel empowerment when leaders nurture their 

“We-spirit”; they want cohesion, diversity, hope and 

an environment filled with energy and constructive 

ideas. 

CEO Q: What is the best way to achieve a unified 

direction? 

Klingborg: The team will get needed perspectives 

when their leaders regularly take the initiative to 

look from the outside in: Where are they currently 

in their process? How do they feel, think and act? 

They receive crucial help to analyze, package and 

learn from the past. They grow in understanding 


and will be even more united about the next step 

in their progress. We are on the right track when 

our foundation increases cooperation and builds 

up cohesive teams and team members’ selfconfidence. 

Feeling strong, safe and secure in 

their working situation. The co-workers’ ambition of 

connecting with the market edge will grow. We are 

always on our way from yesterday toward tomorrow, 

somewhere between the old and the new! We know 

our direction! 

CEO Q: How best to train the leaders? 

Klingborg: Co-workers want their leaders trained 

for: 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Continually growing team members’ and teams’ 

brainpower in their niche. 

Developing the emotional strength needed to be 

proactive in various situations. 

Growing social capacity within the team, building 

and developing relationships in every important 

field and direction. 

Increasing individuals’ and teams’ understanding 

how to stay fair, building trust and credibility in 

the market. 

About Klingborg 

Klingborg Consulting serves companies that have 

highly complex and challenging development 

processes. Klingborg’s experience comes from 

cooperating with more than 20,000 leaders. The 

founder, Leif Klingborg, known as the “leader of 

leaders”, has successfully supported executives, 

leaders and world-class coaches. He is also the 

creator of the K-concept, a successful method of 

mentoring leaders to accelerate the movement 

toward their organization’s goals. Since 2000, Leif 

has been deeply involved in two renewable energy 

projects, seabased.com and verticalwind.se. 

Klingborg was awarded finalist honor in the 2010 

International Book Awards. Klingborg lives and work 

out of Stockholm, Sweden. He can be reached at 

www.klingborg.com

Welcome to the 2010 CEO Awards. The “Most 

Respected CEOs” edition is a collaborative 

project between CEO Quarterly Magazine and the 

International Institute of Management. 

CEOs had a difficult year in 2009. The financial and 

economic crises caused a great deal of damage 

to the confidence of investors, consumers and 

employees. CEOs had to make difficult decisions to 

deal with declining revenues and layoffs, while at the 

same time finding innovative ways to re-energize 

growth. Several industries were hit the hardest 

including financial, auto, housing, retail, media and 

advertising industries. In the U.S. alone, more than 

100 banks closed and more than 100 media outlets 

went bankrupt or sold. Industry survivors were 

especially considered for their abilities to lead in 

difficult times. 

The CEOs real test is not how well they 

do during good economic times and 

bull markets, but also how they manage 

stakeholders’ interests and mitigate risks 

during an economic downturn. 

What are the CEO Awards selection criteria? 

According to Med Jones, the president of 

International Institute of Management, “At IIM we 

wanted to identify the most respected CEOs, not 

the most famous or most liked. The key criterion 

for inclusion was the respectability of the CEO by 

his/her stakeholders, namely the company’s clients, 

employees and investors. Our team researched each 

CEO by asking the stakeholders what they thought 

of the CEO and his/her performance. While this was 


CEO Awards 

Most Respected CEOs 

a subjective measure, we also looked at objective 

measures such as the CEO achievements relative 

to his or her peers in the industry. Since 2009 was an 

exceptionally difficult year, the CEO achievements 

were judged less by the latest financial performance 

and more by the long-term performance of the 

company under the CEO’s leadership. 

CEO achievements can be growth in revenues 

and profits, turnaround, strategic expansion into 

new markets, increasing market share relative to 

competition, successful mergers or acquisitions, 

introducing new breakthrough products/services, 

pioneering new business models, and so on. 

Unlike other CEO ranking lists, the CEO is not 

judged in absolute terms of the revenue or asset 

size of his company. The CEO of a smaller, but 

well-managed company that provides higher growth 

and better returns for investors is more likely to be 

considered for inclusion than the CEO of a much 

bigger company that has been losing money and 

stock value for several quarters. 

While the size of the company is an indicator of 

the company’s position in its market and the CEO 

abilities, it was not the main criteria for inclusion. 

The track performance of the individual CEO is 

considered more important. 

The company’s performance is judged 

relative to its competition and industry 

conditions. 

For example, banks that overcame the financial 

crisis gain higher levels of respectability for surviving 

the industry collapse, so the relative performance 

expectation is different for each industry. CEOs 

who survived the financial crisis received higher 

respectability scores from their investors, clients 

and employees, even when their revenues or profits 

were down in 2009. 

This year, we selected 18 CEOs from 17 

publicly traded companies and 1 nonprofit 

bank. Four special CEO honors went to: 

• 

• 

• 

Carlos Ghosn, CEO of Nissan Motors, 

for the successful turnaround of a 

global giant, and for making a profit in 

2009 during the worst global crisis to 

hit the auto industry 

Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple for 

transforming the way we use 

phones and making Apple one of 

the most valuable global brands 

and companies in the world 

Muhammad Yunus, CEO of 

Grameen Bank for pioneering a 

new model of successful multibillion 

dollar social bank and 

leveraging capitalism principles 

that helped approximately 3 million 

families fighting poverty conditions 

• 

David Blair, CEO of Catalyst Health, 

the youngest CEO on the list, who 

manages a company of less than 

1,000 employees and generates 

more than 3.2 billion in revenues. 

The research of the “Most Respected 

CEOs” has taught us new and important 

lessons that challenged the many 

common misconceptions about the 

ideal CEO’s personal and professional 

profiles. 

It is worth noting that no list is all inclusive. There 

are many CEOs who are highly respected by their 

stakeholders but were not included in this year’s 

list. The dominance of American CEOs on the list is 

not an indication of a better global respectability; it 

is the result of this year’s focus on U.S.companies. 

Next year, we plan to expand our listing to cover 

more CEOs from all over the world, and to give our 

readers the chance to learn from their experiences, 

successes and insights. 

About IIM 

International Institute of Management (IIM) is a U.S. 

based management best practices research and 

education institute. IIM provides CEO and executive 

support services, strategic planning retreats and 

custom corporate training courses for the Global 

Fortune 1000 companies and governments. To learn 

more, please visit www.iim-edu.org 


Carlos Ghosn 

CEO of Nissan-Renault 

The Global Leadership 

and Turnaround CEO 

Company Profile 

Industry: Auto 

Manufacturing 

Employees: 150,000 

Revenues: $83B 

Market Cap: $36B 

A Special CEO Honor 




Carlos Ghosn 

Nissan-Renault 

Carlos Ghosn receives CEO Q 

top honor and leads the list of 

the Most Respected CEOs for 

2010. This honor is given to him 

for his legendary turnaround of 

Nissan Motor Co. and his global 

leadership success against all 

odds. 

The CEO Challenge 

1. From 1993-1999 Nissan 

global operations suffered 7 

years of losses. Credit rating 

services threatened to lower 

their status from “investment 

grade” to “junk”. 

2. At the same time, Asia was 

in the middle of the worst 

financial crisis. 

3. Carlos was asked to manage 

the turnaround of Nissan, 

based on his reputation of 

cost-cutting at Renault (A 

French car company). 

4. The company has formidable 

financial and operational 

challenges, both in scale and 

complexity 

5. Everyone hates change. 

Changing a global giant is 

even more difficult. 

6. Mr Ghosn was born to 

Lebanese parents in 

Brazil, educated in France, 

considered a gaijin (alien) 

in a society that suspects 

foreigners, and he does not 

speak Japanese! 

CEO Achievements 

Ghosn executed the Nissan 

Revival Plan (NRP) by cutting 

costs and increasing revenues at 

the same time. He turned around 

Nissan to profitability in less 

than 18 months and achieved 

the best financial performance 

in the company’s history. Nissan 

became the car manufacturer 

that grew the most, not only 

in growth rate but in absolute 

numbers too. 

In fiscal year 2009, Nissan 

made a profit while most other 

automakers were losing money. 

Obama’s administration asked 

Mr. Ghosn to run General Motors 

Corp. but Ghosn declined the 

request in order to focus on 

building Nissan-Renault. In 

2010, the Renault-Nissan Alliance became the 

first to mass-market, affordable zero-emission 

vehicles (Nissan LEAF). Vehicle pre-orders in 

the U.S. and Japan have already surpassed 

the available production capacity for fiscal year 

2010. 

CEOs can learn a lot from Ghosn, whether 

they are seeking growth through innovation, 

executing a turnaround plan or leading in the 

global economy. 

CEO Bio 

Carlos Ghosn is the president and CEO of 

Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., a global automotive 

company with 180,000 employees and $83 

billion in revenues. Mr. Ghosn joined the 

company as its COO in June 1999, became its 

president in June 2000 and was named CEO in 

June 2001. 

In May 2005, Mr. Ghosn became the president 

and CEO of Renault S.A. in addition to his 

current responsibilities at Nissan. As head 

of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, Mr. Ghosn is 

responsible for two separate companies with 

combined annual global sales of 6.1 million 

vehicles. Mr. Ghosn currently serves on the 

board of directors of Alcoa. 

Prior to joining Nissan, Mr. Ghosn served as 

EVP of the Renault Group, since December 

1996. He was responsible for advanced 

research, car engineering and development, 

car manufacturing, powertrain operations and 

purchasing. Before he joined Renault, Mr. 

Ghosn had worked with Michelin for 18 years. As 

chairman and CEO of Michelin North America, 

Mr. Ghosn presided over the restructuring of 

the company after its acquisition of the Uniroyal 

Goodrich Tire Company in 1990. Previously, Mr. 

Ghosn had worked as the COO of Michelin’s 

South America based in Brazil; as head of 

research and development for industrial tires 

in Ladoux, France; and as plant manager in Le 

Puy, France. 

Mr. Ghosn was born in Brazil on March 9, 

1954 to Lebanese parents. He graduated with 

engineering degrees from École Polytechnique 

in 1974 and from École des Mines de Paris in 

1978. 

CEO Insights 

It sometimes seems to me the North Americans, 

Europeans and Japanese working here are 

becoming more alike than they are different 

China will be the answer to Japan’s 

problems 

In the car industry, superior design is critical. 

Product design defines the first impression the 

customer has about our products. With one 

look the customer makes their decision about 

their appeal. Of course, an attractive design is 

not enough to make a product a success, but it 

is necessary 

We don’t know where the markets are 

going, ... We have to observe what’s 

going down, see the trends, look at every 

vibration on the market, prepare the 

technology and jump when consumers 

start to think one way or the other 

Fiscal year 2009 was a challenging year 

in the global economy and in the global 

automotive industry...While we have 

managed through the financial crisis and 

recession, we have not compromised 

our strategic priorities. For example, 

we have not slowed our investments to 

contribute to a zero-emission society. 

When the Nissan LEAF goes on sale this 

year, the Renault-Nissan Alliance will be 

the first to mass-market affordable zeroemission 

vehicles. 


Christopher Connor 

CEO of The Sherwin- 

Williams Company 

The Talent CEO 


Industry: Specialty 

Retail (Paints) 


Revenues: $7.3B 

Market Cap: $7.87B 





Christopher Connor 

Sherwin-Williams 

• Over the past 10 years, Sherwin- 

Williams shareholders have 

enjoyed an average annual return, 

including dividends, of almost 14 

percent. 

• Despite disappointing results 

during the 2009 financial crisis, 

the free cash flow for the year 

increased by approximately $12 

million to an all-time high of $605 

million. 

• Sherwin-Williams is rated as one 

of America’s top 100 companies to 

work for. 

• The company’s culture of 

excellence has created an 

environment where outstanding 

technology, operational excellence 

and engagement all continue 

to play a role in the Company’s 

growing success. 


Christopher Connor is Chairman 

and CEO of The Sherwin-Williams 

Company, a global leader in the paint 

and coatings industry. Mr. Connor 

was elected CEO by the company’s 

board of directors on October 25, 

1999 and added the title of Chairman 

on April 26, 2000. 

Mr. Connor, 53, began his 

employment with The Sherwin- 

Williams Company in 1983 as 

Director of Advertising for the 

Paint Stores Group. Over his 25year 

career with Sherwin-Williams, 

Mr. Connor has held a number of 

increasingly important assignments 

in many different functional areas 

of the Company. In addition to 

The Sherwin-Williams’ Board of 

Directors, Mr. Connor serves on the 

board of the Eaton Corporation. 

His many civic and community board 

engagements include the Greater 

Cleveland Partnership, the Rock 

and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, 

The Playhouse Square Foundation, 

University Hospitals Health System, 

United Way Services of Greater 

Cleveland, The Commission on 

Economic Inclusion, Team NEO, 

Fisher College of Business at The 

Ohio State University, the National 

Manufacturers Association and 

The National Paint and Coatings 

Association. Mr. Connor is the 

past Chairman of the Board for 

Keep America Beautiful, University 

Hospitals Health System and Walsh 

Jesuit High School. 

Mr. Connor is a 1974 graduate of 

Walsh Jesuit High School and a 

1978 graduate of The Ohio State 

University. 


