Posts Tagged ‘CEO’
There ain’t always unity in Class Warfare
This morning, Lloyd Blankfein, the head of one of the most prestigious investment firms in America released a video on YouTube for the Human Rights Campaign. Supporting equal rights for same-sex marriage.
Mr Quiet, Mr Unassuming, Blackfein has always participated in positive charities in NYC, around the country and around the world. But, he’s not an out-front kind of spokesman. Until today.
Unlike many of his peers he’s not taken any bonuses in recent times – in fact, he cut his pay. And he’s the head of a Wall Street investment firm that non-students of American history may not realize was founded as a response to bigotry. Back when Wall Street firms wouldn’t hire Jews.
So, kudos to you, Lloyd. I don’t own any shares of Goldman Sachs – or any investment bank for that matter. But, as an ordinary American who thinks our Constitution and Bill of Rights mandate equal opportunity that is still denied by today’s generation of conservatives, Republicans, Tea Party types, right-wing priests and pundits – welcome aboard!
Boss of breast implant firm hiding from criminal charges
One of PIP’s defective implants after removal
France’s health minister called on Saturday for the head of the breast implant maker accused of selling faulty prostheses to tens of thousands of women around the world to be found, calling the growing scandal a “shady business.”
Jean-Claude Mas, 72, the founder and CEO of French company Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) has not been seen or heard of in public since the scandal broke, potentially affecting 300,000 women around the world. His company is accused of using sub-standard industrial silicone in some of its implants, which were sold globally before being taken off the market in 2010.
…French Health Minister Xavier Bertrand told Europe 1 radio on Saturday. “They have to answer for their actions…”
Mas was briefly questioned by police in November 2010 but has never been summoned to court. A judicial source has told Reuters, however, that between four and six executives could be charged by a Marseilles criminal court for aggravated fraud.
Also on Saturday, France’s national health insurance agency said it planned to sue over the PIP affair, alleging dishonest practices and fraud. Defendants will be listed as “persons unknown,” a routine practice in France when the identity of an opposing party or parties is not yet determined…
France’s health ministry urged removal on Friday of the 30,000 PIP implants purchased by French women and said public health funds will be used to finance those extractions…
French health officials discovered last year that PIP was using a home-made brew of silicone, an industrial variety not approved by health authorities…
PIP was able to continue its ruse because periodic checks by regulators were pre-announced and even suppliers of the industrial oil used to make the silicone were lied to, according to the former executive.
Sounds like safety checks in France don’t vary especially from American standards. Even if distributors weren’t among the in-crowd which knew enough to specify “good ones or bad ones” the quality of the gel in the implants should have been apparent to the most basic of quality checks in the receiving departments of those supplying physicians. These were, after all, products for surgical procedures.
The motives of PIP’s corporate barons was the usual – greed. Idiots who prattle about this being a guiding light of capitalism and therefore forgivable should be required to pick up the tab for women who are faced with procedures to remove and replace the PIP implants. Maybe they should be implanted into the testicles of the management staff and compliant inspectors, distributors and physicians, who managed to rationalize away any responsibility for medical safety.
Ex-CEO of Olympus says he was fired for whistleblowing
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission
Sacked Olympus chief executive Michael Woodford says he has contacted the UK’s Serious Fraud Office about the Japanese firm’s accounting practices.
Mr Woodford, who was dismissed last week, told the BBC that he believed the camera-maker had paid out excessive sums in relation to takeover deals. He says he was fired for raising the issue, but Olympus says his different management style was to blame.
The SFO confirmed that Mr Woodford had contacted it.
Olympus said it would “consider” taking legal action against Mr Woodford for disclosing confidential information.
Mr Woodford said he had commissioned auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers to look into an alleged $687 million payment by Olympus to a Cayman Island company. He told the BBC that he was ousted after he distributed a copy of the PwC report on Wednesday night…
He says he was called into a board meeting on Friday at which the agenda had been changed. The only new item to discuss was his dismissal as chief executive with immediate effect, for which, he said, no reason was given.
