Chief Executive Officers
Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs
One of the few financial services firms to make it through the financial crisis without disintegrating losses or a public scandal, Goldman Sachs has proved its mettle as a holding company née investment bank of global renown, as has its current leader, Chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein. Having worked in one capacity or another for Goldman Sachs for 25 years, Blankfein was named as Henry Paulson’s replacement in 2006. Three years later, Blankfein has kept a steady hand on the tiller, with Goldman showing impressive first- and second-quarter profits in 2009. Vanity Fair recently boosted Blankfein from number 20 to number 1 in its annual list of “100 Information Age Powers.” The son of a Brooklyn postal worker, Blankfein is a Harvard Law School graduate who initially set his sights on the Supreme Court. Instead, he made his name in the world of securities trading. Time magazine recently reported that “Goldman Sachs under Blankfein has recalibrated, in very large numbers, its place as Wall Street’s most astute, most opaque, and most influential firm…Goldman’s stock has more than tripled since its low last November, to more than $160 per share.” Blankfein understands that at the core of any successful business is the relationships that exist between fellow professionals: “Life is always about contracts that you make with people. Very few of them are written. Most of them are implicit, and most evolve out of a course of dealing and understanding. And if you are good for your people, they’ll be good to you.”
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft
Though Microsoft’s outspoken and larger-than-life chief executive may not have been there since the beginning, Steve Ballmer has had a career that measures up to that of company chairman, founder, and international business icon Bill Gates. In his nearly three decades with Microsoft, Ballmer, the software company’s first manager, has become a beacon of confidence and inspiration for the company’s nearly 100,000 workers. Working with Gates since 1980 to evolve the fledgling software maker into the computing powerhouse it is today, Ballmer organized the company’s labor and operations while Gates handled the company’s product line; the result has been consistent returns to shareholders since Microsoft’s initial public offering in 1986. Though Ballmer is often seen as an effusive, and sometimes volcanic presence—largely based on a popular selection of his speeches at company events sometimes referred to as “CEO gone wild”—he is at heart a brilliant, thoughtful, and purposeful corporate leader. Despite the significant challenges waged by mega-competitors Google and Apple, Ballmer’s combination of fire and foundation will be crucial going forward. As Ballmer said recently, “The future really is about innovation. We can do it, we can drive it, we can all make it happen, and it will lead us back onto a path of economic growth that I think we all aspire to.”
Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com
Though online shopping is now as ubiquitous as sliced bread, Ziploc baggies, and other modern marvels, just 15 years ago Jeff Bezos was working in largely uncharted territory. The founder of Amazon, Bezos was arguably the first entrepreneur to realize the lucrative benefits of doing away with the traditional brick-and-mortar storefront; his meteoric rise to success from online bookseller to the largest retailer on the Web is testament to both his leadership and his willingness to take risks. A tech-savvy thinker from an early age and a personable yet intense micro-manager who says he is obsessed with meeting customers’ needs, Bezos proceeded unerringly to take advantage of the e-commerce revolution. Time named him the person of the year in 1999, and, 10 years later, his legacy seems secure.
Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway
If there’s one bona fide superhero of the investment world, it is of course Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha, who, throughout an impressive career, has consistently served as the model towards which all other investment minds should strive. Buffett’s biography has been told again and again, with all the usual apocrypha tacked on, but there is one key fact that deserves repetition: Berkshire Hathaway gains have beat out the S&P 500 by 11.4 percent over the last 43 years, an unparalleled consistency, and just one of the many, many reasons for Buffett’s return to the Directorship 100.
Steve Jobs, Apple
Apple’s messianic leader has been the face, brain, and heart of the tech leader since its founding in the 70s, taking the company through waves of groundbreaking technological upgrades. Despite leaving the company for more than 10 years, Steve Jobs’ return as CEO in 1996 has ensured that Apple remains on the forefront of innovation. Described as a consummate marketeer devoted to aesthetics and design, as well as a trend-setting visionary, Steve Jobs has succeeded in making Apple a perennial blue chip, with its recent stock surge a hefty reward for investors who kept the faith through the recession. There is simply no way to discount Jobs’ impact at Apple: as the brief public flare-up over his recent illness and liver transplant demonstrated, he is truly the soul of one of the world’s most dominant enterprises.
