Postcards
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Guidance, good riddance!
Guidance--the revenue and profit forecasts that companies divvy out to Wall Street analysts--is dying a slow death. Hooray for that!
As a slew of big names--Wal-Mart (WMT), Costco (COST), Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo (YHOO), among them--announced in the past two weeks that they would suspend or limit guidance because of economic uncertainty, analysts who follow these companies have reacted skeptically. Not giving 2009 guidance "hardly instills confidence in the business," Sanford MORE
Patricia Sellers - Feb 6, 2009 3:25 PM ETPosted in: Bob Eckert, CEOs, consumer goods, Costco, earnings, GE, General Electric, guidance, investing, Jeff Immelt, Jim Kilts, Kraft, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, management, Mattel, Microsoft, Novartis, Postcards, private equity, retail, Silicon Valley, stock market, technology, Wal-Mart, Wall Street, Yahoo -
Power Point: Bartz isn't rushing to pull Yahoo apart
"This is fantastic Internet property and it really doesn't deserve everybody trying to pick it apart. This is not a company that needs to be pulled apart and left for the chickens. That's my Wisconsin coming through."
-- Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz in Tuesday's fourth-quarter earnings call with investors after the market closed.
Bartz's comments reflect the challenge of taking charge at a onetime tech darling that has been weakened by MORE
Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Jan 27, 2009 6:56 PM ETPosted in: Carol Bartz, CEO, CEOs, earnings, Google, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, Microsoft, Postcards, Power Point, Power Shift, Silicon Valley, technology, Yahoo, YHOO -
Power Point: Combine can-do and must-do
"It's a can-do spirit with a must-do responsibility that together generate great results."
- PepsiCo (PEP) chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit earlier this month. Nooyi is No. 1 on Fortune's 2008 Most Powerful Women list. PepsiCo reports earnings Tuesday morning.
Patricia Sellers - Oct 13, 2008 7:58 PM ET -
Power Point: Move beyond yesterday's news
"We don't want to be on the History Channel. We want to be on the news channel."
--Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) CEO Mark Hurd in Fortune's 2006 profile by Adam Lashinsky, when asked whether he would have done the Compaq deal orchestrated by his predecessor, Carly Fiorina. Hurd replaced Fiorina, who was fired in February 2005, and moved quickly to improve execution and revive morale. HP reported earnings today, beating Wall Street's expectations MORE
Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Aug 19, 2008 6:09 PM ET -
Rationality pays in retail
I've talked on Postcards about the greatest sins of the big retailers: believing that if you build it, they will come. That focus on growth at all costs has hurt Starbucks (SBUX) and Home Depot (HD), whose stocks have just recently risen risen off of 52-week lows. Speaking of lows, there is Lowe's (LOW), which announced earnings Monday morning: down 8% in the second quarter. But thanks to solid expense MORE
Patricia Sellers - Aug 18, 2008 1:23 PM ETPosted in: Bennigan's, CEOs, Chapter 11, consumer goods, Corporate Express, Credit Suisse, CXP, earnings, Gary Balter, HD, Home Depot, Houston, LOW, Lowe's, management, ODP, Office Depot, Office Max, OMX, Postcards, Power Shift, retail, Ron Sargent, SBUX, SPLS, Staples, Starbucks, Wall Street -
Power Point: Focus by saying no
"People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of many of the things we haven't done as the things we have done."
-- Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs said this to Fortune's Betsy Morris in MORE
Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Jul 21, 2008 7:30 PM ETPosted in: AAPL, Apple, Betsy Morris, CEOs, earnings, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, management, Postcards, Power Point, Steve Jobs -
Power Point: Motivate by listening
"The most powerful way to motivate people is to listen to them."
-- Yum! Brands (YUM) chairman and CEO David Novak to employees and franchisees during a leadership development session in London last July. Yum! Brands announces earnings today after the market closes.
Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Jul 16, 2008 3:27 PM ETPosted in: CEO, CEOs, David Novak, earnings, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, management, Postcards, Power Point, Yum! Brands -
Power Point: Use all 24 hours
"There are 24 hours in a day, and you can use all of them."
--General Electric (GE) chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt on the most important thing he learned at Harvard Business School. The quote comes from Geoffrey Colvin's 2005 Fortune profile, "The Bionic Manager." GE's earnings, released today, were flat but met expections. Sales beat forecasts and the stock rose slightly in a down market. With major restructuring--including the possible MORE
Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Jul 11, 2008 11:39 AM ET
| 4 federal agencies to shut Friday | ||
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Fortune Most Powerful Women
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In her first public interview since taking on the CEO gig at Yahoo, Marissa Mayer outlines her priorities both in and out of the company. Watch
Brenda Barnes famously quit a big job to be with her kids. Years later, a massive stroke nearly killed her--and her daughter returned the favor. Watch
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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