1 Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos, Amazon– Jeff Bezos is a pioneer in world of internet commerce, and was instrumental in defining this space that is now defining many aspects of the internet world. It is Jeff Bezos who innovated the concept of “predictive analytics”–recommending products to customers based on search history and buying habits. Whether you like the concept or you hate it, the idea has made online commerce more profit rich and efficient, and is making online shopping a better experience for consumers throughout the world.
The Great Leaders Series: Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon.com
Jeff Bezos is an e-commerce pioneer who started Amazon.com to sell books, and expanded into just about everything else.
Jeff Bezos is one of the founding fathers of e-commerce, and part of a select group of entrepreneurs in that field who managed to survive the dot-com bubble without losing control of their companies. Today, his business, Amazon.com, is an Internet goliath that sells everything from books to laptops to gift baskets. Most recently, the company has acquired Zappos, the online shoe retailer, and unveiled the Kindle, the first e-reader to become a breakout hit. This risky move into consumer electronics shows that Jeff Bezos, having pioneered online retail, is not yet ready to give up the pursuit of innovation.
Bezos' mother gave birth to him while she was still in her teens and his stepfather left Cuba for the U.S. at age 15. Growing up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and later Houston, Texas, Bezos was technically precocious; by one account he disassembled his crib with a screwdriver as a toddler. He graduated from science experiments in his parents' garage, to a computer science degree at Princeton, to a successful Wall Street career. But Bezos wouldn't be a household name if, in 1994, he hadn't noticed the Internet's potential for commerce and abandoned a well-paying job at the investment firm D. E. Shaw, to return to the garage and launch Amazon.
After inviting 300 friends and acquaintances to test his creation, Bezos took the site live and, within a month, the company had sold books in all 50 states and in 45 countries. Within two months, sales topped $20,000 a week. As Amazon's growth accelerated, however, skeptics expected that brick-and-mortar retailers like Barnes & Noble or Borders would soon shoulder the young start-up out of the online book market. Others said the company was burning through its cash too quickly. But Bezos did not back down. 'We're going to be unprofitable for a long time. And that's our strategy,' Bezos told Inc. in 1997.
The doom-and-gloom predictions turned out to be wrong. Amazon earned its first full-year profit in 2003 and, by 2008, the company's revenue had reached $4 billion. The company succeeded in large part because it quickly embraced e-commerce innovations that improved its customer experience. Such standard operating procedures one-click shopping, e-mail verification of orders, and customer product reviews were not on the radar until Amazon adopted them.
As if that wasn't enough, Bezos has made venture capital a side project for Amazon, investing millions of dollars with varying success in start-ups such as Talk Market, a video shopping site; Foodista, which is a user-edited cooking encyclopedia; and the infamous dot-com casualty Pets.com. On the side, he also created an entirely separate company called Blue Origin, which aims to devise the technology for commercial space flight.
Bezos has joked modestly that the success of Amazon was due half to luck, half to timing, and the rest was attributable to brains. In truth, the passion he brings to his business is what sets him apart. 'One of the huge mistakes people make is that they try to force an interest on themselves. If you're really interested in software and computer science, you should focus on that,' Bezos told Inc. in 2004. 'But if you're really interested in medicine, and you decide you're going to become an Internet entrepreneur because it looks like everybody else is doing well, then that's probably not going to work. You don't choose your passions, your passions choose you.'
2.Anne Mulcahy
Anne Mulcahy, Xerox – Anne turned things around when her company faced a financial crisis. Yes, I can directly relate. You can read about some of my adventures at Fishbowl here. Anne never aspired to the role of CEO, but neither did she shy away from the opportunity to lead when elected by the board of Xerox in 2001. During her tenure she was required to reduce the company’s workforce by 30% and later eliminated the entire desktop portion of Xerox. For her courageous execution in the face of adversity Chief Executive Magazine named her CEO of the Year in 2008 and U.S. News & World Report named her one of America’s Best Leaders.Forbes acknowledged Anne as one of the world’s most influential women in 2005 and 2009.
America's Best Leaders: Anne Mulcahy, Xerox CEO
Shortly after Anne Mulcahy took over the helm at Xerox in 2000, with the company facing possible bankruptcy, she had a blunt message for shareholders. "Xerox's business model is unsustainable," she said. Expenses were too high, and the profit margins were simply too low to return to profitability.
Wanting easy answers for complex problems, shareholders dumped Xerox shares, driving its stock price down 26 percent the next day. Looking back on that dark time, Mulcahy says she could have been more tactful. "I thought it was far more credible to acknowledge that the company was broken and dramatic actions had to be taken. Lesson learned."
After 25 years at the company, Mulcahy knew Xerox intimately, but even she was unprepared for the depth of its financial crisis. Taking over from CEO Richard Thoman, an IBM recruit who lasted only 13 months in the top job, Mulcahy acknowledged her lack of financial expertise—most of her time at Xerox was in sales and upper management. She quickly enlisted the treasurer's office to tutor her in the fine points of finance before meetings with the company's bankers.
Her advisers urged her to declare bankruptcy in order to clear off Xerox's $18 billion in debt, but Mulcahy resisted, telling them, "Bankruptcy is never a win." In fact, she concluded, using bankruptcy to escape from debt could make it much harder for Xerox to be a serious high-tech player in the future. Instead, she chose a much more difficult and risky goal—"restoring Xerox to a great company once again."
