Carmen Nobel of Portfolio.com wrote a story yesterday examining circumstances where previous failed CEOs surprisingly get hired as CEO for another firm, e.g., Robert Nardelli former CEO of Home Depot and current CEO of Chrysler.  Nobel examines the reasons why this can happen and examines the overall CEO hiring process.  The piece is a worthwhile read. Read Full Story

Liberum has just put together the latest third quarter turnover numbers for 2008.  The numbers have been surprising.  Executive turnover in the third quarter has declined from the totals registered in 2007 and 2006.  Below is a graphical representation of some the key turnover totals for the third quarter over the last number of years.  The categories are broken down into Internal Moves, Joining, Leaving, Promoted, Resigned/Retired, Terminated and Total. Read Full Story

Dr. Leslie Gaines Ross who writes the reputationxchange.com blog for Weber Shandwick wrote a short piece September 27 in her blog which she referred to a Wall Street Journal article that quoted Intel's CEO, Paul Otellini discussing the merits of a good CEO.  According to Otellini,“A CEO’s main job, because you have access to all of the information, is to see the need to change before anyone else does.”Dr. Ross took Otellini's quote further and stated a,CEO’s primary job is to also see the... Read Full Story

Ryan J. Donmoyer and Christopher Stern of Bloomberg wrote a story today entitled, Bailout Executive-Pay Curbs Use Loophole-Rich Tax Law.  The piece analyzed the latest iteration of the proposed restrictions on executive compensation.  The story is a worthwhile read if you are concerned with executive compensation, golden parachutes and or their possible limitation. Another approach checkout Eric Reguly's piece in today's Canada Globe and Mail entitled, The running dogs of compensation... Read Full Story

Kevin Dobbs wrote an incisive piece for the American Banker that focused on newly hired bank CEOs (Alan Fishman for WAMU and Charles Rhinehart for Downey Financial) and what they typically need to bring to the table.  According to Dobbs,Deep into a pulverizing credit cycle with no clear turning point, newly minted chief executives at banking and thrift companies are increasingly garnering more attention for past experience selling companies—experience that many expect them to have to draw... Read Full Story

Richard Dean Mergenthaler (University of Iowa), Shrivaram Rajgopal (University of Washington), and Suraj Srinivasan (University of Chicago) published CEO and CFO Career Consequences to Missing Quarterly Earnings Benchmarks(June 27, 2008).  For those really interested in key executive turnovers and their potential impact the paper is a worthwhile read.  A quick abstract of what the authors found is as follows:... missing quarterly earnings benchmarks, especially the analyst consensus... Read Full Story

Yesterday the board of directors of Unisys UIS (NYSE), the computer services firm, announced that Joseph W. McGrath, the company's president and CEO, had agreed to step down by year's end.  McGrath had been in his position for three years.  Unisys and particularly McGrath have been under intense pressure from shareholders to make major changes at the firm.  The company has been languishing for sometime now and has seen a decline in revenue over the last few years.  Special pressure has been... Read Full Story

Michelle Leder of Footnoted.org wrote an interesting entry in her blog yesterday on the issue of executive compensation.  Her piece was written in light of the impending bailout legislation from the U.S. Treasury and pressure from parts of Congress to impose some form of limitation on executive compensation for financial firms that might participate in the plan.   I highly recommend the quick read. For more: MSNBC (Business Week) Read Full Story

Nothing really surprising about the news yesterday that Circuit City CC (NYSE) CEO, Philip Schoonover was finally out.  The troubled electronics retailer and its CEO have been under intense pressure for sometime now.  Many analysts and others (see earlier blog) have been predicting his demise for more than a year.  Schoonover resigned yesterday in the midst of a proxy fight.  His resignation appears to be a victory by activist investor Mark Wattles (owns nearly 6.5% of the firm) who has been... Read Full Story

Dupont Co. DD (NYSE) the hug chemical manufacturer has shown American industry how succession planning at the top should be managed.  Today the company announced that Charles Holliday, a 38 year veteran of the firm and the company's CEO for the last ten years, will be stepping down as of January 1.  The board announced that Holliday will be replaced at the time by Ellen Kullman.  Kullman currently is an executive vice president and a member of Dupont's office of the chief executive.  She has... Read Full Story