A Tale of Two CEO Brands
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You may have seen their stories side-by-side in the Wall Street Journal a couple of days ago - the new CEO of HP, Leo Apotheker, and the just-fired CEO of Time Warner, Jack Griffin. Apotheker’s star is rising; Griffin barely got his nameplate on the door before they showed him out. Both companies were facing significant challenges when these chief executives came on board. So what happened?

Let’s look at the facts as we know them.

Mr. Apotheker arrived at HP on the heels of Mark Hurd’s resignation over inappropriate expense reporting. While it seemed like the board did the ”right thing” in letting Hurd go, he was popular with Wall Street for bringing HP back to profitability. The criticism sent the board into a state of turmoil. So, Apotheker shook things up, replacing several directors. Then, he hit the road to start conversations with employees and customers. Throughout this first three months he has avoided the media spotlight.

Meanwhile, back at Time Warner, when Mr. Griffin arrived in the C-Suite, one of his his first acts was to declare that every magazine include a masthead in each issue (at a cost of $50 million annually) and place his name on top. This didn’t make a lot of sense to a company struggling massively for a shrinking share of media revenue. Steep advertising declines have made it tough to compete with digital news (the iPad which will soon be like a TV -everyone will have several). Griffin also didn’t win any points for calling 7:30 a.m. meetings in a family friendly company. Personally I don’t have a problem with it, but it only reinforced the growing criticism - that Griffin was imperious.

The difference between these stories is not the speed of change. Mr. Apotheker was lightning fast in replacing directors. He is controversial. Oracle’s Larry Ellison has publicly accused him of overseeing intellectual property theft, prior to his resignation from SAP (which Apotheker flatly denies).

The difference is this. Apotheker appears to be all about HP. Griffin appears to be all about Griffin (whether he intended it or not). You can make changes, big ones, if you first win trust. Griffin failed to convince people that his actions were in the best interest of the company he was hired to serve.