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Press COO FORUM PUBLISHES 2011 HOLIDAY BUSINESS BOOK SURVEY RESULTS
By COO Forum Administrator
2011-12-12 The Chief Operating Officer Business Forum, Inc. (COO Forum®) announces today the results of its Annual Holiday Business Book Survey for 2011. “In a survey participated by 122 senior-level executives from around the U.S., it was no surprise that Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs book ran away from the field to be number one,” said Bill Shepard, CEO/Founder of the COO Forum®. Steve Jobs’ passing in 2011 was very sad; yet, he led the innovation cycle and accomplished so much in his lifetime. Shepard added, “I was pleased to see 251 different titles listed by the participants in our survey. This is a testament to the great work by so many writers to support the business community with terrific ideas and insights to help us execute our business more effectively.” The top vote-getter for top Business Book Author was Jim Collins. “Collins has such a wonderful body of work around how to run a great company and I remain a big personal fan of his work,” indicated Shepard. Below are the results: 1. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (landslide first place) Top 10 Business Book Authors – COO Forum® 2011 Holiday Book Survey 1. Jim Collins Other New Favorites – COO Forum® 2011 Holiday Book Survey 1. The 5 Levels of Leadership by John Maxwell Other Favorites – COO Forum® 2011 Holiday Book Survey About the COO Forum® The COO Forum® is a professional development association expressly for COOs and Second-in-Command Executives. Based in the greater San Francisco Bay/Silicon Valley area, the COO Forum® supports over 60 local chapters throughout the United States. Visit www.cooforum.org. Lantern Asset Management Expands Senior Management Team
By COO Forum Administrator
2010-12-06 L. Andy Mitchell Appointed President, Joining Senior Managing Director and Head of Resort Operations William T. Phillips Five Officer-Level Appointments Added to Manage Specialty Finance and Development Activities for Resort and Commercial Real Estate Assets DALLAS, Dec. 6, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Lantern Asset Management ("Lantern"), a firm that oversees and acquires financial and operating assets related to timeshare resorts and commercial real estate, today announced the appointment of several key hires, including the appointment of L. Andy Mitchell, the former Managing Director and Head of the Global Special Assets Group at Ally Financial, Inc. ("Ally"). Mr. Mitchell joins Lantern as President and will serve as Chief Risk Officer of Resort Finance America LLC ("RFA"). Mr. Mitchell will lead the firm with William T. Phillips, who is President of RFA and a Senior Managing Director and head of Resort Operations for Lantern. Mr. Phillips was formerly a corporate officer of Marriott International and Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for Marriott Vacation Club International. Lantern is a new asset management company formed in September 2010 by Centerbridge Capital Partners, L.P. when the investment firm acquired RFA, the resort finance business of GMAC Commercial Finance LLC, a subsidiary of Ally. RFA primarily consists of a $1.0 billion portfolio of loans related to timeshare resorts throughout North America, now managed by Lantern. During Mr. Mitchell's tenure at Ally, he led the Global Special Assets Group as Chief Risk Officer and President of the Business Capital Group, which included management of commercial real estate portfolios with assets in the United States, Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom. Mr. Mitchell also formerly served as an officer with Cerberus Capital Management and Ableco Finance. Joining Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Phillips at Lantern are several senior-level hires with deep expertise in the financial and commercial real estate industries, representing extensive experience in commercial and real estate workouts, debt restructuring and turnaround situations: * Chris Halpin, formerly the Controller at Highland Capital Management, assumes the position of Lantern's Chief Accounting Officer and Chief Financial Officer of RFA.