After the board voted for his dismissal, he left the meeting and was followed to his office by a colleague…He was asked for the key to his flat, 51% of which he owned, and was told to get the bus to the airport as they had taken away his car…
According to Mr Woodford, auditors were unable to establish who owned the company in the Cayman Islands. He said questions still had to be answered: “To whom and for what did we pay this money..?”
A perfectly legitimate question within any legal corporate structure. Whether that structure is manipulated by officers dedicated to criminal pursuits is an entirely relevant question.
Sounds like Mr. Woodford asked that question. His dismissal is the only answer, so far.
Steve Jobs resigns as Apple CEO – Tim Cook officially takes over
After 14 years as Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs resigned his post on Wednesday and was replaced by Tim Cook, who previously was the company’s Chief Operating Officer. Jobs, in turn, was elected as chairman of Apple’s board of directors.
“I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come,” Jobs said in a letter addressed “to the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community.”
“I believe Apple’s brightest and most innovative days are ahead of it. And I look forward to watching and contributing to its success in a new role,” Jobs wrote. “I have made some of the best friends of my life at Apple, and I thank you all for the many years of being able to work alongside you.”
“In his new role as Chairman of the Board, Steve will continue to serve Apple with his unique insights, creativity and inspiration,” board member and Genentech chairman Art Levinson said in an Apple press release. “Steve’s extraordinary vision and leadership saved Apple and guided it to its position as the world’s most innovative and valuable technology company. Steve has made countless contributions to Apple’s success, and he has attracted and inspired Apple’s immensely creative employees and world class executive team.”
Jobs had been on a medical leave of absence since January 2011. He continued to hold the CEO title while Cook oversaw the day-to-day operations of the company. At the time, Jobs told Apple employees he was taking a leave from his day-to-day duties to “focus on my health.”
The full text of his letter of resignation and the board of directors’ statement are here.
It’s been six years since I bought my first Apple computer. The shiny new Mini had just been introduced and offered me an affordable way to experiment with Apple’s OS X operating system Like any longtime geek, I had spares of monitor, keyboard, etc. to hook up.
After 22 years – at the time – of being an adept with Microsoft, IBM and precursor operating systems there were a number of day-to-day encumbrances and questions I was tired of resolving, day after day, time after time.
That Mini and OS X put all that behind me. I was never a command-line addict or the sort of geek who needed to be up to my elbows inside an OS. I just needed the tools I used on a daily basis to work properly and predictably. I never looked back.
I credit Steve Jobs for what he did to make that change so easy for me. As someone who’s spent a long and varied career involved with commerce around the planet, I also appreciate the cultural and social boundaries he’s set aside in the process of building Apple into one of the most successful firms on the planet.
Howard Schultz calls for a boycott of campaign contributions
Howard Schultz, the chairman and chief executive of Starbucks, has always been the kind of boss who wears his heart on his sleeve. So it came as no surprise to Starbucks employees when, on Monday, he sent out a long, passionate, companywide e-mail entitled “Leading Through Uncertain Times.”
In it, he wrote about his frustration over “the lack of cooperation and irresponsibility among elected officials as they have put partisan agendas before the people’s agenda” — creating an enormous crisis of confidence in the process. He said that Starbucks had a responsibility “to act in ways that can ease the collective anxiety inside and outside the company.” It needed to continue creating jobs. It had to maintain its generous package of employee benefits. And it was critical, Schultz wrote, for employees “to earn our customers’ trust by being respectful of their own life situations — whatever it may be.”
No, the surprise wasn’t the e-mail; it was what happened next. Although he has made his share of campaign contributions — “to candidates in both parties,” he told me on Friday — Schultz is hardly a political activist. Yet the response to his e-mail — not only from within the company but among a group of some 50 business leaders he shared it with — was so overwhelming that it galvanized him…
In effect, Schultz thinks the country should go on strike against its politicians. “The fundamental problem,” he said, “is that the lens through which Congress approaches issues is re-election. The lifeblood of their re-election campaigns is political contributions.” Schultz wants his countrymen — big donors and small; corporations and unions — to stop making political contributions in presidential and Congressional campaigns. Simple as that. Economists like to talk about how incentives change behavior. Schultz is proposing that Americans give Washington an incentive to begin acting responsibly on their behalf. It’s a beautiful idea…
He believes Congress needs to come back from the August recess now, instead of waiting until September. Then, he says, the president and Congress should hammer out a debt deal, which will restore confidence. And finally, and most importantly, they should start focusing “maniacally” on the nation’s most pressing concern: job creation. Once they’ve done that, the boycott would be lifted…
Is Schultz’s idea a long shot? Yes. Is it worth trying? You bet it is.
