Meet Anne M. Mulcahy (possible/probable Summers replacement)

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Seems to be the CW de jour bet to replace Summers. (No one can question Obama's commitment to appointing women to important jobs.) She sounds like a CEO with a slightly more human back-story than most. I don't want a CEO at all, since only a few economists are likely to get the degree to which most "reasonable" economic advice is turned upside down in a liquidity trap of the sort we are in. But she doesn't sound like an overt monster or anything.

_________________________________

Anne M. Mulcahy (born October 21, 1952) is former chairwoman and chief executive officer of Xerox Corporation. She was named CEO of Xerox on August 1, 2001, and chairwoman on January 1, 2002. In addition to the Xerox board, she has been a member of the boards of directors of Catalyst, Citigroup Inc., Fuji Xerox Co. Ltd. and Target Corporation.

She has been selected as 'CEO of the Year 2008' by Chief Executive magazine. She announced her retirement as CEO on 21 May 2009 prior to the company's annual shareholder meeting.

Career at Xerox
Mulcahy joined Xerox as a field sales representative in 1976 and rose through the ranks. From 1992-1995, Mulcahy was vice president for human resources, responsible for compensation, benefits, human resource strategy, labor relations, management development and employee training. Mulcahy became chief staff officer in 1997 and corporate senior vice president in 1998. Prior to that, she served as vice president and staff officer for Customer Operations, covering South America and Central America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and China.

Though never intent on running Xerox, Anne Mulcahy was selected by the board of directors in 2001. When she became CEO on Aug 1, 2001 the stock price was $8.25, and on Jan 1, 2002 when she became chairwoman the stock was $10.05. On May 21, 2009, the day she announced her retirement as CEO, the stock closed at $6.82. She claims that duty and loyalty from being with the company for so long compelled her to help the company.

Later in her tenure, Anne cut the workforce by 30% and eliminated the desktop portion of Xerox. Visiting offices all over the nation, she attempted to boost morale and help the rest of the organization see how hard she was working, hoping for a mirror effect.

Anne Mulcahy currently serves on four other Board of Directors besides Xerox. She also serves on Catalyst, Citigroup, Fuji Xerox and Target Corp.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_M._Mulcahy

[judy]

1. I think it is a fallacy to compare running a country's economy

to running a company.
I don't think CEO's are particularly qualified, and it is naive to think they are.
CEO's don't necessarily understand economics as pertaining to World Currency fluctuations, and are not interested in the only thing that will fix the economy: helping the poor become middle class, and bringing the super rich down a few notches.
The job of CEO's is to make money to satisfy the shareholders, not to establish balance anywhere.

I would be totally reassured if the Obama administration asked someone like Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize Laureate, professor of economics, to be in charge.

But that will never happen. And we're on our way to an All Tea Party all the time election. Ah, Obama! You and your so called "bipartisan" efforts, have put us in quite a jam! Stop pandering to the oligarchy, and you will become the true hero you wanted to be, and we wanted you to be.

[exboyfil]

5. Don't we already have enough of the ivory tower types?

Politicians, lawyers, educators, Wall Street banker types? Good god the Secretary of Commerce is a life long politician. Has anyone on the economic team ever made anything or supervised someone who has made anything. Invented anything but words?

Furman, a Deputy assistant, is a disciple of Stiglitz and, while not Krugman, he is pretty close. Lots of other economists on the team.

How about an entrepreneur who has founded and grown a successful manufacturing business somewhere in the mix? Someone who has an MBA (which does require the study of Economics and Finance). Not someone born to it but someone the child of middle class parents who found his/her way to the top as a CEO. Not a carpet bagging CEO but a real entrepreneur. Someone who has had to make a payroll. Deal with government regulations. Taxes. Unions. Competitors.

Why do people on this board think that those who work in private business are greedy? There are just as many greedy individuals on a percentage basis working in public and non-profit roles.

A little bottom up thinking might go a long way. Don't throw out John Snow as a rebuttal. He did not have any of these characteristics. He was just another Have Gun will Travel manager (Economist and Lawyer).

[geek tragedy]

2. Could the admin seriously think it needs to make itself

look MORE quiescent to corporate America?

Ugh.