To gain support from Xerox's leadership team, she met personally with the top 100 executives. She let them know how dire the situation was and asked them if they were prepared to commit. A full 98 of the 100 executives decided to stay, and the bulk of them are still with the company today.
Having spent her entire career at Xerox—she joined the company's sales force shortly after graduating from college—Mulcahy believed deeply in Xerox's values and its proud heritage of inventing plain paper copying. But she knew the company had grown sluggish and fat. Xerox had stayed with its traditional business model while competitors like Ricoh and Canon captured huge chunks of its market share by being more innovative, more agile, and more aggressive.
As CEO, Mulcahy did not become paralyzed trying to assuage angry shareholders. Instead, she headed out to the field, where her first priority was to win over Xerox's customers by focusing on their complaints. She told her demoralized troops, "I will fly anywhere to save any customer for Xerox."
On her visits, she got lots of advice. One major customer, worried about the company's bloated bureaucracy, told her, "You've got to kill the Xerox culture." Never lacking in loyalty to Xerox, she shot back, "I am the culture."
Meanwhile, the drumbeats for bankruptcy steadily increased as the company reported significant losses, used up its entire $7 billion line of credit, and watched its credit ratings decline sharply. Making matters worse, the company was facing a massive investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission of its billing and accounting practices.
Mulcahy didn't blink. She refused to cut back on research and development or field sales, despite shareholder petitions to shut down all R&D. Instead, she attacked
Xerox's bloated infrastructure, sold off pieces of Fuji Xerox, the company's crown jewel, and farmed out manufacturing to Flextronics. She reached a painful settlement with the SEC. Along the way, she had to eliminate 28,000 jobs and billions in expenses, but she saved the company. Looking back, Mulcahy says, "There were many near-death moments when we weren't sure the company could get through the crisis. In those days we would do anything—and I mean anything—to avoid bankruptcy."
Today, she feels a well-earned pride in staying true to her values and the company's, rather than capitulating to Wall Street and the bankers. She has paid off the company's entire debt (except for financed purchases), rebuilt its product line and technology base, and installed a new management team.
A transformation. But Mulcahy has done a lot more than restore Xerox. She has completely transformed it. "Companies disappear because they can't reinvent themselves," she said recently.
Mulcahy's advice for other companies facing massive problems, particularly during the current financial crisis? "Do not defend yourself against the inevitable." In other words, face reality and get your team aligned with the new vision that will result in reinvention.
To that she adds, "Focus on client service instead of financial engineering." It's too bad that failed financial firms like Lehman, Bear Stearns, AIG, and Wachovia didn't listen to her counsel. Actually, one troubled financial giant is listening: Mulcahy left the board of Fannie Mae four years ago to join the board of Citigroup, where she is offering advice to its new CEO, Vikram Pandit.
Learning her lessons well from the previous debacle, Mulcahy is once again transforming Xerox—the plain paper copier company. Her new vision? She wants to eliminate paper in the office altogether and become the company that manages digital content.
Bill George, author of True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership, is professor of management practice at Harvard Business School and the former chair and CEO of Medtronic.
3.Brad Smith
Intuit – Intuit is one of the world’s largest and most successful financial software companies. It is the maker of the QuickBooks accounting software we have integrated with our Fishbowl Inventory software. Even as a company of nearly $4B in revenue with a market cap of approximately $16.5B, Intuit continues to operate like a collection of startups. Brad has fostered a culture where nearly 8,000 employees are allowed to take risks and to grow by learning from success and failure.
Brad Smith
President and Chief Executive Officer
Brad Smith became Intuit's president and chief executive officer in January 2008, culminating a five-year rise through the company where he successfully led several of its major businesses. Intuit is a leading provider of business and financial management solutions for small and mid-sized businesses, financial institutions, consumers and accounting professionals, and is consistently ranked as one of the most-admired software companies and best places to work.
As the company marked its 25th anniversary in 2008, Smith celebrated the past while creating a strategic vision that recognizes important market shifts that will serve as growth catalysts for Intuit's future. Among the most significant trends is the accelerating shift to a "connected services" world, where people and businesses increasingly go online to manage their lives, and abandon the traditional paper-based, human-produced, brick-and-mortar bound services of the past. Intuit is uniquely positioned to take advantage of these trends and help drive the shift to a connected services economy.
In the midst of this change, Intuit's mission remains enduring: To be a premier innovative growth company that improves its customers' financial lives so profoundly that they can't imagine going back to the old way. The company's strategy builds on this sense of purpose and foundation of success, while capitalizing on the current market shifts to accelerate Intuit's business performance.
The three-point strategy focuses on:
• Driving growth in the core businesses where Intuit has high share versus look-alike competitors, but low penetration versus the overall market opportunity.
• Building adjacent businesses and entering new geographies, with a particular emphasis on emerging markets.
• Accelerating the transition to a greater mix of connected services, which now represents over half of the company's revenue.
Before being named CEO, Smith was senior vice president and general manager of Intuit's Small Business Division. Appointed to this position in May 2006, Smith was responsible for the company's small business division which included the portfolio of QuickBooks, Quicken and Payroll products, serving 7 million small businesses. Before moving to the small business division, he led the company's Consumer Tax Group in San Diego from March 2004 through May 2005. The group produces TurboTax, the nation's leading consumer tax preparation software.
