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Picture Credits: Dow Jones & Company and Jonathan Becker

May 4, 2009 Posted by ej | Career, Fashion, Leadership, People, Politics, Shopping | Business, Business School, Career, Fashion, Harvard MBA, Leadership, Politics, Shopping, Women | Leave a Comment

Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman Runs for Governor of California

Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman is running for Governor of California.

The latest edition of Fortune features her on the cover and asks the question “Can Meg Whitman Save California?”. (Click the picture of Meg Whitman to be taken directly to the Fortune Magazine article.)

She was interviewed by Patricia Sellers, Editor-at-Large who provides her thoughts on the interview below.

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Behind Meg Whitman’s Bid to Save California

Patricia Sellers, Editor-at-Large, Fortune

Yes, former eBay (EBAY) CEO Meg Whitman is vying for her next big gig–governor of California–Ronald Reagan-style. She’s got a Western look and a simple message: creating jobs, cutting government spending, and improving education. “The three-bucket theory,” Whitman calls it, contending that corporate employees and voters as well need clear, memorable messaging from leaders of any kind.

The horse on the cover, Brandy, isn’t Whitman’s, but she does ride in Telluride, Colorado, where she and her neurosurgeon husband, Griff, have a vacation home. During our cover shoot in Half Moon Bay, California, Brandy was so spirited that the candidate had to show off her riding chops to keep the horse from throwing her or running away.

The story, which you can read by clicking here, is a Fortune exclusive. I spent three days with Whitman during her first week on the campaign trail. Indeed, she’s a political novice, and she left eBay with real problems in her wake. But don’t discount this onetime star of the Fortune Most Powerful Women list, who ranked No. 1 in 2004 and 2005. Whitman has quite a lineup of business honchos supporting her and helping her raise money. This 2010 California governor race, by the way, is due to be the most expensive gubernatorial race in history. Whitman told me that she might spend $50 million of her own money on her campaign.

So who are these business bigwwigs backing Whitman? I had room in the story to mention only a few: Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz, Cisco (CSCO) CEO John Chambers, Sun Microsystems (JAVA) chairman Scott McNealy, Activision Blizzard chief Bobby Kotick, Morgan Stanley (MS) technology analyst Mary Meeker, and Marc Andreessen, Netscape’s founder who now chairs Ning. More . . .

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Picture Credit: Fortune

March 19, 2009 Posted by ej | Leadership, Magazines, People, Politics, Technology | Business, Harvard MBA, Leadership, Magazines, Politics, Technology, Women | Leave a Comment

Meg Whitman Prepared to Spend $50 Million to Win Governor’s Race

From our friends over at The Women on the Web

Meg Whitman May Spend $50 Million of Own Money on Gov’s Race

The Staff at wowOwow.com

Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman has officially thrown her hat into the ring for the Republican primary for California governor in June 2010. And it may cost her.

At an estimated $150-$200 million, the road to Sacramento could be the most expensive governor’s race in history, according to an interview with Whitman that appears in the current Fortune, and Whitman admits she’s willing to kick in $50 million of her own dough to win. “It’s conceivable!” she told Fortune. Former governor Jerry Brown, who’s running in the Democratic primary responded: “I would not underestimate her,” he says. “Fifty million? That’s a lot!”

Whitman, who was once a McCain campaign advisor, is a fiscal conservative who’s aiming to cut the California workforce by at least 10% and cut the budget by $15 billion. She claims she can create two million new jobs in California in four years. Socially speaking, she’s pro-choice, and anti-gay marriage, but supports civil unions, she says. More . . .

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Picture Credit: Associated Press, wowOwow.com

March 19, 2009 Posted by ej | Leadership, People, Politics, Technology | Business, Harvard MBA, Politics, Technology, Women | Leave a Comment

Harvard MBA’s: Masters of the Apocalypse?

If his fellow Harvard MBAs are all so clever, how come so many are now in disgrace?

Philip Delves Broughton, The Times Online (UK)

If Robespierre were to ascend from hell and seek out today’s guillotine fodder, he might start with a list of those with three incriminating initials beside their names: MBA. The Masters of Business Administration, that swollen class of jargon-spewing, value-destroying financiers and consultants have done more than any other group of people to create the economic misery we find ourselves in.

From Royal Bank of Scotland to Merrill Lynch, from HBOS to Lehman Brothers, the Masters of Disaster have their fingerprints on every recent financial fiasco.

I write as the holder of an MBA from Harvard Business School – once regarded as a golden ticket to riches, but these days more like scarlet letters of shame. We MBAs are haunted by the thought that the tag really stands for Mediocre But Arrogant, Mighty Big Attitude, Me Before Anyone and Management By Accident. For today’s purposes, perhaps it should be Masters of the Business Apocalypse.

Harvard Business School alumni include Stan O’Neal and John Thain, the last two heads of Merrill Lynch, plus Andy Hornby, former chief executive of HBOS, who graduated top of his class. And then of course, there’s George W Bush, Hank Paul-son, the former US Treasury secretary, and Christopher Cox, the former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), a remarkable trinity who more than fulfilled the mission of their alma mater: “To educate leaders who make a difference in the world.”

It just wasn’t the difference the school had hoped for.

Business schools have shown a remarkable ability to miss the economic catastrophes unfolding before their eyes.

In the late 1990s, their faculties rushed to write paeans to Enron, the firm of the future, the new economic paradigm. The admiration was mutual: Enron was stuffed with Harvard Business School alumni, from Jeff Skilling, the chief executive, down. When Enron, rotten to the core, collapsed, the old case studies were thrust in a closet and removed from the syllabus, and new ones were promptly written about the ethical and accounting issues posed by Enron’s misadventures.

Much the same appears to have happened with Royal Bank of Scotland.

When I was a student at Harvard Business School, between 2004 and 2006, I recall a distinguished professor of organisational behaviour, Joel Podolny, telling us More . . .

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