We look for top talent, because we believe 

people are the ultimate competitive 

advantage. We reward innovative people 

with a real drive to accomplishment. 

20, 30, 40 year careers are not 

uncommon in our company. That is 

why we are rated as one of the top 100 

companies to work for. 

We enter 2010 cautiously optimistic that 

the worst of the global recession is behind 

us. At the same time, we acknowledge 

that economic recovery may be slow and 

erratic, and coatings demand in many 

end markets will likely remain weak. Over 

the past three years, we have worked 

hard to make Sherwin-Williams a leaner, 

financially stronger and more profitable 

company. We have fine-tuned our capital 

structure, tightly managed fixed costs 

and SG&A expense, reduced inventories 

and expanded our distribution platform 

domestically and abroad. These actions, 

along with our continued focus on 

serving a diverse and increasingly global 

customer base, have positioned us to 

perform well through the balance of this 

recession and outperform in a recovery. 

We are confident that 2010 will be a year 

of improvement for the Company. 

About Sherwin-Williams 

Sherwin-Williams operates over 3,350 paint stores 

in the United States, owns many of the paint and 

coatings industry leading brand names, and sells 

products in over 50 countries around the world. 


David Blair 

CEO of Catalyst Health 

Solutions 

The Fast Growth CEO 


Industry: Insurance 

Brokers 

Employees: 995 







David Blair 

Catalyst Health 

David Blair is one of the best CEOs 

under 40 years old. At a young age, 

he took the company to great growth 

levels. Under his leadership, Catalyst 

Health became one of the fastest 

growing companies in the world. 


• Revenue growth from $5 million 

at IPO (1999) to $3.6 billion in 

projected revenue for 2010 

• Market cap growth of 750% in 10 

years, from ~$200 million in 1999 

to about $1.5 billion 

• Net Income compounded annual 

growth rate (CAGR) of 30% since 

2005 

• In the two most recent consecutive 

years, Catalyst Health Solutions, 

Inc has been awarded the top 

customer satisfaction ratings for 

“Overall Service and Performance” 

in the Pharmacy Benefit 

Management Institute (PBMI) 

Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM) 

Customer Satisfaction Report 


David Blair joined Catalyst Health 

in 1997 as CFO and subsequently 

spearheaded a successful national 

marketing research campaign 

to develop the Company’s 

supplemental benefits programs, 

resulting in record growth. 

In 1999, Mr. Blair was named the 

Company’s CEO and Director of 

the Company’s Board of Directors. 

In 2001, Mr. Blair launched a 

major initiative to complement the 

Company’s supplemental benefits 

and expanded into the pharmacy 

benefit management industry 

through selective acquisitions and 

strategic investments. 

Catalyst Health Solutions, Inc. 

has experienced a rate of growth 

substantially greater than its 

competitors and positioned itself 

as a market leader in providing 

superior quality of care and unbiased 

pharmacy benefit management 

solutions. 

The company maintains a strong 

focus on innovation, efficiency, 

and superior service and has 

a long-standing commitment to 

transparency and flexible pricing 

options from traditional to fully passthrough. 

With a commitment to innovation 

and a unique knowledge of the 

healthcare industry, Mr. Blair has 

steered Catalyst Health Solutions, 

Inc. from a small regional player to a nationally 

recognized healthcare company. 

The company is built on strong, innovative 

principles and provides an unbiased, clientcentered 

philosophy, which has consistently 

resulted in industry-leading client retention rates 

and performance. 

Prior to joining Catalyst Health Solutions, Inc., 

Blair served in a financial role for United Payors 

and United Providers, where he contributed to 

the Company’s initial public offering and several 

strategic acquisitions. 

He is a Director of the Leadership Board for the 

Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation and is 

a frequent participant in panel discussions and on 

advisory boards and steering committees, where 

he lends his entrepreneurial skills and expertise in 

healthcare to advance various initiatives. 

CEO Leadership 

“While the abilities to think strategically, 

embrace innovation and drive 

performance are important hallmarks of 

a good leader, a great leader is one who 

creates and sustains a work environment 

that consistently motivates employees to 

perform at their best. David has effectively 

managed through such changes by 

utilizing timely communication to keep 

employees focused and engaged, while 

maintaining a steadfast commitment to 

leadership development as a means to 

ensure the success of the organization’s 

pipeline..” - Monica Wolfe - Vice 

President, Human Resources 


Our success at Catalyst Health has been 

driven by our commitment to continually 

recruit and retain the best and brightest 

professionals in our industry. We 

reinforce throughout the organization our 

vision of placing the unique needs of our 

clients first - having a simple, common 

objective empowers our employees 

and aligns business decisions. We 

challenge our team to identify and 

develop innovative, targeted solutions 

aimed at meeting and exceeding our 

clients’ expectations. We then focus on 

effective corporate-wide communication 

processes and appropriate performance 

incentives. All strategy, from the delivery 

of our services, to improvements that 

maximize operational efficiencies, to the 

development of lowest net cost solutions 

are built around these key principles. 

The Company’s commitment to 

transparency, customized programs, 

and lowest net cost solutions in the 

management of pharmacy benefits 

continues to drive our success 

About Catalyst Health Solutions 

Catalyst Health Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ CHSI) 

manages prescription drug benefits for more than 7 

million people in the United States and Puerto Rico. 

Its subsidiaries include Catalyst Rx, a full-service 

pharmacy benefit manager; HospiScript Services, 

LLC, one of the largest providers of pharmacy benefit 

management services to the hospice industry; 

and Immediate Pharmaceutical Services, Inc., a 

fully-integrated prescription mail service facility in 

Avon Lake, Ohio. The Company’s clients include 

self-insured employers including state and local 

governments, managed care organizations, unions, 

hospices, third-party administrators and individuals. 


David Simon 

CEO of Simon Property 

Group 

The M&A CEO 


Industry: REIT -Retail 







David Simon 

Simon Property Group 


In 1993 Simon led the efforts to take 

Simon Property Group public with a 

nearly $1 billion initial public offering 

that, at the time, was the largest real 

estate stock offering. 

Mr. Simon became CEO in 1995. 

Since that time, he has orchestrated 

more than $25 billion in strategic 

acquisitions that, together with 

ground-up development, have 

allowed the company to assemble a 

portfolio of top-tier shopping centers 

that serve as home to virtually every 

top retailer. 

The strategic acquisitions and highly 

disciplined expense management 

created a superior shareholder value 

over the past decade including last 

year’s worst financial crisis. Under his 

leadership , the company delivered 

a total stockholder return of 58% 

in 2009, significantly outperforming 

total returns of the MSCI U.S. REIT 

Index (“RMS”) of 28.6% and the 

S&P 500 Index of 26.5%. SPG has 

outperformed both the RMS and 

the S&P 500 in nine of the last ten 

years. 


David Simon joined the company 

in 1990 and became the CEO in 

1995. 

Simon Property Group, Inc., an 

S&P 500 company and the largest 

U.S. publicly traded real estate 

company. Simon Property Group 

is a fully integrated real estate 

company which operates from five 

retail real estate platforms: regional 

malls, Premium Outlet Centers®, 

The Mills®, community/lifestyle 

centers and international properties. 

The Company currently owns or 

has an interest in approximately 

380 properties in North America, 

Europe and Asia. Before joining the 

organization, Mr. Simon was a vice 

president of Wasserstein Perella & 

Co., a Wall Street firm specializing 

in mergers and acquisitions and 

leveraged buyouts. 

Mr. Simon is a member and former 

chairman of the National Association 

of Real Estate Investment Trusts 

(NAREIT) board of governors and is 

a former trustee of the International 

Council of Shopping Centers 

(ICSC). He has received numerous 

industry honors, and in 2000, he was 

inducted into the Indiana University 

Kelley School of Business Academy 

of Alumni Fellows. Mr. Simon is 

recognized as one of the world’s 

best-performing CEO’s. 

Mr. Simon is the son of the late Melvin Simon, 

chairman emeritus of Simon Property Group. He 

holds a B.S. degree from Indiana University and an 

MBA from Columbia University’s Graduate School 

of Business. 


The Prime Outlets portfolio is an excellent 

strategic fit and presents a compelling 

opportunity for Simon to benefit from 

shoppers’ increased demand for 

discounted brand-name merchandise. 

We believe that our strong track record of operational 

excellence, financial resources, and history of 

successful acquisitions, make us well positioned 

to improve the performance of these assets for the 

benefit of tenants, retailers and consumers 

Simon’s offer provides the best possible outcome for 

all General Growth Property (GGP) stakeholders. 

Simon is in the unique position of being able to 

offer GGP creditors and shareholders full, fair 

and immediate value. Our offer provides muchneeded 

certainty to conclude GGP’s protracted 

reorganization process. We are confident it is the 

best option for all GGP constituencies and far 

superior to any other third-party proposal or standalone 

plan that could be completed. This acquisition 

also offers a compelling value-creation opportunity 

for Simon shareholders. Simon’s strong track 

record of successfully completing large acquisitions 

and our history of delivering superior propertylevel 

performance ideally position Simon to create 

additional value with GGP’s portfolio 

[I was confident that] we could pull 

through one of the most difficult economic 

crises on record. We had the people, the 

vision, the properties, the balance sheet 

and the work ethic to navigate our way 

through turbulent times. One year ago, 

the world was in an economic meltdown. 

U.S. stocks plunged to new bear-market 

lows following financial market fears that 

brought the Dow down to levels not seen 

since 1997. SPG common stock was 

trading below $30 per share. We were 

in the midst of a national credit crisis and 

the debt markets were dysfunctional. 

Unemployment was on the rise. Retailers 

were experiencing continued declining 

sales and bankruptcies were increasing. 

We expected, and in fact experienced, a 

very difficult year. Despite the negative 

external factors, from the economy to 

the consumer, the landscape provided 

us with the opportunity to demonstrate 

our position as a leader in the real estate 

industry. Our people rose to the challenge 

and we accomplished what we set out to 

do. 

Today, we have over $4 billion of cash on 

hand, including our share of joint venture 

cash, and availability on our corporate 

credit facility of more than $3 billion, 

for a total liquidity position in excess of 

$7 billion. This capital will keep us wellpositioned 

to pursue new opportunities 

in our efforts to profitably grow the 

Company. We will also use this capital 

to continue our efforts to de-leverage the 

Company 

About Simon Property Group 

Simon Property Group, Inc. is an S&P 500 company 

and the largest real estate company in the U.S. The 

Company owns or has an interest in 393 retail real 

estate properties comprising 263 million square feet 

of gross leasable area in North America, Europe 

and Asia. Simon Property Group is headquartered in 

Indianapolis, Indiana and employs more than 5,000 

people worldwide. The Company’s common stock 

is publicly traded on the NYSE under the symbol 

SPG. 


Eric Schmidt 

CEO of Google Inc 

The Search CEO 


Industry: Internet 

Search, Media and 

Advertising 







Eric Schmidt 

Google 


Since joining Google in March 2001, 

he has helped grow the company 

from a Silicon Valley startup to a 

global company. Today, Google 

is the Internet’s premier brand for 

search, media and advertising. 

Half of Google’s revenue comes 

from selling text-based ads that are 

placed near search results and are 

related to the topic of the search. 

Another half of its revenues come 

from licensing its search technology 

to companies like Yahoo. 

As the CEO of Google, Eric has 

delivered steady growth while 

expanding Google’s global reach. He 

attributes this success to Google’s 

ability to attract and develop top 

talent. 

Eric built an organization and a work 

environment that allowed the free 

flows of information and encouraged 

employees to innovate. 

Google internal work model is based 

on innovative collaborative projects. 

Staff devote 20 percent of their work 

time to special projects of their own 

design, a policy that is at the core of 

its innovation culture. 

While CEO of Google in 2008 and 

2009, Schmidt earned a base salary 

of just $1, and other compensation 

of $508,763 in 2008 and $508,763 

in 2009. He did not receive any 

cash, stock, or options. Schmidt 

is one of the few people who have 

become billionaires based on stock 

options received as an employee in 

a corporation. 


Eric Schmidt left Novell after the 

acquisition of Cambridge Technology 

Partners. He was interviewed by the 

founders of Google, Larry Page and 

Sergey Brin and hired him to run 

their company under the influence of 

venture capitalists John Doerr and 

Michael Moritz. 

At Google, Schmidt shares 

responsibility for Google’s daily 

operations with founders Page and 

Brin. Google is a triumvirate (from 

Latin, “of three men”) a political 

regime dominated by three powerful 

individuals. Schmidt focuses 

on building a global corporate 

infrastructure needed to maintain 

Google’s rapid growth as a company 

and on ensuring that quality remains 

high while product development 

cycle times are kept to a minimum. 

Schmidt’s technical and business background 

uniquely prepared him to lead Google. Prior to 

joining Google, Eric was the CEO of Novell and 

Chief Technology Officer at Sun Microsystems, Inc. 

Earlier in his career, Eric was a member of the 

research staff at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center 

(PARC) and held positions at Bell Laboratories and 

Zilog. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical 

engineering from Princeton University as well as a 

master’s and Ph.D. in computer science from the 

University of California, Berkeley. 