Mr. Mitchell added, "The market dislocation and dearth of capital in the hospitality and specifically the timeshare sector has exposed significant opportunities, but which require careful assessment and risk management in order to identify the most compelling assets and build their value over time. With an experienced and growing team now in place at Lantern, we believe we are uniquely situated to build the value of our current asset base and capitalize on future areas of opportunity in this space." About Lantern Asset Management & Resort Finance America Lantern is a new asset management company created in September 2010 to manage the assets of Resort Finance America ("RFA"). RFA is an entity formed after Centerbridge Partners acquired the resort finance business of GMAC Commercial Finance LLC. RFA principally consists of a $1.0 billion portfolio of loans related to timeshare resorts throughout North America. Lantern and RFA are both wholly-owned subsidiaries of Resort Finance Holdings, a newly created holding company that is wholly-owned by Centerbridge Partners and management. About Centerbridge Partners Centerbridge Partners, with approximately $12 billion in capital under management, was established in 2005 and invests across multiple strategies, including private equity and credit investments. The firm is dedicated to partnering with world-class management teams to help companies achieve their operating and financial objectives. Centerbridge's limited partners include many of the world's most prominent financial institutions, university endowments, pension and sovereign wealth funds, and charitable trusts. TouchTunes appoints new COO
By COO Forum Administrator
2010-09-03 TouchTunes Interactive has appointed Steven Brecher as its new COO. Brecher will report directly to Charles Goldstuck, president and CEO of TouchTunes, and will be based in the company's New York City headquarters. He will direct daily operations and be responsible for expanding TouchTunes' growing portfolio. "TouchTunes' growing portfolio is an exciting platform to work with and help expand," Brecher said. "I am thrilled to join Charles and the rest of the TouchTunes team to continue to grow the company as the pre-eminent out-of-home digital entertainment network in North America." COOs: A Vanishing Breed?
By COO Forum Administrator
2010-08-10 Agenda – A Financial Times Service Article published on August 9, 2010
Observers say the definition and responsibilities of the COO vary from company to company. There’s often clarity internally among the board and management about the responsibilities and potential of the COO, and being the COO may not mean the executive is the No. 2 when it comes to CEO succession, despite being the CEO’s second-in-command. “There are some companies where the chief operating officer [role] is just what it says: operations and taking on a lot of detailed management that the CEO doesn’t have time for. It’s still a very high-level position that usually touches every other division,” says Paul Danos, dean at the Tuck School of Business at Data collected in an ongoing study by search firm Crist Kolder Associates shows that 47% of companies in 1999 in the S&P and Fortune 500 indexes had COOs. That was up from 1995 when 43.3% of companies had a COO. Since 2007, however, the percentage of companies with COOs has declined steadily. By 2009, the number had fallen to 42.7%, and data through June 30 of this year shows that the percentage had decreased further to 42.2%. Several companies have recently disclosed management restructuring that gives COO responsibilities to CEOs, or spreads them among executive teams. Rosetta Stone disclosed last month that its COO was resigning to pursue other opportunities and that the company CEO and president, Tom Adams, would assume the outgoing COO’s sales and marketing responsibilities. Also in July, Avis Budget disclosed that current president and COO F. Robert Salerno had transitioned into the role of vice chairman. The company chairman and CEO, Ronald Nelson, took on the additional roles of president and COO. Some boards want CEOs to be closer to the business, and the COO position adds another layer between the CEO and day-to-day operations, says Matt McGreal, a principal with Crist Kolder. When companies phase out the COO position, the CEO will often take over the executive’s responsibilities or delegate them to his or her direct reports. Despite the slow disappearance of COOs, the position still continues to produce executives that boards and management have determined are ready for the CEO job. Crist Kolder found that over the past 10 years, 52.2% of internal CEO hires at S&P and Fortune 500 companies were COOs immediately prior to taking the top job. “A very valid reason for having a COO is for succession planning,” says McGreal. “Elevating somebody from a division president role to chief operating officer role gives them a enterprise-wide view of the organization, and allows them to work more closely on a corporate level with the CEO so they can help groom them into that CEO chair eventually.” Bill Shepard, the founder, CEO and executive director of the COO Forum and a former CEO of NordicTrack and Pacific Linen, notes that CEO successions at smaller companies have more recently been focused on finding a CEO who focuses less on outward-facing responsibilities and the visionary aspects of the job and can execute cost control strategies. Such responsibilities are often associated with the COO. “The COO skill set