Technology, Capital Markets, Corporate Governance, Leadership, Entrepreneurship
Category: Leadership
When it comes to Corporate Governance, Best Buy (ticker: BBY), can't get out of it's own way. This weekend's news that Best Buy's Board of Directors is investigating allegations that CEO Corie Barry had an inappropriate romantic relationship with a former Best Buy executive is a bit of a head-scratcher. We have seen this Best … Continue reading What’s Up With Best Buy’s Culture?
Roper Technologies has generally executed well over the past number of years. We offer three recommendations to Roper for driving superior operational performance and shareholder returns. 1.) Focus the Enterprise Software M&A strategy: This is Priority One. To date Roper has taken a buckshot approach to M&A with acquisitions scattered across the Software landscape. This … Continue reading Here’s How Roper Technologies (tkr: ROP) Can Raise Its Game
A Winning Culture Doesn't Happen by Accident "Culture" is a word of the moment that has been spoken ad nauseam, primarily by sports and business media. Sports journalists heavily used the word during the recent NFL coaching carousel. What these journalists failed to mention is that "culture" in the context of an organization is not … Continue reading Defining A Winning Culture
There were too many quality CEOs to choose from when we went about selecting the "CEORater Technology CEO of the Year" for 2019. Rather than selecting a single "Technology CEO of the Year", we elected to select five top CEOs across five Technology categories: 1.) "PropTech", 2.) "FinTech: Payments", 3.) "Platform Companies", 4.) "FinTech: Capital … Continue reading CEORater 2019 Technology CEOs of the Year
Yesterday Expedia (ticker: EXPE) announced that its CEO and CFO had resigned effective immediately. The reason? A disagreement in strategy with Chairman Barry Diller. Expedia's former CEO and CFO had pursued a corporate reorganization to "streamline operations" to "drive innovation at scale." Our observation - certainly insofar as the Technology industry is concerned - is … Continue reading Decentralized Operating Models Will Always Win the Day Over Centralized Counterparts
With Michael Bloomberg throwing his hat into the ring for the 2020 Democratic nomination, many have speculated as to how Bloomberg would divest his equity stake in his namesake firm were he to win the Presidency. We don't expect Mr. Bloomberg to win the Office of the President nor would a sale necessarily be required … Continue reading Prospective Bloomberg LP Acquirers
We at CEORater have highlighted the importance of CEO personality in terms of its influence on corporate strategy, operational and financial performance and thereby implications for stock prices. Don't take our word for it, there's plenty of published research from various academic institutions including the work of David Larker and Charles O'Reilly, both of Stanford … Continue reading Cult of CEO Personality & Implications for Stock Prices
We attended Polaroid Day at MIT Museum this weekend and were reminded of the genius of Edwin Land, co-founder of the Polaroid Corporation. "Like visiting a shrine" is how Apple co-founder Steve Jobs described meeting Land. Polaroid's Board did a great disservice to Land and his company. Film Forever Polaroid's original instant camera - 1947's … Continue reading Polaroid Day & “Polavision” Instant Video
Over the past several years as I've read articles about Uber, WeWork and a number of technology startups, my takeaway is that many of these companies lack focus. They lack a focused mission. They lack strategic and operational focus. I understand the argument that institutional investors want growth in the absence of yield, but too … Continue reading Growth at All Costs Leads to A Lack of Focus
We are working on a project that has me thinking about the "long tail". For those who took Statistics you may recall that the long tail is the portion of the distribution where occurrences appear far away from the distribution's center. A long tail business strategy is one where the service provider makes hard to … Continue reading The Long Tail Will Differentiate You
