Linda Robinson. Credit: Richard Van Le
Linda Robinson is leaving the PR firm Robinson Lerer Montgomery to join BlackRock.
Linda Robinson sounded like Oprah in her stunning announcement that she's leaving her namesake PR firm, Robinson Lerer Montgomery, to join BlackRock. "The last 25 years have been an amazing journey and I'm excited for the next chapter in my life," she wrote in a Monday afternoon email that bounced around Manhattan and across corporate America's upper echelons.
Robinson's new gig is in her wheelhouse: Global Head of Marketing and Communications for BlackRock (BLK). Still, her move is surprising. The job requires her to quit the company's board, where she has been a director since 2004. Robinson is tight with CEO Larry Fink, who has been needing to upgrade marketing at his expanding financial services giant, particularly since the acquisition of Barclays Global Investors in late 2009. Well, here comes his upgrade, and you can bet that Robinson will be one of the highest-paid marketing communicators in the world.
"Wow!" was the reaction inside Fortune. The super-connected Robinson, who is married to onetime American Express (AXP) CEO Jim Robinson, is "no ordinary flak," as the authors of Barbarians at the Gate described her 21 years ago. In the 80s, she was a central character in that M&A potboiler. ("She was a tall, willowy strawberry-blond with a knowing smile, a grueling work schedule, and an obvious love of gab. Raised in California, the daughter of the actor who played Amos in radio's famous 'Amos 'n Andy' serials of the 1940s..." the authors wrote about her.) Running Robinson Lerer Montgomery with and without Ken Lerer -- who left to go join AOL (AOL) and later co-found the Huffington Post -- Robinson juggled swarms of high-profile clients. (She and I met in 2000 when I was writing a Fortune story titled "Seventh Avenue Smackdown," about a vicious battle between Calvin Klein, her client, and Warnaco's Linda Wachner). She adores a good corporate crisis and the thorniest CEO transitions, as clients such as Morgan Stanley (MS), Citigroup (C), and Pfizer (PFE) have learned.
Besides Robinson, a few other powerful women, it turns out, are making "wow!" moves. On my running list:
Christie Hefner, who joined her dad's Playboy Enterprises straight out of college and was CEO until 2009, is moving to Canyon Ranch Enterprises. She'll be executive chairman of this new arm of the spa and wellness company. That means she'll work on extending Canyon Ranch's partnerships and help it branch into new areas of the healthy-living space. From sex to stress relief, that's not such a stretch. Canyon Ranch and Playboy, Hefner tells me, "are both lifestyle brands. And they both have content that can live across categories."
Hefner may be the envy of women (and men) stuck in the killer grind, career-wise. Speaking of those kinds of jobs, here are two noteworthy departures from Citigroup: Lisa Caputo, long ago Hillary Clinton's press secretary and recently Citi's chief marketing officer and an investment banker there, is going to Travelers Cos. (TRV). Caputo will oversee marketing and communications for CEO Jay Fishman. What particularly excites her: She'll be working on Travelers' direct-to-consumer business. What goes around comes around. Fishman was a protegé of Sandy Weill, who recruited Caputo into Citi 11 years ago when he was CEO there.
And then there's Cindy Armine, who has a story-book career. From a Sicilian-American working-class family in New York City, Armine never graduated from college. During 31 years at Citi, she climbed to chief compliance officer -- and in that job these past few nail-biting years, she strengthened Citi's reporting systems. Now Armine is moving to JPMorgan Chase (JPM), where she'll be chief control officer for the bank's home-lending business. "I just turned 50," says Armine. "I told my staff that I want to know myself in a different way. I'm going to work inside the mortgage business, which has been central to the financial crisis and is still one of America's primary issues."
It's a relief to see women "leaning in" to their careers rather than stepping out. Yesterday, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg gave the commencement speech at Barnard and urged the grads to keep going for the big jobs -- a message she started preaching in 2009 in a piece she wrote for Fortune, "Don't leave before you leave." Sandberg noted yesterday that women "almost never make one decision to leave the workforce...They make small little decisions along the way." She advised: "Do not lean back; lean in." To see Sandberg on video, click here. Or you can read the full text of her talk at Barnard by clicking here.
By Patricia Sellers
When I started my career at Fortune in 1984, corporate America was a land of white men. As I say in my talks about women and power, bosses back then were white men without facial hair.
We've come a long way—just look at Fortune's Most Powerful Women list.
But a new report on Fortune 500 board composition, released by the Alliance for Board Diversity this morning, should make diversity champions weep.
The MORE
Patricia Sellers - May 2, 2011 7:37 AM ET
Two surprising additions to the top 10 of the new Fortune 500, out today: Bank of America (BAC) at No. 5 and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) at No. 9.