Eric is a member of President Obama’s Council 

of Advisors on Science and Technology. He was 

elected to the National Academy of Engineering 

in 2006 and inducted into the American Academy 

of Arts and Sciences as a fellow in 2007. Eric also 

chairs the board of the New America Foundation. A 

former member of the Board of Directors of Apple 

Inc. He also sits on the board of trustees for Carnegie 

Mellon University and Princeton University. 


Google organizational and human capital 

strategy is summed up by Ivan Ernest, 

Head of HR, Engineering & Operations. 

“Hire learners. Trust them.Give them 

freedom, information and tools. [Execute 

via] Flat structure, small projects and 

small teams. Discuss everything in 

public. Be meritocratic. Reward success, 

but don’t penalize failure.” 


I’m able to bring business expertise, but 

more importantly, operating experience. 

The people at Google are young. Every 

day there are lots of new challenges. I 

keep things focused. The speech I give 

everyday is: “This is what we do. Is what 

you are doing consistent with that, and 

does it change the world?” 

Search companies, which I won’t mention 

by name, tried to do so many things at the 

same time, they forgot all about search. 

They either missed the next revolution of 

search or they created an opening for a 

Google to enter 

Technology is always evolving, and 

companies can’t be afraid to take 

advantage of change 

The thing that people seem to miss about 

not just Google, but also our competitors, 

Yahoo, eBay and so forth, is that there’s 

an awful lot of communities that have 

never been served by traditional media 

We weren’t here to hope and hang on. 

We wanted to win 

When the Internet publicity began, I 

remember being struck by how much the 

world was not the way we thought it was, 

that there was infinite variation in how 

people viewed the world 

Anytime you’re in a pressure situation 

you find out who’s going to step up and 

do it and who’s going to fade into the 

background 

The competitive threat has been a big 

overhang on the stock and I would say 

about half that has been lifted 


Jeffrey Joerres 

CEO of Manpower Inc. 

The People CEO 


Industry: Staffing and 

Outsourcing 







Jeffrey Joerres 

Manpower 


In 2008, Manpower celebrated its 

60th anniversary. Considering the 

average multinational company lasts 

between 40 and 50 years, this is a 

major achievement to the executives 

that built and led the company. 

Despite the global recession, 

Manpower operating cash flow 

continues to be strong, at $414 

million, ending 2009 with $1 billion 

in cash. Manpower is the world 

leader in RPO (recruitment process 

outsourcing). 

As the CEO, Jeff has led a 

transformation of Manpower’s 

business strategy, adding new 

business lines that have expanded 

the company’s ability to assist 

clients and candidates in navigating 

the changing world of work. His role 

at Manpower has seen him advising 

domestic and foreign government 

officials about how to transform their 

labor markets to compete in the 

global economy. Under Jeff’s tenure, 

Manpower has experienced rapid 

growth, expanding the footprint of 

the organization to 4,100 offices 

across 82 countries and territories. 

His achievements for the company 

have seen Manpower share value 

more than triple, and the company 

has climbed the ranks of the Fortune 

500 American companies list, 

moving from 183 to 119 in 2009. 

Jeff is a strong proponent of job 

training and workforce development 

initiatives. 


Jeffrey A. Joerres is Chairman and 

CEO of Manpower Inc. Having joined 

Manpower in 1993, Jeff served as 

Vice President of Marketing, and 

later, as Senior Vice President of 

European Operations and Global 

Account Management. It was in 1999 

that he was promoted to President 

and CEO, and in 2001 that he was 

named Chairman of the Board. 

Outside of the company, he 

serves on the board of trustees 

for the Committee for Economic 

Development (CED), and is co-chair 

of the CEO Diversity Committee of 

the Greater Milwaukee Committee. 

In addition, Jeff was the 2008 Cochair 

at the World Economic Forum 

India Economic Summit. 

Prior to joining Manpower, Jeff held 

the position of Vice President of 

Sales and Marketing for ARI Network 

Services, a publicly held, high-tech 

electronic data interchange company. He has also 

held several management positions within IBM. 

In addition to the Manpower’s board, Jeff is a member 

of the board of directors of Artisan Funds, Federal 

Reserve Bank of Chicago, Johnson Controls and 

the U.S. Council for International Business (USCIB). 

He is also a 2008 Woodrow Wilson International 

Award Recipient for Corporate Citizenship; Featured 

Second Life Thought Leader in 2009 Evolution of the 

Virtual Workforce; Featured Panelist in 2009 U.S. 

Secretary of Education Initiative for Advancement of 

Technical Colleges to Address Trade Skills Gap. 

Jeff has a bachelor’s degree from Marquette 

University’s College of Business Administration, 

from which he graduated in 1983. 


“Jeff’s leadership style is rooted in role 

modeling. He conducts himself the way 

he expects his employees to behave – 

as true ambassadors for the Manpower 

group of companies with a passion 

for people and the role of work in their 

lives. He is relentless in his pursuit of 

the company’s goals – providing our 

clients with the best possible talent - but 

knows how to balance cost reduction 

with investment. Jeff has motivated the 

whole organization to get behind what 

we are trying to achieve.” VP of Human 

Resources 


It is critical to get out of your office and 

meet people face to face. You have to 

stay connected with your people so 

that you know where the challenges lie 

within your organization. The imperial 

CEO belongs to a bygone age - in the 

contemporary world of work, CEOs are 

here to serve, not to be served, and 

management is all about flexibility and 

agility. Being solution-oriented is a big 

part of being a leader - it’s a tremendous 

leadership quality 

Talent mismatch is a global problem, but 

it is more acute at the mid- to higher-level 

skills 

To foster job creation, one of the groups 

that initiatives should be targeted at is 

potential new business owners. New 

small business owners will drive longterm 

job creation in this country, and 

skilled trade workers can potentially own 

their own business and have three or 

four employees within a few years 

The [regulation] is hindering one of our 

greatest sources of innovation by having 

too low a limit on the number of nonimmigrant 

(H1B) visas. We are preventing 

the brightest minds from entering the 

country, which is nonsense given that 

the growth of this country came from 

people who arrived here from overseas 

with an idea, developed it and created 

employment. Two thirds of Silicon Valley 

companies were started by people born 

outside the U.S. If the brightest minds 

cannot come to the U.S., it will be our 

loss because there are plenty of other 

places like Shanghai, Mumbai, Abu 

Dhabi, Qatar and Dubai...[This] harms 

our competitiveness on the world stage 


John Wren 

CEO of Omnicom 

The Advertising CEO 


Industry: Advertising 

Services 







John Wren 

Omnicom Group 


John Wren, 58, is the President 

and CEO of Omnicom Group Inc., 

the leading global marketing and 

corporate communications company. 

He was named CEO in 1997 and 

elected President in 1996. 

Under his direction, Omnicom, 

founded in 1986, has achieved 

status as a world-class company 

with the best corporate and divisional 

management in the advertising and 

marketing communications industry, 

as well as the leading brands in 

marketing, including BBDO, DDB, 

Fleishman-Hillard, Interbrand, 

Ketchum, OMD, PHD, Porter Novelli, 

Rapp and TBWA. 

Mr. Wren entered the advertising 

business in 1984, joining Needham 

Harper Worldwide as an executive 

vice president. Part of the team that 

created Omnicom in 1986, he was 

appointed Chief Executive Officer 

of the Diversified Agency Services 

division of Omnicom in 1990. 

He was responsible for growing this 

division into the holding company’s 

largest operating group, comprised 

of companies in a wide array of 

disciplines ranging from public 

relations to branding. 

John has championed the 

company’s investment in the 

recruitment and development of 

talent through several key programs, 

including Omnicom University, 

an in-house global leadership 

development faculty. It forms the 

core of Omnicom’s commitment to 

attract, retain and motivate talent. 

Wren is involved with a number of 

philanthropic activities. A member 

of the Board of Directors of Lincoln 

Center for the Performing Arts, Inc., 

John is also a Vice-Chairman of 

Continuum Health Partners, the 

third-largest healthcare system in 

the New York Metropolitan area, and 

the Chairman of Long Island College 

Hospital. Mr. Wren is, in addition, 

a Trustee of the Arthur Ashe 

Foundation and active in healthcare 

education for disadvantaged 

communities. 

He received numerous accolades, 

including the Gold Medal Award from 

the Catholic Youth Organization and 

the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, for 

his many philanthropic contributions 

to the community. 


Our success can be directly correlated 

to the full suite of skills our management 

teams bring to their agencies. Excellence 

in all aspects of business management is 

an ongoing priority and a core strategic 

advantage for Omnicom. For more than 

a decade and a half, we have invested 

in formalizing and disseminating our 

collective business knowledge through 

advanced education programs, seminars 

and conferences. 

The story of 2009 was one of balance. 

It was about how Omnicom’s leading 

portfolio of global advertising and 

marketing brands, balanced by 

geography and discipline, withstood the 

worst global recession in the Company’s 

history. It was about the remarkable job 

our agencies did of balancing the need to 

manage costs with the need to maintain 

the high quality of services they provide to 

clients...Perhaps most importantly, it was 

about how Omnicom was able to balance 

the short-term response to our difficult 

economic environment with a long-term 

strategy to grow our exceptional portfolio 

of businesses and take advantage of 

the many opportunities that economic 

recovery will offer 

We challenged our agencies to align 

costs with anticipated decreases in 

revenue. We challenged them to do far 

more with much less, while also adjusting 

their offerings to better meet the needs 

of clients in a rapidly evolving digital 

environment 

As we look at individual countries and 

regions, we are cautiously optimistic 

about continued global recovery (in 

2010), although we expect significant 

variation by region...On the cost front, 

we continued to keep a close eye on 

costs and have asked our agencies to 

remain mindful of the potential risk to the 

economy...At the same time, our agencies 

are now increasingly focused on taking 

advantage of growth opportunities, both 

through new business efforts as well as 

growing our existing client accounts 

Our business is built on the strength of 

our management teams and the talented 

professionals around the world. They 

have worked extremely hard to help us 

navigate through last year...We adjust 

our incentives (bonuses) based upon 

what the outlook is. It’s done at least 

once a quarter where we look at that 

and we make whatever adjustments are 

appropriate 

We intended to use our strong balance 

sheet to increase our dividend, buyback 

stocks, and make strategic acquisitions 

The beautiful thing about Omnicom is 

no single client is that significant. There 

are a lot of clients. It’s not that we have 

five major clients and we are tracking our 

progression against those five 


John Stumpf 

CEO of Wells Fargo & 

Company 

The Trust CEO 


Industry: Financial 

Services & Banking 








John Stumpf 

Wells Fargo & Company 

In addition to leading one of the 

world’s largest banks and financial 

services companies, John Stumpf 

is respected for his leadership 

performance and honesty. 

A CEO that does not sugarcoat or 

omit bad news is a CEO to trust. 

In his letter to the shareholders 

(during 2008 financial crisis) he 

said “We made some mistakes but 

kept our credit discipline...It will be 

a rough year for our economy and 

our industry. Consumer loans will 

continue under stress, chargeoffs 

[uncollectible debt] probably will 

continue to rise.” 

Wells Fargo emerged stronger than 

most other banks and the reason is 

that they did not invest in what they 

did not understand (unlike AIG, Bank 

of America, and Citigroup). 

Wells Fargo’s Recognitions 

• Ranked world’s 41st in Revenues 

in all industries (2009 Fortune) 

• Newsweek America’s #1 Green 

Bank and #13 Greenest Big 

Company (2009) 

• Human Rights Campaign Perfect 

Score of 100 on Corporate Equality 

Index (2009) 

• DiversityInc. Top 50 Companies 

for Diversity (2009) 

• Top 10 Companies for Recruitment 

and Retention 

• Bank Technology News #1 Bank 

Technology Innovator of the Year 

(2009) 


John Stumpf was named Chief 

Executive Officer in June 2007, 

elected to Wells Fargo’s Board of 

Directors in June 2006, and has 

been President since August 2005. 

He became the Chairman for Wells 

Fargo & Company in January 2010. 

A 27-year veteran of the company, 

he joined the former Norwest 

Corporation (predecessor of 

Wells Fargo) in 1982 in the loan 

administration department and then 

became senior vice president and 

chief credit officer for Norwest Bank, 

N.A., Minneapolis. 

He held a number of management 

positions at Norwest Bank 

Minneapolis and Norwest Bank 

Minnesota before assuming 

responsibility for Norwest Bank 

Arizona in 1989. He was named 

regional president for Norwest 

Banks in Colorado/Arizona in 1991. 

From 1994 to 1998, he was regional president for 

Norwest Bank Texas. During his four years in that 

position, he led Norwest’s acquisition of 30 Texas 

banks with total assets of more than $13 billion. 

In 1998, with the merger of Norwest Corporation and 

Wells Fargo & Company, he became head of the 

Southwestern Banking Group (Arizona, New Mexico 

and Texas). Two years later he became head of the 

new Western Banking Group (Arizona, Colorado, 

Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, Utah, 

Washington and Wyoming). 