is in demand for the CEO position in these economic times,” says Shepard. At larger companies, Shepard says, there’s sometimes a political aspect to the COO role. When there’s a CEO succession and the COO departs, CEOs may wait to fill the role after doing an outside search because the choice will likely be heavily scrutinized. Or, if CEOs were previously the COO, they may wait as long as a year or more to fill their former position because they may want to wait until they’re comfortable in their new role, says Shepard. In some companies there are multiple competing internal candidates for the next COO position and the new CEO may not want to disturb company chemistry for a while. When boards look outside their companies for CEO successors, the COO role doesn’t carry the same weight as it does internally. Only 16.1% of CEO hires were external COOs during the past decade. However, operations executives or division heads who basically function as CEOs of their units were often plucked away by other companies to serve as CEO, making up 43.5% of external CEO hires. “The operating executive or division president… [has] gotten the experience in running a business, whereas the COO isn’t necessarily responsible for the (profit and loss),” says McGreal. “They may be responsible for overall operations, but not specifically the running of a business.” LG rejigs top deck, Verma is new COO
By COO Forum Administrator
2009-12-28 NEW DELHI: Consumer durable maker LG Electronics India on Monday announced top-level management changes with the elevation of YV Verma to the position of chief operating officer (COO), besides the appointment of a new head for the mobile handset unit and reshuffle in the sales and marketing portfolios. Mr Verma has been with the company since its inception. Although he was primarily the head of human resource, over the past few years he had assumed additional responsibilities. Before the new appointment, he was serving as the director (HR and management support). In his new role, he will be responsible for LG’s operations in India and spearhead the sales and marketing function. Those tracking people movement within LG said he was closely involved in operations even before the elevation and the designation just makes it official. Meanwhile, LG has restructured its sales and marketing portfolios. Till now, marketing was headed by V Ramachandran, while there was no national level sales head. In the new structure, it has been reversed. Amitabh Tiwari, who was looking after home entertainment business, will now be the overall head of sales at LG India, a position that was vacant since the company split the role of sales and marketing with sales being managed by independent business heads. The marketing portfolio will be handled by the product marketing executives and Mr Ramachandran has become head of strategy. Rohit Pandit has been elevated as business head for home entertainment to take the place of Mr Tiwari. Sudhin Mathur, former marketing chief of Sony Ericsson, has been appointed as the head of mobile handsets unit, a position that was vacant since Anil Arora moved out of LG a few months back. “With these changes at the top management, we aim to increase operating efficiency and establish greater autonomy at the operating level, strengthening the independence of LG India as a subsidiary to LG Electronics. All these changes will come into effect from January 1, 2010,” said Moon B Shin MD LG Electronics India, in a statement. Chief Operating Officer Business Forum Launches Dallas Chapter
By System Administrator
2009-01-16 A kick-off and information session is set for Tuesday, February 10, from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. to introduce the Chief Operating Officer (COO) Business Forum to Second-in-Command Executives in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The event will be hosted at Colonial Bank, 8214 Westchester Drive, S-400, Dallas, Texas 75225. COO Forum is a professional association that enables confidential peer-to-peer discussion and sharing on vital business topics. The group was founded in California and is expanding nationally, with chapters forming this year in Dallas, Denver, Boston, NYC, Washington DC, Seattle, Chicago, Atlanta, and New Jersey. The chapters meet monthly and there is also a COO eForum for broader-based exchange among members throughout the country as well as monthly chapter tele-meetings. Nancy Keene, director in the Dallas office of Stanton Chase, a global executive search firm, is serving as volunteer facilitator for the organization locally. “We are living in unprecedented times and the playbook is being developed as new changes and challenges unfold,” she says. “COOs play a critical role in delivering day-to-day and moment-to-moment results for the company – enabling the CEO to focus on strategic growth, critical relationships and forward-facing direction. COO Forum can deliver an invaluable ‘been there/done that’ perspective on what has worked – and what hasn’t – with other companies in similar situations.” The Dallas chapter is targeting Second-in-Command Executives of companies and operating units with revenues of $50-250 million – to provide a commonality of stage-of-growth and relevant business issues. The Dallas steering committee includes: • Drew Kiesling – COO, Staubach Retail There is no charge to attend the informational meeting. Space is limited and pre-registration is required. Those interested should contact: Nancy Keene, Director Who Needs a COO?