First, here’s a link [.pdf] to the original email to Starbucks employees, partners and the 50 CEOs outside the company.
Second, though I have been an activist in both the Republican and Democrat parties years ago – more so in the former than the latter – the contemptible, opportunist and egregious policies of most of our politicians was enough for me to turn my back on both their houses decades ago. I haven’t contributed a penny to either party’s electoral campaigns since the 1950′s.
What I have done and continue to do is support progressive political action within and without the Democratic Party. If I lived in one of the mythical enclaves where moderate Republicans who care about working people still live and breathe, I would do the same – as I did in the past. That’s not very likely in New Mexico.
As a cranky old geek living on my social security check supplemented by a couple of geek investments [no - I still don't give public equities advice] I can’t afford to donate much of anything, anyway. So, I will continue to advocate for progressive politics, modern economics from Keynes to Leontiev, existential solutions to social, economic and political questions. None of which would I ever expect to find embraced by either dogpile of semi-useless politicians.
Go for it, Howard! Though buying “local” is our usual style, I’ll stop by for a coffee, this weekend, when we come to town for grocery shopping.
Donations revive SETI quest
The SETI Institute’s search for extraterrestrial intelligence is back on track, thanks to more than $200,000 in donations from thousands of fans. “We’re not completely out of the woods yet, but everybody’s smiling here,” the institute’s chief executive officer, Tom Pierson, told me today.
In April, the institute had to put its big ear for hearing E.T.’s radio call, the 42-antenna Allen Telescope Array in Northern California, into “hibernation” due to budget woes. The biggest hit was the loss of funding by the University of California at Berkeley, the institute’s partner for operating the antenna array.
The SETI Institute has been around for decades: It stepped in to help keep the search for alien radio signals active after NASA cut off funding for the quest in 1993. It’s not the only organization doing SETI, but it’s the leader in the field. The Allen Telescope Array, or ATA, was launched with $50 million in contributions from software billionaire Paul Allen and others — and if the array ever takes in 350 linked antennas, as it’s designed to do, it would rank among the world’s premier radio-telescope facilities.
But in light of the financial challenges, that’s a huge “if” right now. In fact, until last week it wasn’t certain if or when the ATA would come back online…
Pierson said the institute’s managers and scientists were drawing up a plan that would restart science operations in September…
Eventually, astronomers at the SETI Institute hope to use the ATA to listen for signals from the most promising planetary systems identified by NASA’s Kepler planet-hunting mission. Jill Tarter, the institute’s director of SETI research, said in April that the fund-raising target for the Kepler follow-up project would be $5 million.
Two websites you need to know about, to consider aiding and participating: setiQuest is a locus for data sifting – SETIstars remains to receive donations.
Thanks, Ursarodinia
Criminal proceedings against Mozilo will be dropped
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission
Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles have dropped their criminal investigation into Angelo R. Mozilo, the former chief executive of Countrywide Financial, once the nation’s largest mortgage lender…
The closure of the case after two years of inquiry follows last October’s settlement by Mr. Mozilo of insider trading allegations made by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Regulators had contended that Mr. Mozilo sold $140 million in Countrywide stock between 2006 and 2007 even as he recognized that his company was faltering. Countrywide and Bank of America paid $45 million of Mr. Mozilo’s $67.5 million settlement, and he was responsible for the rest.
Without admitting or denying wrongdoing, Mr. Mozilo agreed to be banned from serving as an officer or a director of a public company.