Smith joined the company in February 2003 as the vice president and general manager of Intuit's Accountant Central and Developer Network in Plano, Texas. Previously, he was senior vice president of marketing and business development at ADP. Smith also held various sales, marketing and general management positions with Pepsi, Seven-Up and Advo, Inc.
Smith earned his master's degree in management from Aquinas College in Michigan and a bachelor's degree in business administration from Marshall University in West Virginia.
4.Howard Schultz, Starbucks
Howard Schultz, Starbucks – From his upbringing in a poor family in the Bronx to an athletic scholarship and eventually the head ofStarbucks, Howard Schultz is a consummate example of courage, hard work, and the ability to achieve the American dream. Even in the glow of his own successes, Howard is also interested in investing in others’ success and continues to invest actively in other business ventures, such as eBay.
The man who brought coffee bars to the U.S. and turned them into popular gathering spots is now attempting to revolutionize juice drinking. Howard Schultz's Starbucks paid $30 million for Evolution Fresh, a small maker of premium juices, in November 2011, and opened its first juice store in Bellevue in March; a 16-ounce glass sells for $8. The company also signed a joint venture with India's Tata coffee in January 2012 and finalized a partnership with Green Mountain Coffee Roasters in 2011 to sell single-serve coffee. Through venture capital firm Maveron, Schultz is also an investor in consumer businesses such as Pinkberry frozen yogurt, Lululemon activewear, eBay and Groupon. Schultz was raised in housing projects in Brooklyn, and went to study and play football at Northern Michigan U. He later moved back to New York to sell kitchen equipment and housewares for a Swedish company before landing a marketing gig at a small coffee bean store called Starbucks. He traveled to Italy and was inspired to open an espresso bar in the U.S. His Starbucks bosses said no, so he started a rival store in 1985, making his java with Starbucks beans. He bought Starbucks from his bosses two years later for $3.8 million and took it public in 1992. Longtime chairman, he returned as CEO in 2008 after an eight year break to turn around the struggling retailer. Last fall, he urged fellow business leaders to withhold campaign donations until a bipartisan agreement could be reached on the deficit plan.
Starbucks: Global Coffee Giant Has New Growth Plans
There is a lot of excitement emanating from the Seattle based coffee giant. Just a year ago a new blend of coffee called blonde roast was introduced. This attracted new customers who prefer a lighter blend. In addition there is more food for breakfast and lunch including more baked goods coming soon due to the company’s acquisition of La Boulange, and juices too with Evolution Fresh.
Starbucks is in an enviable position – it has about 18,000 stores world-wide of which roughly 13,000 are in the North America and 255 are in New York City. This dominant position enables the Company to try new ideas all the time. One of these initiatives is the opening of the first Tazo tea store in Seattle’s University Village and the company recently has acquired Teavana Holdings, which will support a future expansion of the tea store concept. Management believes it is a $40 billion market.
While the acquisitions have played some role in the Company’s growth including the important purchase of Seattle’s Best Coffee, much of the store growth has been organic. Under the leadership of Howard Schultz, President and CEO, the company has not only grown in the United States, world-wide expansion has been spectacular. Today Starbucks is in 62 countries around the globe, including most recently India and there are more to come.
The potential for ongoing growth in China is important for Starbucks. Currently there are more than 3,000 stores in China, and it is one of the fastest growing countries for the Company. In the first fiscal quarter of 2013 the China/Asia Pacific segment alone achieved sales of $214.3 Million, an increase of 28% over the previous year with comparable store growth in the region rising 11%, contributing to the 6% same store growth worldwide. This was the 12th consecutive quarter of comparable store growth in excess of 5%. Capitalizing on the favorable trends in same store sales, the Company will open about 1300 stores world-wide in fiscal 2013. About half of the stores – around 600 – will be opened in China. Fifty percent of these stores will be licensed. They are planning for China to be the Company’s second largest market by 2014.
Despite the rapid growth in Chinese store fronts, as a percent of total, physical growth has slowed. Wisely, the company is focusing on productivity through new products and a very important expansion through the grocery channel, where they are making great strides with K-Cups and other products that give their brand a presence in consumers’ homes.
In my opinion, many customers have made a Starbucks store their daily headquarters, using the free Internet connections to communicate with their friends – and this will continue as exciting new menu items are added. In addition they can increasingly find Starbucks products in the grocery aisles, and they are taking advantage of that too.
A recent survey by American Express/SAP ranks Starbucks 49th among the Top 100 global retailers. Fortune Magazine ranks it among the best companies to work for. Not bad for a coffee roaster from Seattle.
5.Larry Page
Larry Page, Google – Larry Page is another example of a businessperson who can persevere any challenge. Larry and his company have faced much criticism and received ample praise over the years for his company’s actions. But in the midst of the storm, he has never let what others think sway him from pursuing the course for his company that he considers the best.
It’s no secret that the rapid shift of online activity from computers to smartphones and tablets presents a big challenge to online advertising leaders, from Google to Yahoo to Facebook. No other issue weighs as heavily on these companies’ shares today as the mass move to mobile.
The reasons: On the smaller screens, ads are relatively bigger and more intrusive, so not as many can run. At the same time, the impact of mobile ads on eventual sales is harder to track, so marketers aren’t willing to pay as much for them–possibly a factor in a worrisome decline in Google’s ad prices, for one. But the biggest problem may be the sheer complexity of doing ad campaigns that can reach consumers who increasingly flit from computer to smartphone to tablet and back throughout the day.