In 2000, he led the integration of Wells Fargo’s 

acquisition of the $23 billion First Security 

Corporation, based in Salt Lake City. In May 2002, 

he was named Group EVP of Community Banking. 

In December 2008, he led one of the largest mergers 

in history with the purchase of Wachovia. 

He serves on the Board of Directors for The Clearing 

House and the Financial Services Roundtable. He 

also serves on the Board of Trustees of the San 

Francisco Museum of Modern Art. 

A Minnesota native, he earned his bachelor’s degree 

in finance from St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, 

Minnesota and his MBA with an emphasis in finance 

from the University of Minnesota. 


Demonstrating the benefit of our 

diversified business model, most of 

our consumer business showed strong 

growth this quarter and helped to offset 

the decline at Home Mortgage 

This outstanding group of environmental 

experts, representing diverse 

perspectives and expertise, will help 

Wells Fargo bring a thoughtful and 

balanced approach to integrating 

environmental considerations into our 

business practices. They’ll also be our 

eyes and ears in industry, academia 

and non-governmental organizations 

to make sure we anticipate emerging 

environmental issues in our communities 

and globally 

The financial services business remains 

fragmented business. There isn’t any one 

player that controls 30, 40, 50 percent 

market share like you’d see in other 

industries 

We never participated in some of the real 

exotic things that the industry and others 

participated in. For example: we never 

understood why it made sense to make 

someone a loan, a home mortgage with 

negative amortization. So you would owe 

more on the home later than what you 

started with. That didn’t seem sensible to 

us. Because you don’t know what’s going 

to happen in the future. 

We call them team members (an asset 

in which to invest), not employees (an 

expense to be managed) 

About Wells Fargo & Company 

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a 

diversified financial services company providing 

banking, insurance, investments, mortgage and 

consumer finance through more than 10,000 Wells 

Fargo and Wachovia stores, 12,000 Wells Fargo and 

Wachovia ATMs, the internet and other distribution 

channels across North America and internationally. 

They headquartered in San Francisco. One in three 

households in America does business with Wells 

Fargo. Wells Fargo has $1.2 trillion in assets and 

more than 281,000 team members across its 80+ 

businesses. It is ranked fourth in assets and second 

in market value of its stock among its US peers as 

of December 31, 2009. 


Joseph W. Saunders 

CEO of Visa Inc. 

The CEO of the largest 

IPO in U.S. History 


Industry: Payment 

Processing Network 


Revenues: $ 7B 

Market Cap: $ 64B 




Joseph Saunders 

Visa Inc 


When Saunders took the helm as 

Chairman and CEO at Visa In, he 

successfully combined several 

independent Visa entities, including 

operating units in the US, Canada, 

Latin America, Asia Pacific, and the 

Middle East, into a single global 

company. The Saunders-led $19 

billion Visa Inc. IPO, which merged 

these entities, remains the largest 

IPO in U.S. history. 

Under Saunders’ leadership, Visa 

had a stellar track record of financial 

performance since the IPO. In the 

midst of the country’s economic 

challenges Visa has continued 

to post strong operational and 

financial performance, all while 

delivering excellent results for its 

shareholders. 

Since the IPO, Visa has consistently 

exceeded analysts’ expectations 

for each earnings period. The 

financial community has praised 

the resilience of Visa’s business 

model, the company’s diverse 

product set, and senior leadership’s 

ongoing commitment to expense 

management. 

In 2009, Visa returned more than $2.1 

billion to shareholders in the form of 

dividends and buybacks. Additionally, 

Saunders has aggressively committed 

Visa to investing in innovation that 

enables consumers and clients to use 

Visa products and services in more 

ways and in more places. 

To position Visa for future growth, in 

2009 Visa invested in its processing 

capabilities in two key areas: 

• 

• 

Visa established a joint venture 

– Visa Processing Service Pte. 

Ltd. (VPS) with Yalamanchili 

International to deliver flexible 

processing services to clients 

outside the US. 

In parallel, Visa opened a new 

global data processing center 

in North America with several IT 

enhancements that further improve 

the flexibility, reliability, and scale 

of VisaNet and increase Visa’s 

ability to process the ever-growing 

number of increasingly complex 

electronic payments around the 

world. 

Under Saunders, Visa has increased 

its commitment to global financial 

literacy. In 2009, Visa announced at 

the Clinton Global Initiative Conference 

that it would educate 20 million people 

worldwide about the fundamentals of 

money management by May 2013. 

CEO Challenges 

Financial regulations and expanding to global 

markets under current global economic conditions 


Joseph W. Saunders was named chairman and chief 

executive officer of Visa Inc. in May 2007. Prior to 

his current role, Saunders served Visa International 

as executive chairman of the transition governance 

committee. He previously served as president of 

card services for Washington Mutual, Inc. after 

the acquisition of Providian Financial Corporation, 

where he acted as president and chief executive 

officer. From 1997 until 2001, Saunders served as 

chairman and chief executive officer of Fleet Credit 

Card Services at FleetBoston Financial Corporation. 

Saunders holds a B.S. in business administration 

and an MBA, both from the University of Denver. 


Financial regulatory reform is meant 

to make our financial system safer 

and fairer for consumers. Now, it is 

about to be hijacked by the nation’s 

largest retailers, whose lobbyists have 

attached an amendment that would net 

their companies billions of dollars at 

consumers’ expense. It does the direct 

opposite of the bill’s intended purpose. 

It should be stripped out before the bill 

reaches President Barack Obama 

Online commerce continues to grow 

rapidly, and (CyberSource) acquisition 

will enable Visa to offer new and 

enhanced services that will better meet 

the growing demand among merchants 

globally for robust, secure online payment 

processing capabilities which in turn will 

grow the entire eCommerce category... 

And, as eCommerce increasingly 

migrates to mobile devices, we believe 

the combination of Visa and CyberSource 

technology and services will position Visa 

to lead in mobile eCommerce 

Syncada complements Visa’s core 

payments business by expanding 

our capabilities in B2B supply chain 

management. By investing in this leading 

platform, we can offer Visa’s financial 

institution clients around the world 

access to Syncada’s services, backed 

by a comprehensive sales and support 

infrastructure that will help extend 

the reach and capabilities of Visa’s 

commercial product suite 

I am confident that Visa’s world-class 

employees, competitive strategy, leading 

brand and network, and diverse product 

offering will lead to continued success for 

the company...My experience working 

with Visa has demonstrated that this is 

a high-performing, highly focused team 

that delivers results 

About Visa Inc 

Visa is the world’s largest payments technology 

company. It connects consumers to 1.7 billion 

cards, millions of ATM and acceptance locations, 

and 16,400 financial institutions in more than 200 

countries and territories around the globe, enabling 

them to use digital currency instead of cash and 

checks. At the heart of business is VisaNet, one of 

the world’s most advanced processing networks. 

It is capable of handling more than a half billion 

transactions per day. Visa does not issue cards, 

extend credit or set rates and fees for consumers. 

Visa’s network innovations, however, enable its 

bank customers to offer consumers more choices 

on how to pay – debit, prepaid, or credit cards. 


Matt Rubel 

CEO of Collective 

Brands, Inc. 

The Retail CEO 


Industry: Apparel 

Stores 







Matt Rubel 

Collective Brands 


Matt Rubel is recognized for his 

leadership in forming Collective 

Brands and establishing the 

company’s vision of creating the preeminent, 

consumer-centric, global 

footwear, accessories and lifestyle 

brand company. He is also recognized 

by the investment community as 

one of the top CEOs within apparel 

and footwear industry. Under Matt’s 

leadership, Collective Brands has 

evolved into a dynamic and diverse 

global enterprise, with a strong 

portfolio of iconic brands reaching 

consumers across the world through 

wholesale, retail, e-commerce, 

licensing and franchising channels. 

The company expanded its global 

footprint to nearly 100 countries 

worldwide. 

Matt is responsible for the 

Shoes4Kids program which donates 

more than 77,000 pairs of shoes to 

children during the holiday season 

Matt Rubel became the CEO of 

Payless and ShoeSource in June, 

2005. Matt’s strategy was to create 

an inspiring, customer-centric 

organization with a new position 

as a specialty retailer dedicated to 

democratizing fashion in footwear 

and accessories. 

In July, 2007, Matt led the acquisition 

of The Stride Rite Corporation and 

the formation of Collective Brands, 

Inc. (NYSE: PSS), the parent 

company of Payless ShoeSource, 

Stride Rite (now named the 

Collective Brands Performance 

+ Lifestyle Group) and Collective 

Licensing International. Matt was 

named CEO and President. In May, 

2008, he was elected Chairman of 

the Board, CEO and President of 

Collective Brands, Inc. 

From 1999 to 2005, Matt was 

Chairman, President and CEO of 

Cole Haan, a leading marketer of 

high quality men’s and women’s 

shoes and accessories, and 

subsidiary of Nike, Inc. At Cole 

Haan, Matt guided the company 

into a new era by re-energizing the 

brand and creating a strong global 

presence. During his time with Cole 

Haan, the company doubled in 

size and expanded its global foot 

print, positioning the company as a 

leading fashion brand. 

Matt is active in several industry 

and civic organizations, including 

the Jay H. Baker Initiative at the 

Wharton School – University of 

Pennsylvania; Young President’s 

Organization; University of Miami 

Board of Trustees, Florida; Chairman 

of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of 

America; Matt is a member of the American Ballet 

Theater (ABT) Board of Governing Trustees, the 

International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) 

Board of Trustees, and the Board for National Retail 

Federation (NRF). 


Be ready for change with dynamic action. 

Be creative, work with teams and build 

relationships. Learn from your mistakes 

and move on 

What is great for us is that kids continue to 

change size and our children’s business 

is doing well even in a recession 

High levels of unemployment currently 

at play could slow the recovery on Main 

Street and at retail. Employment growth 

is really a necessary factor for vibrant 

growth in the consumer sector 

Our strategy, regardless of the economic 

climate, is to remain focused on the 

consumers...They hold the key to any 

retailer or brand success 

We can be successful if we understand 

our customers’ needs and desires, and 

then find innovative ways to deliver great 

product and provide an outstanding, 

experience in our stores 

Our CRM capabilities have grown beyond 

our expectations in the last few years, 

and are providing us with meaningful new 

insights on how to reach and connect 

with our customers on a deeper level 


Michael Dan 

CEO of Brinks 

The Coaching CEO 


Industry: Security 

Services 


Revenues: $3BB 

Market Cap: $1B$ 




Michael Dan 

Brink’s 


Dan turned around of The Brinks 

Company by focusing the company 

business, divesting unprofitable 

companies, fixing a faltering BAX 

business unit and selling it for double 

the valuation from $600 million to 

$1.1 billion 

Dan executed a strategy to improve 

the company’s operations and 

financial position following The 

Pittston Company’s failed attempt to 

sell Brink’s in the 1980s. Dan’s plan 

succeeded so well that, instead of 

selling Brink’s, The Pittston Company 

became Brink’s. 

One of the most significant 

achievements was getting out of 

the coal business. Under Dan’s 

leadership, the transition brought 

Brink’s back to its roots and left the 

company in a position to increase 

profits in the long term. Revenues 

at BAX another business unit had 

been faltering since the late 1990s. 

He made the decision to turn the 

company around, then sell it for 

higher valuation. In 2005, he sold 

BAX for $1.1 billion. Wall Street 

valuation of BAX at that time was at 

about $600 Million 

In the 1990s, when charged with 

improving the lackluster performance 

of Brink’s international affiliates, 

Dan instituted a policy of purchasing 

controlling interests in international 

affiliates whenever possible and 

dissolving or selling any joint venture 

that refused to cooperate. This 

policy gave the company the control 

it needed to ensure consistency of 

service and to transform from an 

international organization into a truly 

global company. 

In 1984, Dan decertified the 

Teamsters, a process that served 

as a strategic turning point for the 

company by lowering wage costs and 

making Brink’s a more competitive 

force in the industry. 

How he won his employee respect? 

• Establishment and funding of a 

retiree health and benefits plan 

to secure the future of retired 

employees from all Brink’s legacy 

businesses. 

• Establishing a universal, zerotolerance 

code of ethics throughout 

Brink’s global operations. 

• Instilling throughout Brink’s a 

focus on safety and security 

and, specifically, “bringing every 

employee home safely each 

night”. 


Michael Dan, 59, is Chairman, President and CEO 

of The Brink’s Company. Dan joined the company in 

1982 as Director of Automotive Design. Later, he 

became Regional Vice President, Executive Vice 

President of North America, then President and CEO 

of the Brink’s holding company with responsibility for 

all security businesses. In 1998, Mr. Dan became 

President and CEO of The Pittston Company, and 

in 1999 he was elected Chairman, President and 

CEO. Before joining Brink’s, Incorporated Mr. Dan 

was President of Armored Vehicle Builders, Inc. 

He attended Morton College and is a graduate of 

the Advanced Management Program at Harvard 

University. 


