Operating at the Intersection of Technology and the Capital Markets
Tag: Leadership
Over the weekend Warren Buffett stated that poor leadership is the greatest risk facing companies. Mr. Buffett is preaching to the choir and knows a thing or two about bad leadership having lived through scandal and CEO turnover at Wells Fargo while Berkshire was a large holder. Coca Cola - another Berkshire holding - hasn't … Continue reading CEO Quality Matters. Warren Buffett Agrees.
We are introducing CEORater's initial CEO Risk Report ("CRR") which may be accessed at the end of this note. (Readers who access this note via email will be required to click the "read more" button in order to access the report). CEORater's CRR details companies and CEOs that CEORater believes carry elevated risk, primarily within … Continue reading CEORater CEO Risk ReportPremium
Legacy payments companies still have not fully embraced mobile applications. For example, Global Payments (tkr: GPN) chooses to white label certain mobile payment applications from Apriva rather than fully own its technology stack. All mobile applications are not created equal. The user experience differs dramatically across mobile apps and is primarily a function of the … Continue reading It’s Difficult For Legacy Payments Companies To Learn New Tricks
Technology companies with healthy balance sheets should accelerate Product Development efforts. The COVID crisis does not have to entirely be about protecting operating income. Many technology companies threw out guidance during the March quarter. Therefore why be overly sensitive about protecting operating income and earnings? Why not accelerate Product Development efforts if doing so will … Continue reading Now Is The Time To Be Aggressive
Effective leaders whether they be hired CEOs, entrepreneurs, school teachers or physicians create opportunities through action. Elon Musk did just that this week. We don't often side with Mr. Musk but have been in lockstep with him during this COVID period. Mr. Musk, Tesla (tkr: TSLA), co-founder and CEO recently reopened Tesla's Fremont, CA manufacturing … Continue reading Leaders Create Opportunities
Great CEOs are great communicators (see our TEK2day article: Successful CEOs Share These Six Attributes). What constitutes "great communication?" Great communication is: Clear and conciseConsistentDefines ExpectationsHonestUnambiguousValues listening on par with delivering the message https://soundcloud.com/ceorater
During a crisis (bookings down by as much as 80% for some Enterprise Technology companies), leaders act with imperfect information. A reactionary approach is never the optimal approach. We offer a 6-step plan. Vilfredo Pareto was an Italian engineer, sociologist, economist, political scientist, and philosopher. The "Pareto principle" - better known as the 80/20 rule … Continue reading A Common Sense Approach to Crisis Management. Leveraging A 6-Step Plan.
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
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
We are sometimes critical of CEO compensation packages, yet we are first to admit that CEOs have an outsized influence on the future prospects of companies large and small. This is particularly true of fast-moving industries such as technology where having the correct CEO in place may mean catching the latest technology wave - cloud, … Continue reading CEOs – The Most Undervalued Investment Variable