By System Administrator
2008-08-01 With chief operating officer positions becoming rarer all the time, companies are relying on CFOs for a lot more than keeping score. When Starbucks announced on Tuesday that it was eliminating its chief operating officer position, it became the latest member of an ever-growing club. And as COOs slowly fade from the C-suite, CFOs are stepping in to fill the gap, assuming more responsibility for areas that redound to the bottom line. CFOs are gaining a higher profile in their organization as a result, along with, apparently, more compensation. But the downside is more pressure — more hours in the day required to accomplish more tasks, and more blame when profits fail to meet expectations or just fail altogether. "Over time, it's become more critical for organizations to have financial input on business decision-making," says Tom Kolder, president of recruiting firm Crist|Kolder Associates, which specializes in C-suite searches. "They need to have a finance leader who is more than just a scorekeeper; who is a key partner to the CEO. "But as CFOs take on more intensive business activities like operations or strategy," adds Kolder, "they become more culpable if things go wrong. You're no longer in a support function; you're on the front lines, accountable for the good and bad." According to Crist|Kolder's latest Volatility Report on the movement of CEOs, COOs, and CFOs at top U.S. public companies, issued late last year, the prevalence of COOs is headed downward and is now at its lowest level in at least a decade. Among the 548 companies that have been part of either the Fortune 500 or the S&P 500 since 1995, there were 227 COOs in 2006 compared with a high of 255 in 1999, an 11 percent decrease.
Jonathan Schiff, founder of the Finance Development and Training Institute, an alliance of 15 global companies dedicated to deepening the bench strength of their finance organization, attributes the decline of COOs in large part to Wall Street's demand for a single strong leader at the company helm. "Wall Street rewards companies that have clarity in their stories," says Schiff, who is also an accounting professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University. "But when there's both a CEO and COO, there's less clarity about who's running the show. Accountability is at the core here." Even at many companies with COOs, the position seems more CEO-in-waiting than a career goal in itself. While slightly less than half of Fortune 500 companies with a CEO age 58 or older employ COOs, the percentage increases as CEOs age, to 58 percent for companies with CEOs 62 or older, according to the Crist|Kolder report. (Just over one-third of Fortune 500 companies have a CEO who is 58 or older.) Kolder explains that an heir-apparent to a chief executive might be given the COO title until he or she takes over as CEO. "We see a significant number of cases in which a COO seems specifically in place to satisfy career development," he says. "When that person moves up, the COO position is not necessarily backfilled." A study released last month by Robert Half Management Resources, which provides companies with temporary finance executives, ranked the different components of CFOs' expanding role as COOs gradually disappear. Of 1,400 CFOs surveyed throughout the United States, the largest percentage of respondents, 25 percent, said a greater focus on increasing profitability represents the biggest change in the CFO role over the past five years. Second was increased interaction with other departments, at 20 percent; third, an expanded leadership or management role, 17 percent; fourth, more strategic planning, 15 percent; and fifth, increased focus on corporate-governance initiatives, 12 percent. "CFOs are more involved in discussions that don't involve their typical bean-counter role — discussions like build versus buy, offshore operations, and political impacts," says Paul McDonald, executive director of Robert Half Management Resources. In part, board members seek counsel more often from their CFOs because of compliance issues, says McDonald. "Board members have more responsibility post-Sarbanes-Oxley," he explains, "so they draw CFOs into more kinds of discussions." Still, he says, "Any boardroom discussion can be taken from the operational perspective to finance and accounting and produce a positive impact as it relates to the bottom line." Another Robert Half survey of CFOs, released in December, shows that CFOs place a high value on nontraditional skills for people they hire for their own organization. In answer to the question "Would you be willing to hire someone with fewer technical skills if the candidate had stronger soft skills, such as communication and interpersonal abilities?" 