Muhtar Kent, Coca-Cola
Muhtar Kent started his career with Coca-Cola as a truck driver and proceeded through the company’s marketing and logistics channels for 30 years, excluding a six-year sojourn heading Turkey’s Efes Beverage Group. Moving from trucker to manager, Kent quickly became an influential figure in Coca-Cola’s international operations, including overseer of the company’s businesses in Eastern Central Europe. His work at the head of Efes saw a monumental expansion of the company’s growth, including a spectacular 250 percent climb in market capitalization. He returned to Coca-Cola in 2005, finally becoming the chief executive last year and its chairman earlier this year, just in time for his debut on the Directorship 100 stage.
The Iconic Activist: Carl Icahn
The king of activism and an incompetent management team’s worst nightmare, Carl Icahn has established a powerful presence in the high-flying world of hedge fund investment, having gone to battle against a number of perceivably soft targets and, more often than not, having come out with his convictions intact and a few director seats to boot. A self-described bootstraps case, Icahn has in his 50-year-long career rocketed into the stratosphere of finance, unerringly, and seemingly without joy. (When asked by an interviewer what he does to relax: “I work!”) Since coming to prominence in the 1980s through his aggressive takeover of Trans World Airlines, Icahn has been a constant burr in the side of the companies in which his fund invests. His recent tussles at Motorola, Yahoo, Biogen, and Lions Gate, though varying in success, have demonstrated the man’s unyielding dedication to effecting change at underperforming com-panies. Icahn has delighted journalists and mortified executives with his unconcealed disdain for the corporate structure. To wit: “What is a CEO? Too many of them are just guys who buy private jets without using their own money. They’re using our money, the shareholders’ money, and they don’t even let you ride on the plane.” Though he has been somewhat subdued in recent months—the vocal share- holder’s blog also has been relatively quiet as of late—it’s only a matter of time before Icahn again arms for battle.
Ed Liddy, formerly of AIG
Though Edward Liddy has had a long and varied career within the financial industry, history may remember him best for the tumultuous year he served at the helm of American International Group in the midst of the credit crisis. Liddy’s shotgun wedding to AIG, (presided over by Reverend Paulson) forced the former Goldman Sachs director to take the controls just as his employer was to post the worst year on record, with a bailout, a bonus controversy, an angry public, and the largest ever single-quarter loss awaiting him. Liddy, who was being more than public-service minded when he took on the role, is proof that when dealing with government, few good deeds go unpunished. He was quickly drawn into a whirlwind over compensation and bonuses at the troubled insurer. With AIG’s reins entrusted to a successor, we would strongly remind readers that Liddy’s legacy draws on his remarkable perseverance, spirit of public service, and successful leadership at Allstate, rather than the tumbling dominos that became the AIG story.
Alan Mulally, Ford
Having refused government aid even as GM and Chrysler swore they would enter bankruptcy without it, Ford managed to pull out a second quarter profit of $2.3 billion this year. Much of Ford’s relative stability can be attributed to the smart management tactics of President and CEO Alan Mulally, who recently implemented executive pay cuts and other cost-cutting measures. Having joined Ford after a successful 27-year tenure at Boeing, Mulally’s leadership should keep the automaker intact until the return of clear skies. His non-automotive background was cited when the Treasury recruited Ed Whiteacre, another “non-car” executive, to run the new GM.
Samuel Palmisano, IBM
A 35-year veteran at IBM, Samuel Palmisano has made it to the top of the corporate ladder, holding the chairman, chief executive, and president titles at the world’s largest information technology company. In his years with the company, Palmisano has worked to keep the company in the vanguard, having established IBM’s Global Services arm, and maintaining the company’s global relevance. As he said in a recent speech, “The world will continue to become smaller, flatter, and smarter. We are moving into the age of the globally integrated and intelligent economy, society, and planet. The question is, ‘What will we do with that?’” Though IBM had a rich corporate history prior to Palmisano’s arrival, his wise oversight affirms that similar triumphs are yet to come.
Stephen Schwarzman and the Kings of Private Equity
Stephen Schwarzman’s comments in March that between 40 and 45 percent of the world’s wealth had been destroyed in less than a year as a result of the financial crisis startled many across the globe. Not known for his subtlety, Schwarzman, CEO and co-founder of Blackstone Group, was also one of the top-paid chief executives in the United States last year. He is not expected to relinquish the title anytime soon. Along with his peers at private- equity standard-bearers, such as KKR’s Henry Kravis, Carlyle’s David Rubenstein, and Apollo’s Leon Black, Schwarzman and his brethren are a force to be reckoned with. Although 2009 was a somewhat quiet year for buyouts, don’t expect them to stay quiet for long.