“Dan’s leadership style is incredibly open 

and always transparent. He’s a fantastic 

teacher and very engaged at all levels of 

the organization.” - Frank Lennon - VP & 

Chief Administration Office 


In today’s world, rather than tell board 

members the answers, you have to involve 

them in the problem, get their input, and 

evolve issues so you end up with a strong 

consensus on the board. Although you 

won’t always get everyone aligned on 

every issue, a strong consensus helps 

leverage the board’s value and ensure 

you are getting their wisdom and insight 

as you run a very complicated global 

business 

For a CEO, nothing is more valuable than 

time, and it’s important to understand 

your priorities so you can know how best 

to schedule your time and focus on the 

right things. You have to understand what 

you can and can’t do with your time 

I’ve learned that teams win. If you 

understand where you are, where you 

have to go and can get the organization 

lined up in support of the direction, the 

organization (the team)is unstoppable 

I am direct; I am hands-on. I cannot get 

enough information. I read company 

reports from every country, every 

sales person...Information gives me 

perspective. When I visit the field, armed 

with information, I can make sure that 

what I’m hearing and seeing supports 

what I’ve been reading. It allows me to 

give our managers new perspective and 

valuable insight to help them deal with 

personnel issues, operational problems, 

or other challenges 

At this point in my career, I’m almost 

like a professor, trying to transfer all my 

knowledge to the senior managers of this 

company 

About Brink’s Inc 

The Brink’s Company is a leading global security 

services company listed on NYSE with more than $3 

billion in revenues, 50,000 employees worldwide, 

and operations in more than 50 countries. The Brink’s 

company provides armored car transportation, ATM 

servicing, currency and coin processing and other 

value-added services to banks, retailers and other 

commercial and governmental agencies around the 

world. 


CEO Q: What is your most important professional 

achievements at your current company? 

Michael: Helping to chart a course to ensure the 

success of the Brink’s organization following The 

Pittston Company’s failed attempt to sell Brink’s in 

the 1980s. Fortunately, we were able to improve the 

company so well that we ended up selling off the 

assets of The Pittston Company and today, Brink’s 

is the company left standing. 

CEO Q: How did you do that? 

CEO Interview 

Lessons from a Global CEO 

Michael Dan - CEO of Brink’s Inc. 

A leadership interview with one of the most respected CEOs 

Michael: I also believe very strongly in focusing 

the company, establishing this focus early on was 

the key to success all these years. When I became 

president of Brink’s, Incorporated, we were minority 

owners in just about all of our operations throughout 

the world, and I wanted Brink’s to take control of it’s 

own destiny. I developed a strategy to apply new 

technologies, get control of our insurance, share 

best practices, and either buy out or sell shared 

interests, where appropriate, so that we could take 

hold of and control our future and the destiny of 

the company. The strategy took six or seven years 

to execute, but it allowed us to be where we are 

today. 

CEO Q: What education or prior experience helped 

you succeed at turning around Brinks? 

Michael: Before joining Brink’s, I worked for a 

small company called Armored Vehicle Builders, 

Incorporated. I worked there seven or eight years, 

and assumed the position of president at the age of 

27. The company was located in Massachusetts but 

we sold armored and personal protection vehicles 


all over the world. This helped me develop a global 

mindset and helped me understand what it took to 

be a good general manager—all at a very young 

age. During this time, the company was in trouble 

and I had to learn to make payroll every week. I 

had to learn, very quickly, how to balance sales, 

marketing, operations, finance, and other aspects 

of the business. This is what laid a foundation for 

me and allowed me to have an impact when I came 

to Brink’s. 

CEO Q: What lessons did you learn on your way to 

becoming a CEO? 

Michael: The best lesson I’ve learned on my way to 

becoming a CEO is to always do the right thing, no 

matter what. You can’t be afraid to drive change as 

long as the interests of your employees, customers 

and company are at the forefront. Don’t be afraid. 

You can change and do anything, if you set your 

mind to it. Also, I’ve learned that teams win. If you 

understand where you are, where you have to go 

and can get the organization lined up in support 

of the direction, the organization—the team—is 

unstoppable. 

CEO Q: What lessons have you learned as a 

CEO? 

Michael: You have to set the tone and strategy, 

and stay positive—no matter what. There is always 

something positive to be gained, a lesson to be 

learned, even in big failures. Also, people are much 

smarter than we generally give them credit for, and 

I try to never forget that. 

CEO Q: What are the key success factors for a 

CEO? 

Michael: Trust needs to be given to the people in 

your organization, but as a CEO, you have to earn 

the trust of your team and you have to do this every 

day. Also, you have to stay true to your ethical 

standards. People either have high ethics and 

standards or they don’t. These are lessons we learn 

early in life from our families and friends. If someone 

doesn’t share our high standards of ethics, there’s 

no place for them in the company. Period. 

CEO Q: What are the key challenges for a CEO? 

Michael: Focus. For a CEO, nothing is more 

valuable than time, and it’s important to understand 

your priorities so you can know how best to schedule 

your time and focus on the right things. You have 

to understand what you can and can’t do with your 

time. 

A CEO must have excellent communication skills. 

Obviously a CEO’s honesty and integrity must be 

above and beyond reproach, and you’d better have a 

lot of empathy for people. People are going to make 

mistakes; when this happens, my first question is 

always “did they learn from this?” 

Another key challenge for a CEO is stress 

management. This is a very stressful job. Many CEOs 

fail because the stress eats them up physically and 

mentally. As a CEO, if you can’t manage the stress, 

you’re not going to make it; you will fail. 

CEO Q: How did you overcome those challenges? 

Michael: I’ve been fortunate. For me, priorities 

are easy. I’ve always been good at prioritizing and 

managing my time wisely. As for ethics, I have my 

parents to thank because it’s probably from them that 

strong ethics are so well engrained in me. Managing 

stress, on the other hand, is a learned behavior. 

You’ve got to be able to take a step back, take a 

deep breath, and find ways to alleviate stress—ways 

that work for you. I do yoga and like to hike. I find 

these activities to be good stress relievers for me 

because they take me out of my stressful position, 

both mentally and physically. 

CEO Q: How do you manage the relationship with 

your board of directors? 

Michael: Total transparency on all issues and open 

access to the entire management team are key. 

In today’s environment, which is vastly different 

from the environment when I first became CEO, 

there is a creative tension that’s necessary in the 

boardroom because of liabilities, Sarbanes-Oxley 

and the regulatory environment that continues to 

evolve. The only way to successfully handle these 

challenges is to be totally transparent so that board 

members have everything they need and want to do 

their jobs. 

Also, it’s important to recognize—and respect— 

that the board’s duties and responsibilities to the 

shareholders, as well as their personal liability, are 

at risk. Questioning and probing is their job; they 

need to query my decisions and actions to make 

sure I’ve considered all the angles. I can’t lose this 

perspective because I need for them to be part of 

the process. 

In today’s world, rather than tell board members the 

answers, you have to involve them in the problem, 

get their input, and evolve issues so you end up 

with a strong consensus on the board. Although you 

won’t always get everyone aligned on every issue, a 

strong consensus helps leverage the board’s value 

and ensure you are getting their wisdom and insight 

as you run a very complicated global business. 

CEO Q: How do you identify and develop your top 

performers? 

Michael: We have a formal review program that I 

established when I first took over as CEO of Brink’s. 

It’s a formal review process whereby we look at all 

of our top performers, evaluate their strengths and 

weaknesses, their skills and experience, and look 

at their current job and their next job so we can also 

determine the skills and/or experience they need. 

We do this from a succession planning perspective, 

looking at opportunities for those who are ready 

now and opportunities for those who will be ready 

the next three to five years and beyond. The entire 

process takes a full month of my time each year. I 

work closely with our head of Human Resources and 

take the recommendations to our board of directors. 

The board provides input and gives us perspective 

based on their own experience or what they see in 

other companies. Their queries are quite detailed; 

they want to know how we’re developing our people 

and the steps we’re taking to address the needs of 


our people and the company, both now and in the 

future. We believe this is the most important thing 

we do because we’re only as good as our people. 

CEO Q: What do you look for in your successor? 

Michael: I look for a competent leader who is 

willing to question everything. It is important to have 

the confidence to review everything that’s already in 

place and ask questions. My successor must also 

have ethical standards that are unquestioned. He or 

she must have a strong work ethic and be willing to 

travel a lot as this is, after all, a global company. 

CEO Q: What advice do you give to rising CEOs? 

Michael: Teams win, individuals don’t. When you’re 

in school, you strive to be the best in your class, or 

when you join a company as a sales executive, you 

want to be the best sales executive. But when you 

become a senior leader, it’s no longer a competition. 

It’s about them, your team. It’s not about you 

anymore. CEO’s must understand that, otherwise 

they won’t be successful. Also, be yourself. A lot of 

people forget this and try to emulate someone else. 

Don’t do that; just be who you are. 

CEO Q: Do you admire another CEO or a leader 

(current or historical)? Why? 

Michael: There are many CEOs and leaders I admire. 

If I had to pick one, I’d say Fred Smith, the founder 

of Federal Express, who’s also a friend. Because 

he was an entrepreneur who started a company 

and took it from a small start-up to a global giant. 

He stayed there through all those evolutions. Most 

people don’t have the skills to manage a company 

through that degree of transition and change. Fred 

has all the traits of a good CEO. 

I also admire Bill Gates. He’s obviously successful, 

but he was also smart enough to know he had to 

hire professional business managers. Steve Jobs is 

another leader I admire. He was fired because he 

couldn’t manage a big company but he came back 

and achieved incredible success. 

CEO Q: Would you say luck has something to do 

with your success? If yes, how so? 

Michael: Yes; I was lucky to be born to great 

parents. They taught me a lot at a very young age. I 


believe your ethics and moral compass are formed 

at an early age, and I’ve been fortunate to have truly 

great parents. Also, regardless of the challenges 

I’ve faced in my career, I’ve always received support 

from my bosses. With my personality and aggressive 

efforts to do the right thing and get things done, it 

could have easily gone the other way; all it would 

have taken is one manager to hinder my progress, 

but I’ve been lucky. 

CEO Q: How do you manage organizational politics, 

and conflicting personalities, interests, and views? 

Michael: I believe in managing organizational 

politics and conflicts head-on. If you see a snake, 

in this case organizational politics, you have to 

address it instantly. Otherwise, another snake will 

crawl into a room, then a third and all of sudden there 

are snakes everywhere and you feel overwhelmed. 

Address the problem early and head on. In my 

experience, organizational conflict often occurs 

because everybody is trying to get their jobs done 

and they mean well, but they don’t always appreciate 

the job challenges others in the organization face. 

Everyone has a job to do but that doesn’t mean 

they understand what their coworkers do or their 

needs. I believe that, if people understand and 

respect other people’s jobs and their needs, you 

can resolve 90% of conflict situations. You have to 

want to resolve conflict, though, and that’s where 

communication and emotional intellect come in to 

play. If you’re not emotionally intelligent or aren’t a 

strong communicator, you’re not going to be able to 

deal with organizational conflict, or you may even 

cause conflict. 

CEO Q: How do you balance and manage various 

stakeholders’ interests? 

Michael: You start by always doing the right 

thing. If you do the right thing—what’s best for 

the company, what’s best for customers, and 

what’s best for employees—the numbers will take 

care of themselves. If you do the right thing, the 

stakeholders, including the communities in which we 

operate, will benefit and you’ll have the resources 

you need to make sure everyone is satisfied. In the 

event you have to take action that appears, in the 

short time, to be disadvantageous to a stakeholder, 

you have to be able to explain what you’re doing and 

why it’s important. That’s where emotional intellect 

and communication skills come into play. You’ll find 

that when you explain things rationally and clearly, 

people will give you the benefit of the doubt, and 

when you’re successful or if you’re on the wrong 

path and make the necessary corrections, they’ll 

trust you more and appreciate your ability and 

willingness to make the tough calls. 

CEO Q: How do you describe your leadership 

style? 

Michael: I am direct; I am hands-on. I cannot 

get enough information—ever. I read company 

reports from every country, every sales person. I 

did that for Brink’s Home Security and BAX when 

those companies were under the Brink’s umbrella. 

Information gives me perspective. When I visit the 

field, armed with information, I can make sure that 

what I’m hearing and seeing supports what I’ve been 

reading. It allows me to give our managers new 

perspective and valuable insight to help them deal 

with personnel issues, operational problems, or other 

challenges. At this point in my career, I’m almost like 

a professor, trying to transfer all my knowledge to 

the senior managers of this company. 

CEO Q: How do you compete in a global business 

environment? 

Michael: You have to read; you have to do your 

homework. I watch for trends so I can anticipate 

changes and know how to maintain our discipline in 

the face of external pressures. I travel a lot, too. I visit 

with government officials, with customers, and with 

employees. I belong to the Business Roundtable, 

where I’m able to interact with other CEOs. All of 

this is like going to school, it’s an education I can 

apply to our business and to our company, and to 

help our leaders understand the global dynamics of 

our business and strategic direction. 

CEO Q: How do you compete in a recession? 

Michael: You batten down the hatches. Fortunately 

we have a strong balance sheet and a company that 

is less affected than many in a recession. We get 

after expenses and communicate with employees so 

they know what we’re doing and why. The recession 

will end and we want to come out of it a stronger, 

leaner company with more leverage. 