At least that’s what Google is betting with a mildly named “upgrade” to its AdWords search ad systemannounced today. Google is rolling out what it callsenhanced campaigns to help marketers–especially small and medium-sized businesses with few resources to devise complex campaigns–to reach people wherever they are more easily than they can now. “It’s finally updating the platform according to how the world really works,” says Daina Middleton, global CEO of the search ad agency Performics. “It puts the sexy back in search.”
It’s one of the biggest changes yet to the AdWords system that accounts for the vast majority of Google’s revenues. The most obvious outcome for Google is that it’s likely to see many more businesses bidding for mobile ad placement, increasing competition in Google’s auction-based system, and therefore raising prices.
Of course, that mobile ad pricing upside for Google could be a downside for savvy advertisers that to date have been able to get valuable mobile ad inventory relatively cheaply. Although Middleton, for one, thinks price rises will be minimal, no advertiser likes to pay more.
What’s more, while the changes may simplify the overall process of doing mobile campaigns, they remove some choices that sophisticated advertisers have been using to target campaigns. For one, tablets and computers will now be in one bucket, so advertisers won’t be able to target each separately, nor will they be able to target by the device’s operating software, two methods that some agencies say are valuable for getting the highest return on ad spending. They also won’t be able to run campaigns only on smartphones anymore, or only on tablets. Google’s algorithms will decide where the ads should run–which strikes someunhappy marketers and agencies as odd, given the very different ways people use mobile phones vs. computers.
Not least, the update imposes a new mindset for marketers. “This will force marketers to address mobile if they haven’t already,” says Middleton. And because marketers won’t be able to run ads only on mobile devices anymore, they’ll have to better integrate mobile, tablet, and desktop ad campaigns. “We’re going to have to think of everything more holistically,” she says.
Google’s making three main changes. For one, it will make it easier to vary bids by device, its location, and time of day, all of which Google knows from GPS, device signatures, and other data. Google’s example of how this would work: A breakfast joint might want to reach people searching for “coffee” or “breakfast” on a smartphone. Using the new bid adjustments, they can bid 50% higher for searches on smartphones (which indicates people are out looking to eat), 25% higher on people searching from less than a half-mile away than farther away, and 20% lower if the search is after 11 a.m. Here’s what it looks like on the Google ad dashboard:
Second, ads can be automatically varied depending on whether searches come from a computer or a smartphone. For instance, an ad for a retailer with both physical stores and a website could include a click-to-call button or map for people searching from a smartphone or, for people searching from a computer, a link to the website.
Third, Google is providing new ways beyond clicks for advertisers to measure the impact of the ads. In particular, they will be able to count calls and app downloads, with more metrics to come soon. “We now live in a multi-screen world where we move around quite a bit throughout the day,” says Nick Fox, VP of product management at Google. “These upgrades will make marketing more effective and easier in the multi-screen world.”
One search marketing firm that worked with Google on the changes,WordStream, says the changes should help its 1,000 or so small and medium-sized business clients. Founder and Chief Technology Officer Larry Kim says, for example, that only one in 25 advertisers are using the click-to-call option on mobile ads because it’s too complicated to set up multiple ads or targeting options. “Previously, mobile campaign management was too complicated and time-consuming for all but the biggest-budget, most sophisticated advertisers,” says Kim, who wrote a blog post detailing the changes. Now, he envisions many more businesses advertising to mobile users.
This could result in more revenue for Google, both by enabling more businesses to buy mobile ads and potentially by encouraging them to spend more to reach more attractive prospects. Nothing wrong with that if it pays off for advertisers too. But not everyone may be thrilled with the changes–perhaps least of all big marketers that to date have been able to run complex campaigns but now could face higher ad prices. Richard Zwicky, CEO of the digital marketing agency BlueGlass Interactive, outlined his concerns in a blog post before Google’s announcement, saying that Google was attempting to mask the lower prices of mobile ads.
Essentially, Zwicky says he’s worried that the changes will give businesses less control over how they bid for desktop vs. mobile searches and less insight into the cost and impact of each. Google declined to respond specifically to Zwicky, but the new changes appear to continue to allow advertisers to control whether and how they run mobile ads. Google also says it will continue to provide metrics on mobile vs. desktop prices, as well as additional information on which website links, click-to-call buttons, and other ad features are working best.
However, it does appear, from an analysis by Ginny Marvin at Search Engine Land, that advertisers will have somewhat less control over campaigns. For one, Google is grouping bids for computers and tablets together, since it has found they are used in similar ways (namely at home). Conceptually that may make sense, but for now, it means advertisers won’t be able to bid separately on ads for tablets, which have generally had better bang for the buck according to many marketers, probably because of less competition in keyword bidding. One commenter on Marvin’s post on Google+ offered this succinct analysis: “<- THIS SUCKS VACUUM CLEANER-LIKE!”
And there are a few other wrinkles that, as Zwicky also said, could make bidding more difficult in some cases, Search Engine Land says:
In addition, advertisers will set a baseline bid that applies to both desktop and tablet, and then set the mobile bid as a multiplier of the desktop/tablet bid. There is little guidance at this point on how advertisers are to determine what that multiplier should be.
