In the CEO Afterlife

NOVEMBER 30, 2011

Leaders who suffer the tough days of turnarounds and manage to resurrect a business are the ones who think about momentum in strategic terms. Early in my career, I swam in four years of red ink at Jacobs Suchard ’s Canadian subsidiary. The management team believed they were doing the right things to create change. it wasn’t fun.

CEO 242

CEO Company Rogers Human Resources 242

In the CEO Afterlife

JULY 26, 2016

Early in my career, when I worked for a couple of big companies in brand management, I joined my colleagues in nodding to the notion of taking a step back. Administrative companies can be good at doing things right (operational management) but not so good at doing right things (strategic leadership).

Brand 100

Brand Learning-by-Doing Brand Management Proposal 100

In the CEO Afterlife

DECEMBER 7, 2014

The strategy I’ve grown to love and count on over a 45-year career is do less, better. To rise from the ashes, our young management team made several tough sacrifices to transform a multi-product, multi-brand operation from generalist to specialist.

Human Resources 183

Human Resources Restructuring Competitive Advantage Marketing Strategy 183

In the CEO Afterlife

MAY 22, 2013

Over my 17-year career in the North American coffee business, I must have dealt with three or four Brazilian frosts that pushed the price of coffee futures through the roof. Astute leaders establish the right expectations and continue to manage those expectations in the battlefield. Great leadership begins in the interview process.

CEO 260

CEO Human Resources Conference Price 260

In the CEO Afterlife

MARCH 1, 2016

After buckets of red ink and much soul searching, our young management team came to terms with the fact that Nabob could not survive as a ‘generalist’ against multi-nationals twenty times its size. This is the essence of sacrifice – a lesson that served me well for the rest of my career. In the CEO Afterlife. Complexity Cripples.

Brand 100

Brand Competitive Advantage Marketing Strategy CEO 100

In the CEO Afterlife

APRIL 23, 2012

For most of my career, I operated within intensely competitive arenas where fractions of market share points were worth millions of dollars. With 100% share of market, our strategy was market growth and we managed to double sales in four years. The late French author Andre Maurois once said, “Business is a combination of sport and war.”

Power 208

Power Sports Competitive Advantage Advertising 208

In the CEO Afterlife

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

But as an acting C-suite executive, I managed to stick to proven leadership and strategic principles while seeking the technical counsel of others in execution. Technically, you may be woefully inept. I expected to be out of touch with technology and this was glaringly obvious. Thankfully, the age wedge never reared its ugly head.

Human Resources 148

Human Resources CEO Mentor Resistance 148

In the CEO Afterlife

MAY 1, 2011

I witnessed plenty of vulture culture during my career. It’s not just that they are lousy people managers. If they can be labeled in ways other than as sociopaths, e.g., under-skilled, they can be managed. We look at ways to manage around them. Take a moment to read his lyrics of 1984.

CEO 152

CEO Human Resources Brand Middle Management 152

In the CEO Afterlife

DECEMBER 4, 2011

And although pundits continue to encourage entrepreneurial thinking for stagnating mega-businesses, these bureaucracies can’t break from risk-averse management. The constraint in most of these companies is the fear of failure. Their marketing teams research everything to death. Fundamentally, they are asking their consumers for permission.

CEO 235

CEO Bureaucracy Brand Constraint 235

In the CEO Afterlife

AUGUST 1, 2011

I realize I’ve been around a long time whenever I reminisce about the brands I was associated with in my early career. After the stint at Bristol-Myers, I moved on to Beecham Products (now GlaxoSmithKline) as Brand Manager of Brylcreem Hairdressing, Macleans Toothpaste and Silvikrin Shampoo. Last Stands.

Brand 170

Brand CEO Stage-Gate Marketing 170

In the CEO Afterlife

AUGUST 1, 2011

I realize I’ve been around a long time whenever I reminisce about the brands I was associated with in my early career. After the stint at Bristol-Myers, I moved on to Beecham Products (now GlaxoSmithKline) as Brand Manager of Brylcreem Hairdressing, Macleans Toothpaste and Silvikrin Shampoo. Last Stands.

Brand 131

Brand CEO Stage-Gate Marketing 131

In the CEO Afterlife

NOVEMBER 13, 2017

For John Richard Bell it was a bizarre change in career direction. The management team focused on coffee. And one spent years writing a potboiler about a Yugoslav pilot in World War II betrayed by his girlfriend, shot down over the Adriatic Sea and jailed in a U.S. POW camp full of homicidal Nazis. Yet it all worked out in the end.

CEO 100

CEO Golden Parachute Books Brand 100

In the CEO Afterlife

NOVEMBER 13, 2017

For John Richard Bell it was a bizarre change in career direction. The management team focused on coffee. And one spent years writing a potboiler about a Yugoslav pilot in World War II betrayed by his girlfriend, shot down over the Adriatic Sea and jailed in a U.S. POW camp full of homicidal Nazis. Yet it all worked out in the end.

CEO 100

CEO Golden Parachute Books Brand 100

In the CEO Afterlife

NOVEMBER 4, 2012

Turns out that Linds Redding, an illustrator and designer, spent most of his career crafting advertising in the UK and New Zealand, before opening an animation studio. As fast as we could pin an idea on the wall, some red-faced account manager in a bad suit would run away with it. I’m glad I did.

Advertising 265

Advertising Creativity Industry Bottom-up 265

In the CEO Afterlife

FEBRUARY 13, 2017

I went in assuming his students believed corporate management and entrepreneurship were principles of contradiction — the only contrarians would be members of the flat earth society. My friend’s students saw themselves as entrepreneurial thinkers, yet at graduation, most of them will begin their careers in a corporation.

Mass Marketing 100

Mass Marketing Bureaucracy Entrepreneur Class 100

In the CEO Afterlife

APRIL 10, 2011

To ‘entrepreneurs in waiting’ who want to begin their careers in a corporation, I suggest the following: 1. The leaders of these companies aren’t ‘managing the store’; they’re building new stores. Twenty-five years ago Apple’s board recommended Steve Jobs step down and leave the guidance of the company to a ‘professional manager’.

CEO 170

CEO Advice Company Competitive Advantage 170

In the CEO Afterlife

JUNE 25, 2012

After leaving the C-Suite almost twenty years ago, I pursued a career as a strategy consultant. Sure, I encountered bureaucracy at times, but I managed to navigate through the red tape by working within a cultural principal they all shared – the respect for great branding.

Brand 242

Brand Retail Bureaucracy Constraint 242

In the CEO Afterlife

JUNE 8, 2016

And everyone is trying to climb to the top of that to get ahead,” explains Heather Fadali, senior brand manager for coffee at Kraft Heinz, Nabob’s parent company. The change in management, which included Bell and Powell, meant a big change in how the company would operate in the following decades. competitors are entering the market.

Brand 100

Brand Brand Management Advertising Management 100