Thu, 28 February 2013
Fellow Investors, Thanks for joining me again this week at PowerTalk. If you’re new to the show, this is the place where I have one-on-one conversations with CEOs of public and private companies as well as other key people in business, politics and any sector that could impact our investing decisions. I’m your host Chris Versace, editor of the investment newsletter PowerTrend Profits and my goal with PowerTalk is to take you behind the scenes and in the know. Can we count on the CEO?
I always get a bunch of questions from subscribers to PowerTrend Profits or at my public speaking engagements. But the one question that tends to crop up rather frequently is what do I think of this CEO or that CEO? Are they doing a good job running the company? Can we count on them? My answer is that over my 20+ years of dissecting industries and companies, I’ve found that there are some great CEOs out there, but there are also some that should be gone. Take it from me,-- someone who sat across the table from a number of CEOs -- there are some who get it and then are some who don’t see the writing on the walls. Like many, I hold Steve Jobs the former CEO of Apple (AAPL) in high regard as well as A.G. Lafley, former CEO of Proctor & Gamble (PG), Jim Bezos at Amazon.com (AMZN) and Howard Schultz at Starbucks (SBUX) and a number of others. Each of these gentlemen have done fantastic jobs at each of their companies and I would argue that in their own right each recognized the power of PowerTrends to transform their companies.
Unfortunately for you and me, for each really good CEO out there, there are a number that, well, let’s face it -- need to go. Two examples in my view are Steve Ballmer at Microsoft (MSFT) and Andrew Mason at Groupon (GRPN). It seems that no matter what these CEOs do, the companies don’t seem to get any traction and that's not good for shareholders. CEO’s and what you Need to Know
As you can imagine, evaluating a CEO and his or her team is necessary, if not crucial, for me to have a high degree of confidence in the team’s strategy and its ability to execute. If you can’t get behind what the management team is doing, you can’t get behind the stock. It’s a deal breaker plain and simple. Over the course of our PowerTalk, we discuss a number of key issues when it comes to being a successful leader and Bob shares his quadrant view on company performance, leadership and employee engagement. All told, Bob shares ways to identify those CEOs and others that are true leaders and charting the course ahead. As I mentioned earlier, identifying the CEO that can not only talk the talk but walk the walk is key. Here are some other nuggets from my PowerTalk with Bob Kelleher:
Yep, there’s a lot of ground to cover in this week's PowerTalk with Bob Kelleher so let’s get to it.
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