53 percent answered "Yes"; only 39 percent said they would not. (Eight percent didn't know or refused to answer.) In adjusting to the new C-suite reality, CFOs must acquire a whole array of new skills to successfully manage areas that have recently come under their direct responsibility, according to 25-year finance veteran Andrew Hyde, CFO of privately held broadband provider Speakeasy. At various times in his career, Hyde has been responsible for such traditionally nonfinance functions as human resources and reviewing legal contracts. In human resources, for example, Hyde says CFOs must learn not just the soft skills of human interaction, but their subtleties as well. "It's not just about being nice to people when you have to terminate them," he says. "It's also about when it's appropriate to celebrate success. That's not on the CPA exam." When it comes to reviewing contracts, he says most CFOs probably possess the analytical skills to scrutinize contract terms, but they typically are not prepared to understand what's missing from a contract. "Many smaller companies will have a contracts administrator but no legal counsel inside the company," he says. "So do you want to pay a high-powered, outside counsel $500 an hour to review what seems like an innocuous contract? I've taken a contract to the lawyers a time or two, and they'll say that a whole area is missing. It's on-the-job training." And in an area now commonly under CFO supervision, information technology, CFOs must keep up with the rapid changes in technology to ensure their organization maintains the most cost-effective IT systems. "Thousands of people are coming at you with solutions that they claim will save tons of money," says Hyde. "Figuring out what's real and what's not takes a lot of time. It is an incredible challenge." Far-sighted — and, typically, resource-rich — companies implement programs to train finance professionals to be well-rounded business people. "Great companies groom finance people to be business leaders," says Schiff. Many of the companies he works with not only target promising future finance leaders in their ranks for rotation into operational areas but also offer mentoring and outside coaching. More companies also demand that future finance leaders rotate into their international operations as they generate an increasing share of revenue. "Companies that once did 10 percent of their business outside of the United States are now doing 40 to 50 percent, and it's going to continue in that direction," says Schiff. While it's unclear how much more compensation CFOs are receiving as a result of their expanded responsibilities, Kolder says there has been a positive impact. "As CFOs become more strategic and operational and become more of a change-agent in their organizations, either supplementing or replacing COOs, their compensation goes up commensurately," he says. Hyde also acknowledges rising compensation for CFOs but says, perhaps not surprisingly, "The numbers are not moving as fast as they should for the extra time and burden of responsibility across broader areas." And while he says those added responsibilities increase his job satisfaction ("it makes things more interesting"), he also enjoys having a COO at his present company. "I've had more time to do CFO things like risk management," he says, "because I don't have to think about things like office space. I'm delighted." Chief Operating Officer Leadership in 'Recessionary Times'
By System Administrator
2008-03-06 CONTACT: COO Forum in the Wall Street Journal
By System Administrator
2007-10-27 Monday October 27, 2007, the Wall Street Journal published a story highlighting the COO Forum and focusing on CEOs and COOs. The article, written by Phred Dvorak, is on the front page of the Marketplace section. At our COO Forum meetings in October 2007 we explored "To Be or Not to Be a CEO" as our Best Practice topic in all our COO Forum Northern California meetings which provided substantial background for the story. The article can be found here. What's out: COOs. In: CFOs
By System Administrator
