Best bosses: Three CEOs who powered through the financial crisis
Filed under: Economy, People, Investing, IBM, Apple
In case you thought every day was Bosses Day, you've got another thing coming. Friday is "officially" National Boss Day and to celebrate it, here are three CEOs who actually earned their pay and position by skillfully guiding their companies through the financial crisis.
To measure the effectiveness of that guidance, I looked for profitable companies with stock prices that are above their levels from about two years ago on Oct. 12, 2007, when the Dow peaked at 14,093 -- 40 percent higher than it is today. Without further ado, the winners are: Apple Inc. (APPL) CEO Steve Jobs; Strayer Education (STRA) CEO Robert Silberman; and International Business Machines (IBM) boss Sam Palmisano.
Each of these CEOs has powered through the recession in a different way. In Jobs' case, the method has been innovation: The iPhone and iTunes are just a few of the revolutionary products that have helped push Apple's stock up 14 percent in the last two years, from $167.25 to $190.56. That people have continued buying Apple products through the financial crisis in huge numbers is a testament to Jobs' unique creative ability.
But to secure his place at the top of the boss hall of fame, a CEO like Jobs needs to find a successor who can keep that string of hit products coming after he leaves the scene.
Strayer -- which provides post-secondary school education in business, accounting, IT and other fields to 44,000 students on the East Coast -- has enjoyed a 30 percent rise in its stock price since Oct. 12, 2007, from $174.56 to $227.55. Silberman has positioned Strayer well to take advantage of the rapid growth in demand for career education during a period when millions are looking for jobs -- boosting its revenues 29 percent in the second quarter.
While Strayer's earnings are at risk due to bad debt -- students who can't repay their student loans -- its performance remains extraordinary.
Finally, I'd give a tip of the hat to IBM's Palmisano for continuing to boost the company's bottom line even as revenues have been tepid at best. In the last two years, IBM stock has risen 9 percent from $117.81 to $127.98 -- not a fantastic performance but a solid one given IBM's size and exposure to global economic trends. After all, IBM just reported a 14 percent rise in earnings -- even though its revenue fell 7 percent.
This is a testament to Palmisano's skills at cost cutting and pushing sales as hard as possible under the circumstances.
The lesson? While much attention has been focused on bad business leaders, some bosses really do earn their pay and position. During the current financial crisis, CEOs who adapt well to the challenges -- whether by delivering recession-proof products or managing costs effectively -- should be an inspiration to us all.
Peter Cohan is a management consultant, Babson professor and author of nine books, including Capital Rising (due in June 2010). Follow him on Twitter. He has no financial interest in the securities mentioned.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-16-2009 @ 10:34AM
Karen said...
Good management is critical for finding the best companies to work for and another good site is SalaryFor.com http://www.salaryfor.com/ which has career advice, job listings and a huge database of real salaries that companies are paying for any position. You can post your own salary or view others for free.
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10-16-2009 @ 3:36PM
TomW said...
Jobs is like the cool darling of the left kind of CEO becasue he dresses in jeans and runs a counter computer company but no one is worried that he makes millions each year, of that actors and David Letterman makes millions upon millions a year. Why is that? How come no one thinks Jobs should be paid twice of the average worker and no more? Is it cuz people just buy into this mob mentality stuff and never think about it? Yeah, I think people are pretty weak minded and thats why the end up believing things that contradict other things they think they believe in.
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10-16-2009 @ 4:17PM
David S. said...
You miss one critical point: Steve Jobs made mega-money for Apple; he built it into something, he didn't take bailout government money; therefore he deserves to be well compensated. He makes products people buy, that is called capitalism. How he dresses is irrelevant. Usually it is the guys in the expensive suits that are the crooks.
10-16-2009 @ 5:02PM
JonathanGB-Va said...
One easily forgets that Steve Jobs is co-founder of Apple... and because he sold Pixar to Disney in exchange for stock, he's also Disney's majority stock holder. Sadly, per Wikipedia, he's no longer an orphan since his birth parents have been discovered awhile back.
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10-16-2009 @ 5:40PM
superglide125 said...
You can't be serious - National Bosses Day ? Puuulleeeeze!
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10-17-2009 @ 4:17AM
DR said...
The reason Steve Jobs and Apple are sucessful is because he doesn't care what the idiots that work on Wall Street and the business channels say about him or his company. He does what he wants and what is right.
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10-17-2009 @ 4:38AM
jk said...
Apple is a fashion, it is cool and it plays on the emotions of a certain market segment. But it is also innovative and Steve Jobs deserves the credit for that. Historically Jobs has brought the company back from the brink and proved that an astute CEO with marketing savvy can rule their universe and that makes him worth every penny.
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10-17-2009 @ 9:11AM
Sal said...
The word computer and it's origin seems to be somewhat mysterious.
Who came up with this word computer and why ?
I know it wasn't I.B.M. or Apple or microsoft or any of the other modern computer manufacturer's or their related companies.One thing I do know is the word computer is a bit strange in that all of it's letters can be rearranged to come up with some fastenating word and letter combonations.Such as the following;
":TRUE MO PC"
"C OUR TEMP"
"COURT EMP"
"PT RUM CEO"
"TRUMP CEO"
"PR MUT CEO"
"MR PUT CEO"
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