The conclusion by prosecutors that Mr. Mozilo, 72, did not engage in criminal conduct while directing Countrywide will likely fuel broad concerns that few high-level executives of financial companies are being held accountable for the actions that led to the financial crisis of 2008.
Hundreds of billions of dollars have been lost by investors while millions of borrowers have lost their homes. Few of the people who ran the institutions that contributed to the disaster have been found liable…
Even as criminal and civil prosecutors are closing investigations into financial executives, private litigation is swelling. Investors who purchased dubious mortgage securities are bringing a wide array of cases against mortgage lenders and the Wall Street firms that enabled them. These investors maintain, citing internal documents and e-mails, that those putting together mortgage securities knew that they contained problematic loans that would likely fail…
In his years at Countrywide, Mr. Mozilo became one of the highest-paid executives in America. From 2000 until 2008, when he left, Mr. Mozilo received total compensation of $521.5 million…
Mozilo received a pat on the butt and wall-to-wall money from Bank of America on his departure. A historically criminal act even if the Department of Justice and the SEC feel successful prosecution at this time is unlikely. The operative phrase being “at this time”.
As civil cases proceed, the Feds retain the right to acquire information from those lawsuits to predicate future criminal prosecution against this creep. Still, it’s a sad day when the attitudes, premises and culture of American jurisprudence continues to bend over backwards to avoid criminal proceedings against the greedy bastards who brought down this economic house of cards.
Obama toasts Jobs, Zuckerberg, other tech CEOs
Last night, the only place to be was at king-of-all-venture-capitalists John Doerr’s house in Woodside, California, where President Barack Obama sat down with none other than Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Eric Schmidt, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, Yahoo’s Carol Bartz and a handful of other billionaire tech titans.
The White House Flickr feed shared the above image, taken by Pete Souza, identifying these people only as “Technology Business Leaders,” though bloggers made small work of attaching names to faces. According to the the New York Times political blog, The Caucus, the remaining folks in the shot are: Cisco’s John Chambers, Twitter’s Dick Costolo, Netflix’s Reed Hastings, Stanford University president John Hennessy, Genentech’s Art Levinson and “cleantech” entrepreneur Steve Westly.
And a good time was had by all.
HP CEO Mark Hurd resigns after sex probe
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission
Hewlett-Packard Co.’s Mark Hurd resigned as chief executive officer after an investigation found he had a personal relationship with a contractor who received numerous inappropriate payments from the company.
Chief Financial Officer Cathie Lesjak, 51, will take over as interim CEO. While an investigation didn’t find a violation of the company’s sexual-harassment policy, Hurd “demonstrated a profound lack of judgment that seriously undermined his credibility and damaged his effectiveness in leading HP,” General Counsel Michael Holston said.
Shares plunged 9.3 percent in late trading after the announcement.
The departure leaves Hewlett-Packard, the world’s biggest maker of personal computers and printers, in search of a new CEO and chairman after more than five years under Hurd. On his watch, the Palo Alto, California-based company regained leadership in the PC market from Dell Inc. and used acquisitions to expand into new areas, such as computer services. The company’s stock-market value increased $44.6 billion, rising to $108.1 billion, since Hurd took the helm on April 1, 2005…
HP initiated the investigation on June 29 after the contractor made a claim of sexual harassment. The woman, who HP declined to identify, worked on marketing tasks for two years, the company said. The probe found violations of HP’s standards of business conduct, though it didn’t find violations of the harassment policy.
Hurd submitted receipts for expenses ranging from $1,000 to $20,000 over two years, including meals and travel, that should have been labeled as personal and not related to business, said a person familiar with the situation. Hurd, who is married and has two children, intends to pay the company back the entire amount.
Hurd will get a severance payment of $12.2 million, plus other benefits; so, don’t worry too much about whether or not he can afford his country club membership.
Hurd is also on the board of News Corp.
Which will give Ol’ Rupert a chance to moralize. Or not.
Transocean CEO Steven Newman celebrates safety award
Transocean President and CEO Steven Newman performs a Bollywood dance after the company’s Indian division achieved top safety award targets – and he was able to take a few minutes away from concerns in the Gulf of Mexico.