William Ackman, Pershing Square Capita
Though not yet a household name like fellow activist Carl Icahn, Pershing Square Capital founder and manager William Ackman has carved a place for himself in the headlines as a crusader for improved governance measures at some big-name U.S. com-panies. Highlighted by a prolonged battle with Target for board seats and shorter director terms, which he eventually lost, Ackman has nonetheless made his presence felt in a number of boardrooms. Most recently, he has lashed out against credit ratings agencies, arguing that they should be held liable when positively rated companies end up hurting investors.
Richard Breeden, Breeden Capital
Richard Breeden, co-founder of Breeden Capital, an investment firm, is a well-known for his hedge-fund activism. His work at Breeden Capital is directly influenced by his former position as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission from 1989 to 1993. Breeden was elected chairman of H&R Block after successfully pushing for changes at the struggling tax preparer. The investor takes stakes in companies that he thinks exhibit poor governance practices and then pushes tirelessly to improve them. One lesser known fact that separates Breeden from other hedge and private- equity investors: he actually has spent time as a sitting chief executive and as a turnaround maven during corporate governance crises such as WorldCom and Hollister. It has been a winning formula.
Peter Butler and Bill Crist, Governance for Owners
Advocacy group Governance for Owners (GO) champions the values of long-term shareholders, working to improve corporate governance with gradual profitability as its goal. With a global range of influence, GO employs 40 employees who advise and counsel shareholders and businesses alike, with the ultimate goal of forging a long-term, mutually beneficial alliance. Founding partner and CEO Peter Butler had rich careers throughout the global financial landscape, including as in-house fund manager at BT Pension Scheme, the largest pension fund in the United Kingdom. Chairman Bill Crist is a former CalPERS chairman and president, and has also co-chaired the Council of Institutional Investors. Peter Clapman, former chief counsel for TIAA-CREF, is president and CFO.
Very interesting and very valuable for my MBA level courses on corporate governance at Lubin School of Business, Pace University. We began offering the first MBA level course on COMPARATIVE CORPORATE GOVERNANCE: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE, nearly four years ago. We now have added a second and third governance related courses and have under consideration both a double major for Accounting and Finance majors and a governance MBA. Your publications are very insightful and offer students a “real world” experience with governance and the important role of Directors.
Some years ago I created, edited and published the first texts available in English on all aspects of governance, company law and related industrial relations/labour relations (stakeholder laws)for the 12 major countries of Western Europe.
Professor John Alan James, Lubin School of Business, Pace University
Good job on a tough assignment. Of course no two people will ever agree on everyone who should or shouldn’t be on the list but the one person who immediately comes to my mind, and the minds of many in any discussion of corporate governance, is Robert A. J. Monks.
Bob was instrumental in creating a fiduciary duty for pension a mutual funds to vote in corporate elections. He found Institutional Shareholder Services (now part of the Risk Metrics Group), which many believe has almost monopoly power in advising institutional investors how to vote. He and Nell Minow (who you did include) then set up the LENS Fund, which paved the way for Relational Investors, GO and others on your list. Along with Nell, he then set up The Corporate Library, which you also include. You include several academics, all worthy, but it was Bob and Nell’s book, Corporate Governance, along with another earlier book by R.I. (Bob) Tricker, that virtually created the academic discipline.
I can’t understand how you missed this giant of the field… or maybe he’s on your list and I missed it?
We appreciate Jim McRitchie’s comment on Robert A.G Monks, and his achievements in the context of US corporate governance. In fact, Bob Monks was recognized by Directorship in our 2008 Corporate Governance Hall of Fame, and deservedly so (along with Bill Donaldson, Mike Oxley, Paul Sarbanes, and Ira Millstein). In addition to Bob’s many accomplishments, he also happens to be a first rate fellow and a delightful individual whom we admire and enjoy immensely.
– The Editors of Directorship
“has clearly helped the nation avoid further financial disaster and put the economy on the path to recovery.”
It’s been a year since your article. Perhaps you should reconsider that statement?
I’m going to have to echo Bill’s comment. While there certainly has been a “recovery” in the financial sector, thanks to a VERY generous Fed, the recovery everywhere else is completely lacking. It seems there are two different worlds, and if you’re not part of the financially connected, then you may not have the same view as the one described in the post.
I am glad to see Bob Monks getting a mention. A very impressive character who studied at both Cambridge AND Harvard and despite his many highly influencial positions has retained a salt of the earth personality. A very imformative post overall, thank you.
So here we are just over a year since this report was issued. Wonder where Barack stands now?