CEO Q: How do you see the future of the U.S. 

economy and your industry? 

Michael: I believe the U.S. economy is going to 

be very difficult for the next three to five years. The 

economy will recover but, unfortunately, the job 

market isn’t going to recover as quickly because 

many jobs have been lost and it will take years 

before those jobs transition into other industries. 

It’s going to be painful. The government is broke so 

the amount of support, the safety net, is going to be 

severely strained. For our industry, in the U.S., our 

base industry is shrinking as banks pull back, close 

branches and reduce ATM servicing needs. But there 

are new lines of business that will enable Brink’s to 

continue to be the leader in our industry. The rest of 

the industry has been consolidating around us for 

the past 15 years and there’s not much consolidation 

left to go. Our competitors’ performance, however, 

is drastically trailing ours and I believe they’ll have a 

tough time making the technology investments that 

we have and developing the solutions they need to 

differentiate themselves as we have. 

CEO Q: What advice would you give the U.S. policy 

makers to help the economy and your business? 

Michael: They ought to start by adopting Sarbanes- 

Oxley as we have, and they need greater fiscal 

discipline. They also need to understand how 

business works. 

CEO Q: Can you please share any life or personal 

lessons that other CEOs might relate to? 

Michael: The most important thing I’ve learned is 

that you can’t be a CEO and not make mistakes. 

What you have to do is recognize the mistake— 

publicly—and fix it. The sooner you do it, the better. 

CEO Q: Can you share with us a CEO humor? 

Michael: A new CEO is given three envelopes, 

numbered 1, 2 and 3, by his predecessor and told 

to open them in the event of disaster or financial 

crisis. When the first disaster occurs, the new 

CEO opens the first envelope and it says “blame 

your predecessor”. A year later, a second disaster 

occurs and the CEO opens the second envelope 

and reads, “blame the environment”. When the third 

disaster strikes, the CEO opens the envelope and 

reads, “prepare three envelopes.” 


Mike Morris 

CEO of American 

Electric Power (AEP) 

The Motivation CEO 


Industry: Electric 

Power Generation 







Mike Morris 

American Electric Power 


AEP has endured the economic 

downturn without cutting employment. 

The CEO adopted hiring and salary 

freezes and spending restrictions. 

The company also drew on its 

lines of credit before the credit 

markets tightened and in April 2009, 

completed an equity offering of 69 

million shares with net proceeds 

of $1.64 billion – the largest equity 

offering in history for the U.S. 

regulated electric utility industry. 

AEP has been a national leader 

in voluntarily reducing carbon 

emissions and advocating for a 

legislative solution to the climate 

change issue. 

The company installed the world’s 

first integrated carbon dioxide 

capture and storage system at a 

power plant and has been awarded 

$334 million in federal stimulus 

funding to help bring this technology 

to full commercial scale. 


Michael G. Morris, age 63, director 

since 2004. Elected president and 

chief executive officer of AEP in 

January 2004; chairman of the board 

in February 2004; and chairman, 

president and chief executive officer 

of all of its major subsidiaries in 

January 2004. A director of certain 

subsidiaries of AEP with one or more 

classes of publicly held preferred 

stock or debt securities and other 

subsidiaries of AEP. A director of 

Alcoa Inc. and The Hartford Financial 

Services Group, Inc. Mr. Morris was 

formerly a director of Cincinnati Bell, 

Inc. (2005-2008). 


“One of Mike’s hallmark 

leadership best practices is 

the respectful way that he 

treats employees throughout 

the organization. He puts 

in a tremendous amount of 

time responding to employee 

e-mails and letters, visiting 

and talking to employees 

throughout our 11 states, 

and using online blogs and 

face-to-face presentations 

to communicate. Mike 

seeks out feedback from employees, 

answers difficult questions honestly and 

transparently, and creates deliberate 

opportunities for employees to feel 

comfortable sharing their thoughts, 

frustrations and recommendations. Mike 

also has the ability to set a compelling 

vision and energize employees around 

it. He takes on high profile, industryleading 

initiatives that create pride within 

the company and makes decisions in a 

timely manner.” - Gen Tuchow, VP HR - 

AEP 


I learned early in my career that managing 

through motivation and encouragement 

is the strongest way to get things done. 

I believe in listening to the diverse views 

of employees, respecting and valuing 

their unique ideas, and giving them the 

tools to do their jobs and be successful. 

It’s important that we prepare our internal 

talent for the next level of leadership, so 

we have set up a targeted development 

program and perform succession 

planning throughout the organization. 

I also rotate members of my executive 

team into different assignments every 

18 months to broaden their experience. 

Our company has a strong focus on 

building relationships with all of our 

stakeholders, including employees, 

customers, regulators, policy makers, 

and organizations that don’t agree with us 

on certain issues. We have become more 

agile by listening, learning and partnering 

with others to meet our challenges 

I’m trying to get to a comprehensive, 

system approach 

We must move forward and address 

the current inadequacies of our nation’s 

existing transmission infrastructure 

This transaction is significant because it 

completes the divestiture of assets... that 

did not align with our strong domestic 

utility operations. The divestitures leave 

us with an improved balance sheet 

and a strategic focus on our core utility 

business 

The energy industry is ready for 

renewables, but it faces four significant 

hurdles to succeed.. the first challenge 

is the location of renewables relative to 

their peak consumption... The second 

challenge is the intermittent nature of wind 

and solar power... The third challenge is 

the price.. And the fourth challenge is The 

regulatory maze lengthens that tangles 

up project development 

About AEP 

American Electric Power is one of the largest electric 

utilities in the U.S. delivering electricity to more than 

5.2 million customers in 11 states. AEP ranks among 

the nation’s largest generators of electricity, owning 

nearly 38,000 megawatts of generating capacity. 

AEP also owns the nation’s largest electricity 

transmission system, a nearly 39,000-mile network 

that includes more 765-kilovolt extra-high voltage 

transmission lines than all other U.S. transmission 

systems combined. 


Muhammad Yunus 

CEO of Grameen Bank 

The Economist CEO 

and the recipient of the 

2006 Nobel Peace Prize 


Industry: Financial 

Services (Microcredit) 


Revenues: $ 9.8B 

Market Cap: $ 6.7B 




Muhammad Yunus 

Nobel Peace Prize Winner 

Grameen Bank 


Transforming the life of millions of 

people; helping them fight poverty 

while making a social profit. 

“[Muhammad Yunus’] ideas have 

already had a great impact on 

the Third World, and...hearing his 

appeal for a ‘poverty-free world’ from 

the source itself can be as stirring as 

that all-American myth of bootstrap 

success.” ––The Washington Post 

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton 

was a vocal advocate for awarding 

the Nobel Prize to Muhammad 

Yunus. In a speech given at 

University of California, Berkeley in 

2002, President Clinton described 

Dr. Yunus as “a man who long ago 

should have won the Nobel Prize 

[and] I’ll keep saying that until they 

finally give it to him.” 

Professor Muhammad Yunus is 

internationally recognized for his 

work in poverty alleviation and the 

empowerment of poor women. 

He successfully melded capitalism 

with social responsibility to create 

the Grameen Bank, a microcredit 

institution committed to providing 

small amounts of working capital to 

the poor for self-employment. 

From its origins as an action-research 

project in 1976, Grameen Bank has 

grown to provide collateral-free 

loans to 7.5 million clients in more 

than 82,072 villages in Bangladesh 

and 97% of whom are women. 

The successful and innovative 

approach to poverty alleviation 

pioneered by Professor Yunus 

in a small village in Bangladesh 

has inspired a global microcredit 

movement reaching out to millions of 

poor women in a hundred countries 

throughout the world from rural 

South Africa to inner city Chicago. 

The unethical and risky derivative 

financial practices of many bankers 

proved toxic to their customers, 

employees and investors. What 

is sad is that the U.S. government 

proposed the creation of the “Bad 

Bank” to absorb all their toxic 

assets. 

US economists and government 

policy makers can learn few lessons 

from Muhammad Yunus by creating 

the “Good bank”. 

Not only it is a good socioeconomic 

goal to serve the underserved 

communities, it is also good for the 

investors. With its $9B collateralfree 

loans to 7.5 million clients and 

amazing rate of 98% loan repayment rates (no 

western bank can compete with that rate), the 

Grameen bank could become the new model for 

banking and economic development. - Med Jones 

- President of International Institute of Management 


Born in 1940, Muhammad Yunus is a world famous 

Bangladeshi banker. Professor Muhammad Yunus 

received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 in Oslo, 

Norway, for his pioneering work in fighting global 

poverty through loans and other financial services 

for the poor. 

Microcredit involves the lending of small amounts 

of money to the world’s poorest people to start 

micro-businesses and move themselves away from 

poverty. 

He previously was a professor of economics where 

he developed the concepts of microcredit and 

microfinance. 

He is one of the founding members of Global 

Elders. 

Yunus also serves on the board of directors of the 

United Nations Foundation, a public charity created 

in 1998 with entrepreneur and philanthropist Ted 

Turner’s historic $1 billion gift to support United 

Nations causes. 

The UN Foundation builds and implements publicprivate 

partnerships to address the world’s most 

pressing problems, and broadens support for the 

UN. 

Yunus is the author of Banker to the Poor and a 

founding board member of Grameen America and 

Grameen Foundation. 


We have created a society that does 

not allow opportunities for those people 

to take care of themselves because we 

have denied them those opportunities...I 

wanted to give money to people like this 

woman so that they would be free from 

the moneylenders to sell their product at 

the price which the markets gave them 

- which was much higher than what the 

trader was giving them 

Sometimes I felt that nobody was paying 

any attention, like I’ve been screaming 

and nobody’s hearing me. Now suddenly 

this prestigious [Noble Peace] prize 

comes, and you get a feeling that you 

can whisper, the whole world listens. 

This is your time to say what you wanted 

to say 

Poverty is a threat to peace. It is a 

breeding ground for political turmoil 

I was teaching in one of the universities 

while the country was suffering from a 

severe famine. People were dying of 

hunger, and I felt very helpless. As an 

economist, I had no tool in my tool box to 

fix that kind of situation 

I went to the bank and proposed that 

they lend money to the poor people. The 

bankers almost fell over... 

My greatest challenge has been to 

change the mindset of people. Mindsets 

play strange tricks on us. We see things 

the way our minds have instructed our 

eyes to see 


Paul J. Diaz 

CEO of Kindred 

Healthcare Inc. 

The Healthcare CEO 


Industry: hospitals and 

long-term healthcare 

facilities 


Revenues: $4B 





Paul Diaz 

Kindred Healthcare 


Paul Diaz is the President and 

Chief Executive Officer of Kindred 

Healthcare, Inc., one of the largest 

providers of healthcare services in 

the United States. 

Kindred is a New York Stock 

Exchange (NYSE) listed company 

with revenues in excess of $4 billion 

and over 54,000 employees in 41 

states. 

Fiscal 2009 was a year of solid 

operational and financial performance 

at Kindred Healthcare, despite a 

difficult economic, regulatory and 

reimbursement environment. 

Revenue gains in each of its three 

operating divisions: Hospitals – 5%, 

Nursing and Rehabilitation Centers 

– 3% and Peoplefirst Rehabilitation 

– 11%. Overall revenues of $4.3 

billion were 4% ahead of last year 

In the past two years, Modern 

Healthcare magazine named Mr. 

Diaz one of the 100 Most Powerful 

People in Healthcare. 

In 2008, Modern Healthcare named 

him one of the top 25 Minority 

Executives in Healthcare. In addition, 

in both 2008 and 2009 Hispanic 

magazine named Mr. Diaz one of 

the 25 Best Latinos in business. 


Mr. Diaz is an attorney and 

accountant who earned a bachelor’s 

degree in Finance and Accounting 

from American University’s Kogod 

School of Business and a law degree 

from Georgetown University. 

Mr. Diaz serves on the Board 

of Directors of DaVita (NYSE: 

“DVA”), and the Board of Visitors of 

Georgetown University Law Center. 

He was formerly on the Board 

of PharMerica Corporation 

(NYSE:PMC), the Board of the 

Bloomberg School of Public Health 

at Johns Hopkins University, and 

the Board of Trustees and Executive 

Committee of the Suburban Hospital 

Healthcare Systems in Bethesda, 

Maryland. 


Our strong financial results 

were driven by continued 

improvement in our people, 

quality and customer 

services goals and reinforced our 

Management Philosophy: If we take care 

of our people, and focus on quality and 

customer service, our business results 

will follow 

I have been extremely lucky over the 

years, primarily in having good mentors 

who looked after me and helped me get 

stronger 

My advice for the up and coming is 

to broaden your skill-sets, learn the 

operations, the finance and the customers 

[relationship management] 

We often approach our job as a silo. To 

have a broad-based sense of what we 

do is very important 

Our mission is to promote healing, 

provide hope, preserve dignity and 

produce value for each patient, resident, 

family member, customer, employee and 

shareholder we serve 

Our investments in staffing, training and 

the modernization of our physical plants 

are also paying off, as we continue to 

enhance our capabilities to serve shortstay 

rehabilitation patients and higher 

acuity longer term residents 

About Kindred Healthcare 

Kindred operates a diverse blend of health care 

service businesses including long-term acute care 

hospitals, skilled nursing facilities and contract 

rehabilitation sites in more than 600 locations across 

the United States. 


