Postcards
Power Point: Don't wait for the worst-case scenario
January 12, 2009: 6:36 PM ET"You identify areas where you think you can be more efficient by assuming the worst-case scenario. Then you end up saying, Why don't we just do that anyhow?"
--Intuit (INTU) CEO Brad Smith, from the article "How to manage your business in a recesssion," in the current issue of Fortune. The article may be helpful reading for bosses reporting fourth-quarter earnings.
Alcoa (AA), one of the 30 companies that makes up the Dow Jones Industrial Average, kicked off the reporting period with a loss of $929 million for the quarter. Meanwhile Citigroup (C), which next week is expected to report a $3.8 billion fourth-quarter loss, saw its stock plunge 17% as investors showed little faith in its plan to sell part of Smith Barney to Morgan Stanley (MS). More bleak news sent the Dow down 125 points.
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Fortune senior editor at large Pattie Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Marissa Mayer: Ready to Rumble at Yahoo," "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" "The $100 Billion Woman" (Melinda Gates), and "Remodeling Martha" (Martha Stewart). She has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women in Business" package every year since its launch in 1998. Pattie is Executive Director of the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business and beyond. She oversees MPW programs that enable women leaders to extend their influence and empower the next generation—such as Fortune MPW Entrepreneurs and the Fortune-U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership. Beyond her Fortune duties, she is also developing Live Content across Time Inc. Pattie grew up in Allentown, PA, graduated from the University of Virginia, and started at Fortune in 1984. Her blog, Postcards, is about how power players lead, manage others, and navigate their careers.
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The Fortune/U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership brings rising-star women from countries around the world to the U.S. for three-week mentorships with participants of the annual Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit - among them Ursula Burns of Xerox, Laura Lang of Time Inc., Marissa Mayer of Yahoo, and Tory Burch.
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