[mmonk]

3. Sucks as expected.

[joeybee12]

4. Obama needs to pick a union organizer...n/t

[bullwinkle428]

6. So she's another "Chainsaw Al" or Carly Fiorina (re: slashing jobs)?

[exboyfil]

7. How about Ted Waitt (founder of Gateway Computers)

as a member of the economic team? While Gateway eventualy burned out, it did provide a livelihood for a number of people for a time and made several normal people extremely wealthy. He has been out of business for awhile mostly concentrating on charitable work. Don't know if he would be interested, but someone with his experience is needed on an economic team full of individuals who have never made anything or managed anyone who made anything.

[Cleita]

8. How about no more CEOs.

Every time some business type tries to run government like a business they fail.

[exboyfil]

9. I am not talking about running government like a business

I am talking about ensuring that the interaction between government and business allows for the creation of companies like Gateway (ones that make things in which those without degrees can have meaningful employment). Come on the Secretary of Commerce is a lifelong politician. Doesn't this seem to be the problem? Nobody gives a second thought to the revolving door between investment houses and government, between academia and government, between "think tanks" and government, and between different levels of government and the federal government. Has any of these people actually swung a wrench, assembled a circuit board, driven a tractor, designed a device, or any of those things which used to generate wealth in this country? They have sat behind desks writing their meaningless papers or moved their electronic money around or glad handed for votes or used points in the law to represent their clients.

I looked through a list of distinguished young Americans. In the last 20 years only a few are from business, and most of those are in retail. That is depressing to say the least.

Do you really buy the crap about a service economy in which we can style each others hair and sell each other sandwiches? We need wealth generation in this country. Not some economics types dreaming up new ways to make a buck.

Why did Gateway eventually go belly up? Why could it not stay manufacturing in South Dakota? Was it Waitt's greed or were other factors in play? What are those factors? Why can't Ereaders be built in the U.S. for example? IPODs? Can anything be made in this country with growth potential? Maybe the answer to this question is no, and, if so, then we are doomed as a nation.

Resonably a large segment of our population have no hope of being knowledge workers. Unless we have jobs for them, then what are we going to do. Even knowledge workers are threatened by globalization (we even import globalization to our shores with H1-B Visas). What are we thinking? Wouldn't someone in the trenches explain why these H1-B visa folks or these undocumented workers are around and how they benefit us (if they do)???

Would government do a better job running industries. We already own a big stake in General Motors. Should we go ahead and actively manage it for our benefit? How about the non-government managed companies?

Government is not a business. I recognize that fact, but government can throttle businesses or help them to grow. We need growing businesses.

[Cleita]

10. I agree with what you want. It's what we all want.

However, in my experience, it seems CEOs turned politicians can't think outside their box and the results you want won't be forth coming. Actually, there are many business that I would prefer government run, like mining, oil and other extraction industries, and public utilities. They just seem to do it more efficiently and for less cost to the consumer because there is no profit motive involved. The best electric company I had was the Dept. of Water and Power in Los Angeles. The best phone company I had was in Texas, run by the local government. They gave the profits back to their customers. I was still receiving checks two years after I left Texas.

[exboyfil]

11. Agree with you

I love my local city run utility company (it supplies gas, electricity, water, sewage disposal, trash collection, television cable, and internet cable). I keep getting stuff from Mediacom to switch for free HBO for a time etc. It all goes into the circular file. I may pay a few dollars more, but I get excellent customer service, I know the people involved, and they have an annual fair to keep in touch with the community. It is a real benefit to our community.

I also agree that mining might best be handled by the government, but a great many times that oil industries have been nationalized, the result has been very poor.

You don't think that government types also suffer from group think that prevents thinking outside the box. We are talking one person is an economic team of 10 to 20 that has actual industrial experience. Is that too much to ask? I don't think Republicans have had the type I am defining either.

An economic advisor, ideally, is not a politician. I would also argue that it is a travesty to have a life long politician as the Secretary of Commerce. We have lots of former politicians and ivory tower intellectuals that sit on the boards of corporations. Is it too much to ask for someone who has actual industry experience sit at the table at our primary seat of power? What does Geithner know about meeting a payroll, handling the complex interactions with government, working with suppliers, dealing with competitors, detecting threats and trying to survive in a dog eat dog world. Geithner, who runs our Tax Code, could not even pay his taxes, and has still not made good on the years which you owed but whose time had expired for collection. Summers, if possible, is even worse.

[Arkana]

12. I suppose if you're going to pick a CEO, Xerox is a pretty benign corporation.