Robert Dutkowsky 

CEO of Tech Data 

Corporation 

The Sales CEO 


Industry: Computers 

Wholesale 







Robert Dutkowsky 

Tech Data Corporation 


In January 2006, Tech Data - the 

world’s second largest distributor 

of IT products—named technology 

industry veteran Dutkowsky as 

its new CEO and Board Member 

in October 2006. Dutkowsky’s 

first order of business was to 

oversee the final stages of Tech 

Data’s European restructuring and 

business optimization plans. He also 

turned his eye toward expansion 

and introduced a new corporate 

strategy of execution, diversification 

and innovation that would be the 

foundation for Tech Data’s future 

success. Very quickly, the company 

was once again positioned for 

profitable growth throughout all 

regions in which it operates. His 

strategy paid early dividends. At the 

conclusion of Dutkowsky’s first full 

fiscal year with the company, Tech 

Data generated a record $23.4 billion 

in net sales with 80 percent increase 

in net income. 

During the economic challenges of 

2009, Robert’s strategy of execution, 

diversification and innovation to 

positioned Tech Data, its customers 

and its vendor partners for future 

growth. Despite declines in net 

sales experienced across the entire 

IT industry, Tech Data has created 

new efficiencies, enhanced services 

levels and broadened its solutions 

resulting in increased profits. 

Tech Data made a number of 

acquisitions expanding its product 

offering, customer portfolio, technical 

capabilities and geographic reach. 

These included the acquisition of 

certain assets of Compumedi, a 

leading IBM distributor in Spain; 

certain assets of Investronica’s 

Portuguese IT distribution operation; 

certain assets of Man and Machine’s 

German-based Autodesk distribution 

operations; and certain assets of 

Ireland’s sole Autodesk distributor 

Cadco. 

In the Americas, Tech Data 

announced several distribution 

agreements, further diversifying 

its solutions portfolio. These new 

and expanded vendor partnerships 

include Force10 Networks, 

Brocade’s IP networking solutions, 

Pelco video surveillance solutions, 

Sharp LCD TVs and more. 

For its last fiscal year (reported Jan. 

31, 2009), Tech Data generated a 

record $24.1 billion in net sales. 


Robert Dutkowsky oversees all 

aspects of the company’s extensive worldwide IT 

products distribution operations. He joined Tech Data 

in 2006 and has over 30 years experience in the IT 

industry including senior management positions 

in sales, marketing and channel distribution with 

leading manufacturers and software publishers IBM, 

EMC and J.D. Edwards. 

Dutkowsky began his IT career in 1977 when 

he joined IBM as a salesman. He spent 20 

years with IBM, where his rise through the ranks 

included various sales and marketing and general 

management positions, and tenures as director, 

Software and Services; vice president, Product 

Marketing; executive assistant to former IBM CEO 

Lou Gerstner; vice president, Distribution – IBM 

Asia/Pacific; and vice president, Worldwide Sales 

and Marketing – RS/6000 product line. 

In 1997, Dutkowsky joined EMC as executive vice 

president, Markets and Channels before being 

promoted to president, Data General in 1999. During 

his time at EMC, the company’s revenue grew from 

$2 billion to $9 billion. In 2000, Dutkowsky was 

named president, chairman and CEO for GenRad, 

leading the company to a successful merger with 

Teradyne, a test equipment manufacturer for 

semiconductor, electronics and network systems 

companies. Later, in 2002, Dutkowsky served as 

chairman, president and CEO of J.D. Edwards 

until the company integrated with PeopleSoft. 

Immediately prior to joining Tech Data, Dutkowsky 

was chairman, president and CEO of Egenera, Inc., 

a utility computing company based in Marlboro, 

Mass. 

He serves on the board of directors for SEPATON, a 

data storage and protection manufacturer. He also 

is a member of the board of directors for the United 

Way of Tampa Bay, the Tampa Bay Rays Foundation 

and the advisory board of the University of South 

Florida Business School. 

Dutkowsky earned a bachelor’s degree in labor and 

industrial relations from Cornell University. He also 

is a recipient of the 2000 Ellis Island Medal of Honor 

recognizing distinguished American citizens 


If you’re hiring sales guys you want to hire guys that 

make things happen. 

The (IBM HR guy), bless his heart, (asked) “What do 

you want to do when you grow up?” I said, “I want 

to be President of IBM...And he said, “If you want 

to do that, you want to be a salesman. The last six 

guys who ran IBM started out as salesmen...I said, 

“OK, I’m going to go be a salesman... IBM probably 

hired 50,000 people that year. How did I get the right 

answers at the right time? 

Friday night my wife would say, “Can 

we go to the movies this weekend? Did 

you sell anything this week?” It was 

real commission, hand-to-mouth kind of 

stuff. 

IBM has a real formalized development 

program. Every employee has a 

development plan. Gary (My mentor) 

said, “You have a lot more skill than to be 

a marketing representative for IBM. You 

need to go into management...We’ve 

decided that you’re going to move on... 

You were being groomed for your next 

job, and your next job, and your next 

job. 

I was working for Lou Gerstner at the time. He was 

chairman of IBM, and he came into my office and 

asked, “Do you have any international experience?” 

I said, “Yes, I lived in Nebraska once.” I thought that 

was kind of cute, but he didn’t laugh at that. In typical 

Lou fashion, he said “In 90 days you will be living in 

Tokyo. Get your wife and family ready for this.” 

About Tech Data 

Tech Data Corporation (NASDAQ GS:TECD) is 

one of the world’s largest distributors of technology 

products from leading IT hardware and software 

producers. Tech Data serves more than 125,000 

IT solution providers in over 100 countries. Every 

day, these resellers depend on Tech Data to costeffectively 

support the technology needs of end users, 

including small and medium businesses (SMB), 

large enterprises and government agencies. 


Steve Jobs 

Founder and CEO of 

Apple Inc. 

The Innovation CEO 


Industry: Personal 

Computers 







Steve Jobs 

Apple 


A visionary, charismatic, and creative 

CEO who proved all his past enemies 

wrong. His vision and pioneering 

innovations transformed the way 

we use computers and phones and 

changed the industry forever. He gave 

the world, the Macintosh GUI, Toy 

Story, iPod, iPhone, iPad, MacBook 

Air and iTunes. With his return to 

Apple, he turned the company around 

to become one of the best performing 

and most valuable companies on Wall 

Street. Jobs is listed as either primary 

inventor or co-inventor in over 230 

patents. He earned a salary of $1 

per year since he returned to Apple 

as the CEO in 1997. During that time, 

he also did not sell a single share of 

Apple stock even though his holdings 

of Apple are estimated to be over 

$1.1 billion (5.5 million shares). It is 

believed that Steve Jobs accounts for 

$20 billion or more of Apple’s market 

value. 


Steve Jobs is the cofounder and 

CEO of Apple Inc. In the late 1970s, 

Jobs and his team designed, 

developed and marketed one of the 

first commercial lines of personal 

computers, the Apple II series. 

After losing a power struggle with the 

board of directors in 1985, Jobs left 

Apple and founded NeXT, a high-end 

computer. Apple’s subsequent 1996 

buyout of NeXT brought Jobs back to 

the company he cofounded. Jobs also 

served as the CEO of Pixar Animation 

Studios. He became a member of the 

board of The Walt Disney Company in 

2006, following the acquisition of Pixar 

by Disney. In 1986, Jobs acquired 

the computer graphics division of 

Lucasfilm Ltd which was spun off as 

Pixar Animation Studios. He remained 

the CEO until its acquisition by the 

Walt Disney company in 2006. Jobs 

is also a member of Disney’s Board 

of Directors and owns approximately 

138 million shares of Walt Disney 

(DIS) stock that he received from the 

Pixar Animation Studios sale. 

CEO Challenge 

Could history repeat itself? In the 

early years of Apple, the company 

had a superior graphical operating 

system (OS). Jobs lost the OS 

market to Microsoft by insisting on 

selling a closed system. On the other 

hand, Microsoft partnered with PC 

manufacturers and dominated the 

global OS market even when it had an 

inferior OS at that time. Today, Apple’s 

iPhone faces the same challenge from 

Google’s Android. Will Steve Jobs 

stick to the old strategy or will he preempt Google 

and protect his smart phones market dominance? 

Since Jobs is one of the most famous and most 

covered CEOs in the media, we chose to focus less 

on his biography and share more of his insights with 

our readers. 


A lot of companies have chosen to 

downsize, and maybe that was the right 

thing for them. We chose a different path. 

Our belief was that if we kept putting 

great products in front of customers, they 

would continue to open their wallets 

Be a yardstick of quality. Some people 

aren’t used to an environment where 

excellence is expected 

Innovation distinguishes between a 

leader and a follower 

Pretty much, Apple and Dell are the only 

ones in this industry making money. They 

make it by being Wal-Mart. We make it 

by innovation 

Sometimes when you innovate, you 

make mistakes. It is best to admit them 

quickly, and get on with improving your 

other innovations 

To turn really interesting ideas and 

fledgling technologies into a company 

that can continue to innovate for years, it 

requires a lot of discipline 

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living 

someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped 

by dogma. Don’t let the noise of other’s 

opinions drown out your own inner voice. 

And most important, have the courage 

to follow your heart and intuition. They 

somehow already know what you truly 

want to become. Everything else is 

secondary. Almost everything – all 

external expectations, all pride, all fear of 

embarrassment or failure - these things 

just fall away in the face of death, leaving 

only what is truly important. Remembering 

that you are going to die is the best way 

I know to avoid the trap of thinking you 

have something to lose. You are already 

naked. There is no reason not to follow 

your heart 

We do not say anything about future 

products. We work on them in secret, 

then we announce them 

We’re the last guys left in this industry 

who can do it, and that’s what we’re 

about 

Clearly iPhone plus iPod touch have 

created a new class of gaming. It’s 

surprising how good some of them are. 

... Console games the software is $30 or 

$40 a game. It’s cheaper on iPhone, so 

the market has exploded 

We discovered something -- people are 

going into apps. They’re not just going 

onto to websites 


Timothy Manganello 

CEO of BorgWarner Inc. 

The Globalization CEO 


Industry: Auto Parts 

Manufacturing 







Timothy Manganello 

BorgWarner 


2009 was an extraordinary year 

for BorgWarner and the global 

automotive industry. Due to an 

unprecedented economic downturn, 

Tim faced serious challenges such 

as managing cash flow, fighting to 

secure liquidity, and maintaining 

profitability for BorgWarner. He 

worked to develop the financial 

capability within BorgWarner to 

emerge from the recession as a 

stronger company. 

Tim led BorgWarner with a strategy 

focusing on operational excellence 

and efficiency. He was able to 

unify people from the shop floor 

to the boardroom re-focusing on 

the financial discipline necessary 

to be successful in the crisis. He 

anticipated and reacted quickly to 

market conditions, right-sizing the 

business operations to achieve 

positive cash flow and earnings for 

the year. He targeted an aggressive 

20% decremental margin on the 

change in operating income versus 

the reduction in sales and was 

successful in achieving this target. 

Tim strengthened the financial 

structure of the company with a 

successful convertible bond offering 

during a time when the market was 

reacting unfavorably to the auto 

industry. 

BorgWarner Net Income Growth 

(LFY): Turnaround from loss of 

-35.6M to profit of +27M despite 

major decline in revenues In a very 

difficult year for the global auto 

industry. The strategies that the CEO 

implemented allowed BorgWarner 

to regain profitability in the third 

quarter of 2009 and to be one of two 

automotive companies to maintain 

an investment grade rating without 

sacrificing BorgWarner’s future in 

the area of new business or R&D 

spending. 


Timothy M. Manganello has been 

chairman and chief executive officer 

of BorgWarner Inc. since June 

2003. 

Mr. Manganello began his career in 

the automotive industry in 1973. He 

was named to his current position 

in February 2003, after having 

served for one year as president 

and chief operating officer. Prior 

to holding the position of COO, he 

was executive vice president of the 

company and served as president 

and general manager of BorgWarner 

TorqTransfer Systems from January 

1999 to 2002. During his career at BorgWarner, he 

has held senior management positions in operations, 

sales, and business development. 

Before joining BorgWarner in 1989, Mr. Manganello 

held product engineering management positions at 

Chrysler Corporation from 1973 to 1981, and sales 

management positions at PT Components-Link Belt 

from 1981 to 1988. A resident of Bloomfield Hills, 

Michigan, Mr. Manganello holds a bachelor’s degree 

and master’s degree in mechanical engineering 

from the University of Michigan. He also completed 

the Advanced Management Program at Harvard 

Business School and is a graduate of the Chrysler 

Institute program. 

He is a member of the board of directors of Bemis 

Co., Inc. (NYSE), and the Detroit Branch Chairman 

of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. He is also 

a member of the University of Michigan College of 

Engineering’s National Advisory Committee; and the 

Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Board 

of Trustees for the Manufacturer’s Alliance/MAPI. 