2006-10-30 As operating ranks drop, finance folks fill gap When Dick Bond jumped from chief operating officer to chief executive at Tyson Foods earlier this year, he didn’t fill his old post. Instead Mr. Bond chose to directly oversee the company’s attempt at a turnaround—sans that extra layer of top management—which included more than $200 million in spending cuts, as well as efforts to drive up demand and prices for its chicken and other food offerings. Mr. Bond’s decision to go without a COO has become an increasingly popular move at the nation’s biggest companies. The rise in shareholder activism following the high-profile blowups of Enron and WorldCom, among others, has forced many CEOs off their lofty perches and into the operational trenches, thus rendering the COO position unnecessary. In fact, since 1999 there are 17% fewer COOs in the S&P 500, a steady drop to 213 from 255, according to Chicago-based executive search firm Crist Associates. And although more than half of these COOs have been promoted to chief executive jobs, internally or at other firms, their former positions are often left vacant—creating a big opportunity for the right chief financial officer. “The investment community wants CEOs closer to the business, which takes away the need for a COO,” said Peter Crist, chief executive of Crist Associates. “And with more and more scrutiny on executive compensation, it’s not necessary to have this redundant position if you have a good CEO and a good CFO.” Indeed, just last week Kellogg announced that it would not fill its COO chair when current holder David Mackay becomes chief executive on Dec. 31. Like Tyson Foods, Kellogg said it wants management “reporting directly” to the chief executive. Walt Disney Co. and home builder Centex have also recently followed suit. Corporate observers agree that the COO’s loss is often the CFO’s gain. “Inevitably, when you take a COO out, that means more for the CFO,” said John Challenger, chief executive of recruiting firm Challenger Gray & Christmas in Cincinnati. For starters, many of today’s top dogs are offloading the duty of communicating financial performance and forecasts to Wall Street to their chief financial officers. Many CEOs are also hiring CFOs that can think beyond the bean-counting duties of managing risk, financial planning and record keeping to overall company strategy and improving day-to-day operations. “More often, the CEO’s skill set goes down the ladder a little bit, while the CFO’s skill set is blended upward to cover the void,” said Mr. Crist. Consider Tyson Foods. Four months ago, Mr. Bond hired Wade Miquelon as CFO precisely because he wasn’t an old-fashioned CFO. With 11 different jobs in four countries over a 16-year career at Procter & Gamble, the 41-year-old Mr. Miquelon has a breadth of experience Mr. Bond said he needs to return Tyson to profitability. “Wade’s a strong financial manager,” said Mr. Bond, “but he also has other skills we believe are valuable to the future of our company, such as his understanding of the intricacies involved in operating a business globally.” Last month, Mr. Miquelon addressed investors at Bank of America’s annual investment conference in San Francisco, a gig traditionally reserved for the chief executive. Mr. Miquelon is also spearheading the company’s strategy to raise prices on its chicken, beef and pork products, hoping to increase profit margins—typically 4% to 5% in this part of the food business—by a full percentage point next year, a feat that could add as much as $250 million in earnings a year. “There’s fun, sexy, cool stuff like strategy, and if you do it well, you get promoted,” explained Mr. Miquelon. “But there’s some other stuff—accounting, governance—and if you don’t do that well, you get fired. I do both, but the one that has the highest leverage on the organization is strategy.” Clearly, the payoff for the ever-expanding CFO job is a more direct shot at the chief executive title. In August, PepsiCo appointed Indra Nooyi chief executive after she had served five years as CFO and president of the food and beverage company. Likewise, Allstate, Southwest Airlines, General Motors and Tenet Healthcare have all tapped finance pros to become their chief executives in recent years. That said, experts doubt the COO will become extinct anytime soon. “The COO was the easiest C-level person to eliminate during the economic downturn in the early 2000s,” said Bill Shepard, founder of the COO Forum, an association for chief operating officers. “I see that reversing itself.” Mr. Shepard added that the rise of the “COO-style CEO” means a lot of the best COOs have been snatched up for the top job and not yet replaced. Nate Bennett, a professor of organizational behavior at Georgia Tech University, said many companies go without a COO, but only temporarily. “Often a CEO wants to learn how to run the company,” said Mr. Bennett. “Once that learning is done, or the need for a succession plan comes up, a COO is put in place.” A well-rounded CFO could be the beneficiary. For example, Mr. Shepard said, in many small companies—those with market caps under $100 million—a new hybrid position has popped up, the “operational CFO.”
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