That's evidence that the financial crisis has made the big banks bigger--and amidst consolidation, the survivors mightier. Goldman Sachs (GS), No. 39 measured by revenues, ranks sixth on the 500 in terms of profitability. Last year, Goldman earned a stunning $13.4 billion on MORE
Patricia Sellers - Apr 15, 2010 12:35 PM ET
by Patricia Sellers
So, retail sales are up. Unemployment is down. And the Dow is near 11,000.
That doesn't mean that all is right with the world.
So says Meredith Whitney.
The analyst who brought down the bank stocks in 2007--by shining the light on their capital shortfalls--came by Fortune's offices Wednesday afternoon to explain why she's still a bear. I asked her: Will unemployment, now at 9.7%, likely go back up? "I think MORE
Patricia Sellers - Apr 8, 2010 2:46 PM ET
by Patricia Sellers
Terri Dial
Terri Dial, Citigroup's (C) CEO of consumer banking for North America, is out.
It's hardly a surprise at a company where the drama (to mimic Citi ads) never sleeps.
But beyond the everlasting turmoil at Citi--which is still under the thumb of the government, with a stock selling below $4--there is the fact that Dial never found her power base at the bank. Recruited by CEO Vikram Pandit MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jan 11, 2010 9:50 AM ET
Are the populists taking over the world?
One rabble-rouser, Arianna Huffington, has concocted a remarkable stunt, which she calls the Move Your Money Project, to rally consumers to transfer their deposits from big banks to small community banks across the U.S. Alas, there's no run yet on Citigroup (C), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), or Wells Fargo (WFC). But the Move your Money campaign--which the blog queen dreamed up MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jan 8, 2010 12:47 PM ET
by Patricia Sellers
Ted Dimon Sr. started a new job yesterday.
Not just any job. Formerly a broker at Merrill Lynch, Dimon joined the brokerage unit of JPMorgan Chase (JPM). His son happens to be CEO of the parent company.
Word is, Jamie Dimon steered clear of the deal to hire his 78-year-old dad, who arrived with five other Merrill brokers in tow. According to people close to father and son, Ted MORE
Patricia Sellers - Nov 10, 2009 12:10 PM ET
I know lots of executives in the banking industry, but I had never heard of Cindy Armine. Until, that is, a couple of months ago when I had lunch with Armine, who is the chief compliance officer at Citigroup (C). Several things blew me away: her humble beginnings (she didn't go to college), her amazing trajectory (from clerk to top cop), her candor about her flaws as a manager--and MORE
Patricia Sellers - Oct 21, 2009 2:17 PM ET
by Patricia Sellers
Sallie Krawcheck
A hot job offer dangles before you. How do you know if it's right? Sometimes you feel it in your gut. And sometimes you get a big, bloody warning sign. Like Sallie Krawcheck did before she opted to join Bank of America (BAC).
Krawcheck, the former Citigroup (C) star who joined BofA in August to head its Global Wealth and Investment Management unit, told a story last MORE
Patricia Sellers - Oct 8, 2009 2:11 PM ET
by Patricia Sellers
Sallie Krawcheck has landed back at another troubled bank giant. Citigroup's (C) onetime CFO, who later headed global wealth management there and clashed with Citi CEO Vikram Pandit, has accepted a job at Bank of America (BAC).
Her new position—leading BofA's global wealth and investment management business—comes as a surprise, since she has been off the radar since Pandit demoted her last September and she left Citi soon after. MORE
Patricia Sellers - Aug 3, 2009 5:05 PM ET
For the latest on the most influential women in business, philanthropy, government, and the arts, like us on Facebook. 
In a funny and candid interview, Google VP Marissa Mayer explains how she got to the top. Watch
Xerox CEO Ursula Burns shares how she once accepted a job with Dell but ended up staying with Xerox. Watch
Pattie Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" "The $100 Billion Woman" (Melinda Gates), "MySpace Cowboys," Martha Stewart ("I cannot be destroyed"), Ted Turner ("Gone with the Wind") and Oprah Winfrey ("Oprah Inc."). Since its launch in 1998, Pattie has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women" cover package.
A specialist at dissecting larger-than-life personalities, she has also profiled former U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Morgan Stanley chairman John Mack, and countless CEOs.
Pattie co-chairs the annual Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business, philanthropy, government, academia, and the arts. She started at Fortune in 1984, covering the big brand companies.
In Pattie's blog, Postcards, she provides insight into the lives of super-achievers through commentary, career advice, and Guest Posts by CEOs and other leaders.
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Fortune Most Powerful Women
Sheryl Sandberg:
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