We are successful because we have 

leading technology, we have strong focus 

on financial discipline, and we have broad 

customer base 

Consumers want better fuel economy 

and reduced emission in every region 

of the world and these needs are driving 

demands for BorgWarner’s leading 

power train technologies 

BorgWarner Inc has become a de facto 

European company as employees have 

increased in Europe while declining in 

North America 

We are bringing advanced technology to 

China. We would rather be the first one 

into China with new technology, and gain 

the first-mover advantage 

We will do an acquisition that will bring 

in new technology, or more diversified 

customer base, or put us in a part of 

the world that is a growing one...Most 

of our acquisitions will be done globally, 

...We do an acquisition in Japan to begin 

business with Toyota 

We figure that we can come up with 

the best technology solutions to include 

the economy and emissions. The 

OEMs would want to do business with 

BorgWarner 

We have three operating principles, which 

are based on BorgWarner’s powerful 

or lasting competitiveness in the world. 

Firstly, we have set up plants in different 

parts of the world to get closer to our 

customers and to meet their demands 

better. Secondly, when we are unable 

to satisfy our customers in an area due 

to economic or other factors, we will 

transfer some products to the more 

competitive manufacturing bases, such 

as India and China. Thirdly, to boost its 

global competitiveness, BorgWarner will 

encourage its India and China plants to 

serve customers from other countries and 

regions. For examples, a BorgWarner’s 

heat energy plant in China is providing 

products directly to the plants of Ford 

South Africa and American Chrysler, 

bypassing the BorgWarner’s plants in 

the U.S. or other countries and regions 


Tony Earley 

CEO, DTE Energy 

The Smart Energy CEO 


Industry: Electric 

Utilities 







Tony Earley 

DTE Energy 


Tony (Anthony) F. Earley, 60, has 

been chairman and chief executive 

officer of DTE Energy (NYSE: DTE), 

a Detroit-based diversified energy 

company since 1998. 

DTE Energy owns Detroit Edison, 

an electric utility serving 2.2 million 

customers in Southeastern Michigan 

and Michigan Consolidated Gas 

Company (MichCon), a natural gas 

utility serving 1.3 million customers 

in more than 550 communities 

throughout Michigan. 

DTE Energy also owns several 

nationwide non-utility companies 

engaged in providing energy services 

to large industrial customers, the 

transportation and storage of fuels 

such as natural gas and coal, energy 

trading and the development of 

unconventional gas resources. 

Earley is chairman of the Edison 

Electric Institute (EEI), the trade 

association of investor utilities. In 

this role he is actively involved in the 

development of national policies on 

energy, the environment and climate 

change issues. 

As a former Chair of the Nuclear 

Energy Institute, he has played an 

active role in revitalizing the nuclear 

industry in the United States. 

Earley joined Detroit Edison as 

president and chief operating officer 

in March 1994. 

From 1989-1994, Earley served as 

president and chief operating officer 

of the Long Island Lighting Co. 

(LILCO), an electric and gas utility in 

New York. 

Prior to 1989, he served LILCO in 

several other positions, including 

executive vice president and general 

counsel. 

Earley joined LILCO in 1985 from the 

law firm of Hunton & Williams, where 

he had been a partner in that firm’s 

energy and environmental team. 

Earley earned a bachelor of science 

degree in physics, a master of 

science degree in engineering and a 

law degree, all from the University of 

Notre Dame. 

He served as an officer in the United 

States Navy nuclear submarine 

program where he was qualified as a 

chief engineer officer. 

Earley serves on the board of 

directors of Ford Motor Company, 

MASCO Corporation, the Nuclear Energy Institute, 

Business Leaders for Michigan (formerly Detroit 

Renaissance), the Detroit Zoological Society, United 

Way for Southeastern Michigan and Cornerstone 

Schools. 

He is on the Department of Energy’s Electricity 

advisory board, the advisory board for the College 

of Engineering for the University of Notre Dame and 

the listed member advisory board for the New York 

Stock Exchange. 


DTE Energy will receive $83 million 

from the U.S. Department of Energy to 

accelerate its SmartCurrents program 

over the next two years. The grant will 

be matched by DTE Energy and its 

technology partners. We estimate the 

accelerated startup of the SmartCurrents 

program will result in the creation of 700 

deployment and construction jobs for IT 

contractors and overhead linemen, and 

350 permanent positions for suppliers 

to this effort. This estimate does not 

include second tier or pull-through 

opportunities created with an increase 

in local production and commercial 

growth of this technology. There are 

environmental benefits, too. By reducing 

our vehicle use related to meter reading, 

we’ll also cut our carbon emissions and 

fuel consumption.” 

The combined effect of our $3.4 billion 

investment, when the projects are fully 

implemented, will create thousands 

of jobs, including higher paying 

career opportunities for smart meter 

manufacturing workers, make the grid 

more reliable and empower consumers 

to cut their electricity bills. We estimate 

these improvements will reduce electricity 

demand by 1,400 megawatts, and put us 

on a path to get 20 percent or more of 

our energy from renewable resources by 

2020 

We believe diversity isn’t only about 

race or gender. It’s about understanding 

and embracing the unique differences, 

talents and perspectives of employees, 

customers and suppliers. We believe that 

a commitment to diversity is a commitment 

to the success of our business... Through 

our Supplier Diversity Initiative, we seek 

relationships with businesses that are 

small, owned by women, or minorities 

and/or do business in the HUB Zone 

The SmartCurrents program is DTE 

Energy’s contribution to the nation’s Smart 

Grid, which uses the latest technologies 

across the country’s electric system 

to allow consumers to make choices 

that save them money and improve the 

environment 

About DTE Energy 

An integrated energy company, providing gas 

and electric utility services to 2.7 million Michigan 

homes and businesses, and energy-related services 

to businesses and industries nationwide. The 

largest operating subsidiaries are Detroit Edison 

and MichCon. Together, these regulated utility 

companies provide electric and/or gas services to 

more than three million residential, business and 

industrial customers throughout Michigan. Non utility 

business include Coal, rail, pipeline, gas storage, 

energy trading, gas production, biomass, and other 

power and industrial projects. 


Selecting the right executive is probably the single 

most important decision any company can make. 

While most companies have a formal list of CEO’s 

selection criteria, they often misplace the weight of 

each criterion when evaluating individual candidates. 

Typically, companies engage an executive search 

firm and rely on it to find the right person. Many times 

this does not result in the success that the company 

anticipates. Most executive search firms will send 

only what they consider “safe” candidates for the 

company to accept. Usually, the focus is placed 

on criteria such as cultural fit, years of industry 

experience and education. While these are helpful 

indicators of the candidate’s abilities, our research 

findings has taught us that many of the criteria used 

to qualify the candidates are less important than 

what the company or the recruiters think. 

Top CEOs come from many diverse personal, 

educational and professional backgrounds. After 

researching more than 1,000 CEOs of global 

companies, and looking at their educational and 

professional backgrounds, we came to the conclusion 

that selecting a successful CEO boils down to three 

criteria; the candidate’s decision-making abilities, 

leadership skills, and personality strengths. All other 

factors are less important and in some cases proven 

irrelevant, as demonstrated by the list. 

The CEO’s Critical Success Factors 

A strong multi-dimensional decision-making 

ability is critical to enable the CEO to navigate the 

continuously changing internal and external forces in 

a complex and uncertain competitive environment. 

The CEO constantly evaluates and chooses 

between alternative strategic and tactical courses of 

actions, while considering the decision constraints 

and potential risks. Our decade-long research is 

full of examples of CEOs who were brought from 

outside the company, outside the industry, and 

sometimes even outside the country. Their results 

were far superior to their predecessors, who had 



Lessons from the Most Respected CEOs 

all the relevant business, operational and cultural 

information. 

Leadership ability is critical to the execution of the 

strategy. The CEO must be able to balance and 

influence the complex organizational relationships 

and sometimes conflicting stakeholders’ interests. 

Relationship management with the board, 

government, public, clients, employees and their 

power centers is a key difference between a 

successful and unsuccessful implementation of the 

business strategy. None of the researched CEOs 

could have succeeded or scaled their growth to 

a global level without acquiring and aligning the 

strong support of their professional networks, 

business partners and executive teams. Almost all 

CEOs attribute their success to hiring, developing or 

motivating top talents. Our research has examples 

of some of the most brilliant CEOs who failed due to 

their lack of relationship management skills or due 

to a strong opposing political environment. 

Personality strengths such as ambition, drive, 

resilience, and the ability of the executive candidate 

to manage extremely heavy workloads and stress 

are critical for the CEO success. Leading a business 

organization is a highly competitive and demanding 

race. The scope of work, scale of responsibility, 

information overload, and number of demanding 

relationships can be overwhelming. Most CEOs 

perform well during good business conditions. Few 

can do well in stressful times. Even less are able to 

shine during a crisis. 

The research of the “Most Respected CEOs” has 

taught us new and important lessons. The following 

is a partial list of the research findings that challenged 

the many common misconceptions about the ideal 

CEO’s personal and professional profiles. 

1. 

Culture or social background does not matter as 

much as most companies think. Carlos Ghosn, 

CEO of Nissan Motor, and one of the most 

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

6. 

7. 

8. 

9. 

successful CEOs of all time, proved that you 

do not need to know the culture or speak the 

language to run one of the largest companies 

in the world. Possessing the right leadership 

skills can turn around a foreign company with 

a foreign culture in a foreign country. It is worth 

noting that when Ghosn took the CEO position 

at Nissan he did not even speak Japanese. 

The profile of David Blair, CEO of Catalyst Health 

Inc taught us that age and years of experience 

do not matter as much as most companies think. 

David is one of several examples of young CEOs 

who led their companies to very high growth 

levels. Catalyst is one of the fastest growing 

companies with 1,000 employees producing 

more than 3 billion dollars in revenues. 

Paul Diaz, CEO of Kindred Healthcare Inc, 

Robert Dutkowsky the CEO of Tech Data, 

and several others taught us that the CEO’s 

academic education does not matter as much 

as the recruiters think. On the other hand, the 

CEO’s professional training and experiential 

development is critical to the success of the 

CEO and the company. Contrary to popular 

views, most successful CEOs did not graduate 

from Ivy League universities; many of them 

do not have MBA degrees. Some of the most 

successful CEOs have law, technical, physics, 

or HR education. 

Christopher Connor, CEO of The Sherwin- 

Williams Company, and John Wren, CEO of 

Omnicom, taught us that hiring top talent is the 

ultimate competitive advantage. 

John Stumpf, CEO of Wells Fargo & Company, 

taught us that a CEO who admits mistakes and 

does not sugarcoat or omit bad news is a CEO 

to trust. 

Joseph Saunders, CEO of Visa Inc., taught us 

that advocacy and lobbying are critical to the 

success of the company in a changing regulatory 

environment. 

Robert Dutkowsky, CEO of Tech Data 

Corporation, taught us that having good mentors 

at work is critical to the performance of the 

executive and the company. 

The success of David Simon, CEO of Simon 

Property Group, is attributed to his ability to 

identify and negotiate M&A opportunities as a 

growth strategy. 

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google Inc, taught us that 

every day brings new challenges. The CEO’s 

job is to keep things focused. 

10. We believe the success of Tony F. Earley, CEO 

of DTE Energy, is attributed in a substantial part 

to his professional and government network. 

11. Jeffrey Joerres, CEO of Manpower Inc, taught 

us that it is critical for the CEO to get out of his 

office and meet people face to face. The CEO 

must stay connected with his people so that 

they know where the challenges lie within the 

organization. 

12. The lesson we learned from Matt Rubel, CEO 

of Collective Brands, Inc., is that the business 

strategy, regardless of the economic climate, is 

to remain focused on the consumers.They hold 

the key to any retailer or brand success. 

13. Michael Dan, CEO of Brinks Inc, taught us that 

the three top skills needed for a CEO are focus, 

communication skills, and stress management. 

14. The success of Timothy Manganello, CEO of 

BorgWarner Inc, is based on his strategy to seek 

technology as a competitive advantage and his 

ability to think and act in a global framework. This 

enabled him to diversify the company’s portfolio 

of investors, products and markets which was 

the key to overcome the worst U.S. economic 

crisis to hit the auto industry. 

15. Mike Morris, CEO of American Electric 

Power (AEP), taught us that motivation and 

encouragement is the best way to get things 

done through your people. 

16. The most important lesson any executive can 

learn from Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Inc., is 

that innovation leadership is the best value 

creation strategy. He also taught us that the 

most successful CEO is not the one who makes 

fewer mistakes, but the one who quickly learns 

from them and moves on. 

17. Muhammad Yunus, CEO of Grameen Bank, 

taught us that the greatest challenge of the CEO 

is to change the mindset of the stakeholders, 

because mindsets play strange tricks on 

people. 

About CEO Awards. 

CEO Awards is a partnership project with the 

International Institute of Management. IIM is a 

management best practices research and education 

institute. IIM provides CEO and executive support 

services, strategic planning retreats and custom 

corporate training courses for the Global Fortune 

1000 companies and governments. To learn more, 

please visit www.iim-edu.org

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