When asked whether advertisers could opt out of mobile or set mobile bids lower than desktop, a Google spokesperson replied:
“If someone doesn’t want to run on mobile, then they can decrease their mobile bid adjustment by -100%, which will effectively mean their ads don’t show up on mobile. So yes, all the bid adjustments can go up or down. If they value mobile more than desktop/tablet then they can set a lower base bid and then crank up the mobile bid adjustment by +300%.”
The spokesperson also clarified that advertisers can set mobile bids at -30%, for example, if they want to emphasize desktop — and if they know mobile CPCs have been historically lower. Interestingly, even as Google puts the focus on mobile, desktop is now a built-in foundation to AdWords — there is no way to have a mobile-only campaign.
Targeting at the operating system level will no longer be available. A Google spokesperson clarified, “One exception to this is click-to-download ads where an advertiser would only want to show an app download ad on a device that could actually download the app (obviously). The advertiser would tell us which app they want to promote and then we’ll make sure to only show it on the devices that can download it.” Again, the advertiser loses control of the targeting and has to rely on/trust Google to do it for them.
That said, other ad experts think the situation ultimately will prove positive for most of the players. A report from digital marketing agency 360i concludes:
Following a period of adjustment for advertisers, Enhanced Campaigns will present a win- win-win scenario for marketers, users and Google itself. With this update, Google is pushing the industry forward and allowing all advertisers to reap the benefits of mobile search optimization; we expect Google to provide the tools needed for more advanced mobile targeting in the future. As marketers better optimize campaigns by device, the consumer experience will also improve.
The update will arrive as an option for advertisers over the next few weeks, but by June, it will be applied to all campaigns. Lots more info here and here.
Google CEO Larry Page hinted at all this for much of the past year, saying he aimed to provide a more consistent experience for advertisers across desktop and mobile ads. During the recent fourth-quarter earnings conference call, he also said specifically that “we are working to simplify our ad system for advertisers.” This is some of the meat on those bones. We’ll soon find out whether or not marketers find it tasty.
6. Tim Cook
Tim Cook, Apple – Steve Jobs is a hard act to follow, but thus far, Tim Cook is doing a tremendous job. Rather than attempt to match the consumer-facing innovations Steve Jobs had been known for, Tim Cook is forging into the future with his own new advances, such as Apple’s newestinnovative inventory management techniques.
• Timothy D. "Tim" Cook (born November 1, 1960) is the CEO of Apple Inc. Cook joined Apple in March 1998[2] as SVP of Worldwide Operations and also served as EVP of Worldwide Sales and Operations and was COO until he was named the CEO of Apple on August 24, 2011, succeeding Steve Jobs, who died on October 5, 2011, from pancreatic cancer. Cook had previously served as acting CEO of Apple after Jobs began a medical leave in January 2011.
• In early 2012, he was awarded compensation of 1 million shares, vesting in 2016 and 2021, by Apple's Board of Directors. As of 2012, Cook's total compensation package of $378 million makes him the highest paid CEO in the world.
Early years
Cook grew up in Robertsdale, Alabama, near Mobile. His father was a shipyard worker, while his mother was a homemaker. Cook graduated from high school atRobertsdale High School, earned a B.S. degree in industrial engineering from Auburn University in 1982, and his M.B.A. from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business in 1988.
Career
Cook served as the chief operating officer (COO) of the computer reseller division of Intelligent Electronics.
He also spent 12 years in IBM's personal computer business as the director of North American Fulfillment.
Cook was VP for Corporate Materials at Compaq for seven months before he was hired by Steve Jobs to join Apple in 1998.
Apple
At Apple, his first assignment was Senior Vice President for Worldwide Operations. According to CNN, he had a "mandate to clean up the atrocious state of Apple's manufacturing, distribution, and supply apparatus". Cook is credited with pulling Apple out of manufacturing by closing factories and warehouses around the world. This helped the company reduce inventory levels and streamline its supply chain to match the efficiency of Dell Inc., dramatically increasing margins. These initiatives have proven key to Apple's success in unveiling next-generation products, keeping them secret until they are ready for distribution to retail, forecasting demand and executing against that forecast. Cook has been quoted as saying "You kind of want to manage it like you're in the dairy business. If it gets past its freshness date, you have a problem".
In January 2007, Cook was promoted to COO.
Cook served as Apple CEO for two months in 2004, when Jobs was recovering from pancreatic cancer surgery. In 2009, Cook again served as Apple CEO for several months while Jobs took a leave of absence for a liver transplant.
In January 2011, Apple's Board of Directors approved a third medical leave of absence requested by Jobs. During that time, Cook was responsible for most of Apple’s day-to-day operations while Jobs made most major decisions. After Jobs resigned as CEO and became chairman of the board, Cook was named CEO of Apple Inc. on August 24, 2011.
Cook also serves on the board of directors of Nike.
In April 2012, Time Magazine included Cook on its annual 100 Most Influential People in the World list.
