Consumerist
executive compensation
Posts Tagged “
CEOs
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Ex-Sears CEO Aylwin Lewis has taken a position as CEO of Chicago's delicious Potbelly Sandwich Works. Reader Tim asks: "Should I be worried that he will destroy this great sandwich chain?" Hmmm. Maybe, but we think Chairman Eddie Lampert is the real source of evil at Sears. And now we're hungry. [Chicago Tribune]
executive compensation
interviews
CEOs Who Lost Their Jobs Talk About What Went Wrong
Fortune's new article "Lessons of the fall" is interesting and entertaining for two reasons. First, it humanizes brings a human face to the usually remote CEO, in this case the exes at Motorola, Starbucks, and Jet Blue. But more important if you're a wage slave who can admit to a little schadenfreude, it describes how each man was fired from his job. Former Starbucks CEO Jim Donald, who's in his fifties, says the hardest thing was letting his mother know:
More »First phone call was to my mom. Probably the toughest day I've ever faced, ever. Ever, ever, ever! Because moms have a way of putting their sons up on pedestals. I said, "Mom, how are you?" And she goes, "Great. Why are you calling me at ten in the morning?" I just said, "Hey, I just want to tell you, I'm not with Starbucks anymore, but everything is fine."
success stories
Emailing The CEO Of DirecTV Solves All Your Installation Problems
Reader Mark ordered DirecTV and waited patently for the installer. And waited. And rescheduled. And waited. Luckily, Mark knew that he might want to order DirecTV in the future, and he'd made a note of CEO Chase Carey's email address when we posted it. More »
lawsuits
HTFC Mortgage Company CEO Has A Potty Mouth
GMAC Bank is suing mortgage company HTFC for selling improperly secured loans, which lead to the hilariously blue and aggressive deposition from HTFC CEO Aron Wider. Wider dropped the f-bomb 73 times, frustrating the opposing counsel's attempts to get him to answer difficult questions like "Where are you currently employed?" Some of the more colorful and creative expletives from the testimony of Mr. Wider, who, according to his company website, serves as company Coprorate Information [sic], CEO / Senior Underwriter, and Radio Engineer, inside... More »
failures
Congress To Subprime CEOs: How Come You Got Paid Millions To Wreck The Economy? Hm?
Congress got to ask the subprime CEOs what everyone else is thinking: Why did you get millions and millions of dollars to fail so spectacularly? More »
success stories
EECB Scores Direct Hit On T-Mobile
Reader Rob got some bad information from a T-Mobile sales rep and it resulted in a huge text messaging bill. He launched an EECB (Executive Email Carpet Bomb) and got a very pleasant response: More »
Actual headline: JP Morgan: It Could've Been Worse "JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon seemed relieved, but issued a cautious outlook for the year. 'Our lower quarterly results were affected by the investment bank's markdowns in subprime-related positions and weaker trading. In addition, our consumer home equity and subprime loan portfolios performed worse than we expected,' he said. 'If the economy weakens substantially from here-for which, as a company, we need to be prepared-it will negatively affect business volumes and drive credit costs higher.'" [Forbes]
video
American Airlines Ex-CEO Bob Crandall Shares His Crazy Cost-Saving Strategy
Former American Airlines CEO Bob Crandall fired a guard dog at a Caribbean outpost to keep costs down. Just look at the self-satisfied gleam in Crandall's eye. This is no mere cocktail party story, but a defining act of corporate leadership for his grandkids to cherish. More »
tv
Best Buy CEO Admits They'll Probably Screw Up Digital TV Switchover
Well, at least he's being honest—Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson announced at CES today that the 2009 switchover from analog to digital television (still a year away) poses "one of the biggest risks our industry has," whatever that means. "The number of converter boxes that is going to be required could put tremendous pressure on us." Oh, you mean because you'll have to have them in stock? Interpretation: if you're going to need a converter box or two, you'd better plan on buying them elsewhere. More »
ceos
Target CEO To Step Aside In May
Target CEO Bob Ulrich is going to step down in May. What the hell? Is this like CEO fallout season? Does no one want to run a company anymore? Here's some companies that got new CEOs in recent months: Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, Bear Stearns, Citibank, AT&T, Delta, Home Depot, Sprint, H&R Block, Merril Lynch, and The GAP. We're already scouring Craiglist for our recession shelters. Any relatively remote cabin by a lake, equipped with high-speed internet, will do the trick.
(Photo: Forbes)
Embattled Starbucks fired CEO Jim Donald and brought back company founder Howard Shultz. Maybe they'll be forced to close down some stores. Won't that be the day. [Economist]
Krispy Kreme's CEO has quit. Colleagues say he just didn't have it in himself any more, whenever he thought about going to work, his eyes would just glaze over. [NYT]
departures
Bear Stearns CEO Forced Out By Angry Shareholders, Common Sense
Bear Stearns CEO James Cayne is expected to step down as CEO due to pressure by pissed off shareholders , reports the Wall Street Journal. More »
oops
Sallie Mae CEO Ends Conference Call With "Let's Get The Fuck Out Of Here"
Dodging tough questions about the student loan company's fiscal well-being and strategy in the midst of the credit crunch, not to mention his recent sale of 97% of his company stock, Sallie Mae's CEO ended a conference call yesterday with investors by cursing, reports WSJ:
In an apparent reference to investors' anger, he said: "I can assure you, you will be going through a metal detector." He ended the conference call by saying "Let's go. There's no questions. Let's get the [expletive] out of here."Afterwards, shares of Sallie Mae fell 21%.Sallie Mae spokesman Tom Joyce called the metal-detector remark "an attempt at humor" and the expletive "an unfortunate slip of the tongue." Mr. Joyce said the call had been intended for Mr. Lord, in his new role, to give investors a "broad overview" of the company's situation.
Sallie Mae: Expletive Included [WSJ]
Full Conference Call Transcript [Seeking Alpha]
(Photo: Susan Biddle)
subprime meltdown
