Postcards

The woman behind McDonald's hiring blitz

by Patricia Sellers

Too often, the boss can't relate to the workers on the front line.

Not so at McDonald's (MCD).

McDonald's U.S. president Jan Fields, who today announced plans to hire 50,000 new workers in a single day,  started behind the counter, cooking fries.

Her humble beginnings make her the most remarkable success on Fortune's Most Powerful Women list.

Before she started her career, cooking fries for $2.65 an hour, Fields grew up in MORE

Career Rx: Raise the roof and reinvent

by Patricia Sellers

Delivering a talk on Women and Power in Princeton on Thursday night, I tossed out a term that the crowd really liked: Raise the roof!

As I told the 400 people gathered at the YWCA "Tribute to Women" dinner, the "glass ceiling" concept is out of date--and let's rethink how far corporate women have come.

Not that bias against female managers has gone away--far from it, as I've written right MORE

Women CEOs top the Dow's gains

by Patricia Sellers

Here we are in 2011, and how odd is it that only a dozen Fortune 500 companies have female CEOs?

This despite plenty of evidence that placing women in key positions pays off for investors.

Maybe it's coincidental -- at least it's worth noting -- that two of the Dow 30 companies that delivered the best stock-market gains in 2010 are run by women.

One is Dupont (DD), whose CEO, Ellen MORE

How J&J's McCoy makes it to the top

by Patricia Sellers

Johnson & Johnson's (JNJ) Sheri McCoy has been rocketing up Fortune's Most Powerful Women list. This year, she is No. 12, vs. No. 44 in 2008.

The giant leap was the result of her promotion to worldwide chairman of J&J's pharmaceuticals group, a $22.5 billion-a year business. And Fortune has been predicting for a while that McCoy has a good shot to be J&J's next CEO.

Sure enough, McCoy is MORE

How Netflix CEO Hastings stays agile

by Patricia Sellers

Yahoo (YHOO) has reportedly begun the layoffs that I wrote about on Postcards last week.

Meanwhile, the Silicon Valley company that's dominating the news is Netflix (NFLX). Founder-CEO Reed Hastings is Fortune's Businessperson of the Year. In the past three weeks since we put him on the cover, the war of words over his power -- and his level of threat to the media giants' steady profit streams -- MORE

TIME's take on Powerful Women

by Patricia Sellers

This week, TIME Magazine presents the 25 Most Powerful Women of the Past Century.

Interesting that TIME, Fortune's sister magazine at Time Inc. (TWX), includes just two businesswomen on its list. Both -- Martha Stewart and Oprah Winfrey -- are entrepreneurs. Since her company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO), is struggling these days, Martha didn't make this year's Fortune Most Powerful Women list. Oprah, whose power keeps expanding and MORE

Big-brand CEO marathoner runs for a cause

by Patricia Sellers

In this weekend's New York City Marathon, thousands of runners will be sweating it out for hundreds of causes and charities. One of those diehard do-gooders: Unilever (UL) CEO Paul Polman.

Polman, whose global brands include Lipton and Hellman's and Dove, stopped by Fortune's offices this morning to tell us about his weekend plans. This Saturday night, he'll be hosting a pre-marathon pasta dinner (with his company's MORE

Sara Lee CEO Barnes' letter about her stroke

Brenda Barnes, who suffered a stroke in May, is permanently stepping down from her CEO role at Sara Lee (SLE).

Today's announcement resolves part of the deep mystery that has swirled around Barnes' recovery and Sara Lee's future. As for the latter, the board has begun a search for a new CEO -- and reportedly retained Egon Zehnder International to lead it, though the company hasn't confirmed the recruiter's identity. As MORE

Coke boss's new brand of capitalism

By Patricia Sellers

You've probably heard of inclusive capitalism. That's the call for companies, in all their decision-making, to consider what's good for society.

There's also creative capitalism. That's Bill Gates' rallying cry for a new economic system where, as he said in a 2007 speech at Harvard, "market forces work better for the poor."

Now Neville Isdell, the former CEO of Coca-Cola (KO), is floating another name for "how business has to MORE

Sara Lee CEO Brenda Barnes recovering from a stroke

Sara Lee CEO Brenda Barnes delivered the news herself this morning: "I suffered a stroke a few weeks ago, and I am now in the process of recuperating," she said in a statement released by the company.

The news is shocking, not just because Barnes is only 56 years old. She has always looked and seemed younger than her years. And while she always has taken her job seriously, she has MORE