On October 29, 2012, Cook made major changes to the company's executive team. Scott Forstall resigned as senior vice president of iOS, becoming an advisor to Cook until his scheduled departure from the company in 2013. John Browett, who was SVP of retail, was dismissed after six months on the job (having received 100,000 shares worth $60 million when he joined). Forstall's duties were divided among four other Apple executives: design SVP Jonathan Ive assumed leadership of Apple's Human Interface team, Craig Federighi became the new head of iOS software engineering, while services chief Eddy Cue took over responsibilities for Maps and Siri, and Bob Mansfield (previously SVP of hardware engineering) returned to oversee a new technology group. This came after Q3 revenues and profits grew less than predicted, which was the second quarter in a row that Apple failed to meet expectations. One commentator said that Forstall was forced to step down as Cook "has decided to lance the boil as internal politics and dissent reached a key pitch". Cook's direction since becoming CEO was to build a culture of harmony, which meant "weeding out people with disagreeable personalities—people Jobs tolerated and even held close, like Forstall", although another journalist said that "Apple's ability to innovate came from tension and disagreement.
In December 2012, Cook confirmed that Apple would invest $100 million in building some Macs in the United States again starting in 2013.
Personal life
Cook is a fitness enthusiast and enjoys hiking, cycling, and going to the gym. He regularly begins sending emails at 4:30 am and used to hold Sunday night staff meetings by telephone to prepare for the next week.
While giving the 2010 commencement speech at Auburn University, Cook emphasized the importance of intuition in guiding his life's biggest choices, and followed by stating that preparation and hard work are also necessary to execute on that intuition.
Cook donates large amounts of money to charity, including $100 million in 2012.
7.Indra Nooyi
Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo – Indra Nooyi, another of Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women, has not only led her company to record financial results but is making strides to move PepsiCo in a healthier direction, leading the courageous charge to shed traditional fast food properties and to replace them with initiatives to supply healthier foods. She is deeply caring and committed as a senior executive. She is a fun-loving executive as well—she played lead guitar for an all-woman rock band in college, loved to play cricket, and is known to sing karaoke and perform at corporate gatherings to this day. Yes, I have been known to relate to her fun-loving spirit as a senior executive as well.
America's Best Leaders: Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo CEO
The karaoke-singing chief executive is taking Pepsi in an unlikely direction—toward healthful foods
She played lead guitar in an all-women rock band in her hometown of Madras, India. She was a cricket player in college. She sang karaoke at corporate gatherings. Today, Indra Nooyi presides over 185,000 employees in nearly 200 countries as the chief executive of PepsiCo. And she still performs on stage at company functions.
Nooyi came to the United States in 1978 at age 23 to earn her M.B.A. at Yale, where she worked as a dorm receptionist—opting for the graveyard shift because it paid an extra 50 cents per hour. Her parents had told her she was out of her mind and should have stayed in India and gotten married. "I always had this urge, this desire, this passion," she once explained, to "settle in the United States," where she is now the married mother of two daughters.
When Nooyi joined PepsiCo in 1994, it was as the company's chief strategist. From the start, she helped executives make some tough decisions. Seeing less future in fast food, she moved the company to shed KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell in 1997. Betting instead on beverages and packaged food, she helped engineer a$3 billion acquisition of Tropicana in 1998 and a $14 billion takeover in 2001 of Quaker Oats, maker of Gatorade. The moves proved prescient choices. Company earnings soared, and so, too, did her stature.
By 2006, Nooyi was one of just two finalists to succeed CEO Steven Reinemund as leader of one of the world's best-known brands. After getting the nod, Nooyi flew to visit the other contender. "Tell me whatever I need to do to keep you," she implored. They had worked together for years, both loved music, and Nooyi was persuasive, offering to boost her competitor's compensation to nearly match her own. He agreed to serve as her right-hand man, creating her version of a team of rivals.
A caring CEO. Though raised on cricket, she has become an expert on New York Yankees statistics and Chicago Bulls teamwork. Nooyi is a master of substance, knowing PepsiCo's product lines and financial metrics in depth. But former CEO Reinemund, now the dean of business schools at Wake Forest University, has also noted that she is "a deeply caring person" who "can relate to people from the boardroom to the front line."
As CEO, she has continued to pursue her unusual, and tremendously ambitious, vision for reinventing PepsiCo. She is trying to take the company from snack food to health food, from caffeine colas to fruit juices, and from shareholder value to sustainable enterprise. In doing so, Nooyi is attempting to move beyond the historic trade-off between profits and people. Captured in her artful mantra—"Performance with purpose"—she wants to give Wall Street what it wants but also, the planet what it needs. "It doesn't mean subtracting from the bottom line," she explained in a 2007 speech, but rather "that we bring together what is good for business with what is good for the world."
By 2010, Nooyi has pledged, half of the firm's U.S. revenue will come from healthful products such as low-cal Gatorade and high-fiber oatmeal. The company will eschew fossil fuels in favor of wind and solar. It will campaign against obesity.
This is, clearly, not business as usual. "People these days are bringing their principles to their purchasing," she said in the same speech. "We, in return, are bringing a purpose to our performance." If Nooyi can produce both wholesome foods and dependable profits, PepsiCo's future may be safe.
Yet fresh challenges to Nooyi's leadership abound, including the spiraling costs of commodities like cooking oil that go into the company's products; rising public aversion to bottled water, such as PepsiCo's Aquafina brand; and slowing consumer spending in all categories. The long-simmering cola wars could always flare up again.
But assuming Nooyi continues to combine performance and purpose at PepsiCo—and to offer melodies at company retreats—an even larger personal calling may lie ahead. With annual revenue of $39 billion, the enterprise Nooyi leads is as large as many federal agencies, and moving to run one of those agencies could be her next venture. "After PepsiCo, I do want to go to Washington," she has said. "I want to give back."
For all that, Nooyi remains profoundly personal. She told the BBC in March that she calls her mother in India twice a day. "At the end of the day," said the CEO of one of America's biggest enterprises, "don't forget that you're a person, don't forget you're a mother, don't forget you're a wife, don't forget you're a daughter." When your job is done, "what you're left is family, friends, and faith."
Michael Useem is director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
8. Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway – He is a deeply conservative trader during the times that everyone around him is moving from one extreme to the other to the tune of huge losses and gains. Warren Buffett is a perfect example of patience, proving that slow and steady generally wins the business race. (Although I continue to press my own desire to spur Fishbowl’s inventory software business to race!)
The billionaire investor stepped up his philanthropy: In July he donated $1.5 billion to the Gates Foundation, bringing his lifetime total giving to $17.3 billion; in August he pledged $3 billion in stock to his children's foundations. Buffett also continued his campaign for higher taxes on the rich: "We need Congress, right now, to enact a minimum tax on high incomes. I would suggest 30% of taxable income between $1 million and $10 million, and 35% on amounts above that."
New Red Flags Related to Tampa Firefighters and Police Pension "Audited" Financials
$1.6 billion Tampa Firefighters and Police Pension expects to dramatically out-perform legendary investor WarrenBuffett’s Berkshire Hathawaypension plan.
Last week I wrote about the many red flags I had spotted relating to the $1.6 billion Tampa Firefighters and Police Pension and the need for a forensic investigation. Among other issues I identified concerning the management and performance of the fund, I indicated that the pension displayed on its website financial statements that were unaudited– mere “compilations” prepared by a local accounting firm that was not independent of the fund.
Someone at the Tampa Firefighters and Police Pension must have read my Forbes posting because miraculously this week audited, as well as so-called audited, financial statements appeared on the website. Now visitors to the website can choose between viewing “financial statements” that are unaudited, or what the fund believes are “audited financial statements.”
Why a public pension would present to the public on its website unaudited financials omitting “substantially all of the disclosures required by accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America”—financial statements that are “not designed to inform” pension participants about such matters when audited financials existed, is hard enough to understand and should, in my opinion, be investigated. However, the audited and so-called audited financial statements presented on the website raise far more troubling questions about the management of the billion-plus public pension.
Take a look at the September 30, 2004 so-called audited financial statements posted on the fund’s website. Look like audited financials to you? They’re not. In the upper-left corner is typed DRAFT 5/14/2004. You’ll find no auditor named in, or signing, the draft. Looks to me like the pension either didn’t get audited that year, or misplaced the audit. Either way, be concerned. It’s scary when a billion-plus pension is so sloppy.
(Author’s addendum: When this article was written on Friday, January 25th, the 2004 so-called audited financials, to which there was a link, were an unsigned draft by an unknown person or firm. Monday, January 28th, the unsigned draft was replaced with a different document. Better late than never.)
In the past ten years, the Tampa Firefighters and Police Pension has changed auditors from Ernst & Young in 2001-2002, to no-named auditor of a draft in 2002-2003, to KPMG for a few years, then back to Ernst & Young for a spell and, most recently, to the firm of Moore Stephens Lovelace, P.A. What does that tell you?
When companies change auditors frequently, or without explanation, it is considered a major red flag by investors and regulators alike. I’ve never seen a pension whip through auditors as quickly as this one. This public pension fund is exceptional both in having zero turnover of investment advisors, using a single money manager to oversee 100% of its assets for the past 40 years, and in changing auditors every couple of years.
Auditor changes have been a growing concern as regulators scrutinize the reasons behind such changes and what they might portend about a company’s financial well-being. A change in auditors can result from either a dismissal by the client, or the auditor’s resignation. Auditor resignations often occur when a company is in real financial trouble, and the resignation can be accompanied by a significant drop in the price of the company’s stock. For such reasons, the SEC must be notified when a public company changes auditors.
Investors and regulators view auditor resignations and dismissals differently. Resignations are more common when litigation is in the wind and dismissals more frequently result from disagreements about issues such as internal control weaknesses and the reliability of financial reporting.
I don’t know the reasons behind the Tampa Firefighters and Police Pension frequent change in auditors, e.g. whether the changes result from resignations, or dismissals. I do note that the most recent auditors do not express an opinion on the effectiveness of the fund’s internal control over financial reporting.
But there are more red flags here.
The 10% assumed rate of return on investments disclosed in the pension’s financials is absurdly high. It’s bad enough that most public pensions today assume an unrealistic rate of return around 7.5%– in excess of the rate deemed achievable by legendary investor Warren Buffett . Berkshire Hathaway’s pension projects a paltry 7.1% overall return.
According to the performance summary and investment history of the pension, the longstanding investment manager’s stock picks have nearly tripled the S&P 500. Why other public pensions haven’t retained this Buffett of Atlanta to manage 100% of their assets remains a mystery.
As I said before, if you’re a participant in the fund, a taxpayer contributing to the fund, or an investor in City of Tampa municipal bonds for that matter, in my opinion, you need to know how the $1.6 billion pension is being managed. Your money is at risk.
9. Sir Richard Branson
Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Group – Anyone who owns more than 400 companies and is worth billions of dollars is clearly doing many things right. I admire Richard Branson’s tenacity, and I admire his personal brand—so much so, that when my paired leadership partner, Mary Michelle Scott, and I recently traveled to Australia with several of our team in our launch of Fishbowl Australia, we made the effort and kept the commitment to fly with Virgin Airlines every step of the way.
7 Customer Service Rules from Richard Branson, CEO of Virgin
Sir Richard Branson, CEO of Virgin, is known for success and customer service. Branson owns over four hundred companies and is estimated to be worth $4.2 billion dollars. Now in his sixties, Branson’s business ventures range from airlines, telecommunications, formula one, cosmetics and space exploration just to name a few.
With billions of dollars in profit and businesses that stretch into nearly every aspect of the human experience, it’s plain to see that Richard Branson knows a thing or two about achieving success.
Branson’s 7 success tips to live by can be an excellent template for an exceptional customer service vision for any organization.
Richard Branson’s 7 Customer Service Success Rules To Live By
1. In Customer Service, Saying “Yes!” is Fun
• Branson didn’t achieve the success he has today by saying “no” at opportunities to do new things, be bold in how to approach projects, and meet the needs and wants of customers. He often defies the conventional wisdom, pushes the envelope and decides to say “yes” and try new approaches to how to do business when others would simple say “no”.
• Too often we treat our customer interacting teams as gatekeepers, deciders of the yes or the no when it comes to customer needs. Rather we should be helping our people be a concierge to customers, assisting and caring for customer needs.
2. If You Are Going to Dream Up Customer Service, Dream Big!
No matter what the project, Branson’s companies are created around saying “yes” to what other companies don’t. He wins customers by making customer service, value, and experience the focus on his organization. He then sets the bar high, higher than what others are doing or think is possible of achieving. Customer service isn’t just for phone, Internet, or TV companies.
Whatever type of business you’re in, exceptional customer service is an opportunity to set yourself apart from the crowd.
3. Having Fun in Customer Service is Fun
As with most successful individual, Branson is constantly asked for “the secret” to his success. His response? There’s no secret. Hard work, smart work, and above all have fun while working. Branson’s been known to say that if you have fun, work hard, that money will eventually come. He’s also shared that when you stop having fun with what you’re doing, it’s time to move on.
Ultimately, we all have a choice. You can endure work, or you can work and have fun while doing it. It’s really up to you do decide. Choose to have fun. Choose to relax. Choose to loosen up and enjoy the moment, it only lasts once.
4. Always Take Risks – Calculated Customer Service Risks
Irresponsible? Reckless? Branson’s been called this…and not a few times. But it’s best to see Branson as visionary at always seeking to push the envelope. One time success can be attributed to luck. Multiple successes come from evaluating risks, then putting all your energy into making your vision happen.
Great success doesn’t come without taking risks. The key is taking the right risks.
5. Live for Each Customer Service Moment
We need goals. We need aspirations. Both inside work and out. Branson says that even dedicating 80 hours a week to a business still allows for a few hours of fun. Don’t forget, people can have fun at work too. Great customer service is making personal connections. Encourage people to have fun, be themselves. Making personal connections requires us to be personal. What better way to connect with customers than to learn about your customers, what they like, what they do, find similarities and build on that.
Some of the best customer service professionals I’ve worked with were never the most experienced or the most knowledgable. But they were the best and personally connecting with customers, each and every time.
6. Always Give Respect to Customer Service
An early lesson Branson learned is that in business, everyone commands respect. Any person could be a potential future customer or partner. The way you treat them could affect your business future. Give people respect and your reputation will thank you.
7. Give Back in Customer Service
Success in business means money. Money is the bottom line. But satisfaction doesn’t come from money. To feel the ultimate satisfaction from the work you do, you’ll need more than money. You’ll need to have a worthwhile, positive, emotional connection with what you do.
Give back, remember that no matter what we achieve, we all received some help along the way.
Imagine a Customer Focused World
In Branson’s book, Screw it, Let’s Do It: Lessons in Life and Business, Branson shares life experiences that show that attitude and daring to try when others just accept the status quo is a key to achieving greatness.
What would our lives be like if all customer service teams were centered around being bold, trying new approaches, and connecting with customers in a different way?
10.Rupert Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch, News Corporation – Rupert Murdoch is a self-made and hard driven Australia-born head of an American publishing dynasty, as the founder, chairman and CEO of News Corporation. He continues to work unbelievably hard at an age when most would have retired long ago. In the midst of accusation and scandal he’s needed to find new strength to face the accusation of bribery, corruption and hacking by subsidiary firms. This news is still breaking, as Rupert resigns from the boards of several of the subsidiary companies involved. Regardless of the outcome, the work ethic and sheer tenacity Rupert Murdoch has shown in the face of adversity continues to serve as an example to all.
Collectively, these 10 individuals are my own “living legends” who exemplify leadership strength. Who are your examples, and why? I look forward to hearing your additions and your feedback on this illustrious list.
Additional reporting provided by Mary Michelle Scott, Fishbowl President.
With News of the World's phone hacking scandal in the rearview mirror, the octogenarian billionaire and his $34.2-billion-in-sales company came through 2012 with a sharp rise in -profits, and plans to split up its entertainment and publishing businesses. But Murdoch has found a new way to stir up controversy: on Twitter.
