Postcards

eBay exec departs seeking CEO job

by Jessica Shambora

On the heels of last week's news that Avon (AVP) president Liz Smith is leaving to pursue a CEO job outside the company, another powerful woman is departing to seek a new C-suite challenge. eBay (EBAY) announced today that Stephanie Tilenius, head of marketplaces for North America, is leaving.

Tilenius, 42, will stay on as an advisor to CEO John Donahoe for the next few months, but her position MORE

Top 10 quotes from Brainstorm Tech

by Patricia Sellers and Jessica Shambora

We took a break from posting our daily Power Point--Postcards' quote of the day--last week, but we collected more than a few good ones at Fortune Brainstorm Tech in Pasadena. Here are our 10 favorites,  from the mouths of media moguls, tech titans, Tweeters and more.

"It's not really my thing. I don't go to the dentist. I don't do things that cause me to emote." MORE

The "Gavinator" and Meg Whitman's big money

Yesterday's New York Times Magazine cover story, "The Gavinator?!?!"--about San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and the field of colorful candidates vying to succeed California Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger--was breezily entertaining. So breezy that it skipped a few important points.

And having written a Fortune cover story, "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" about one of those  gubernatorial rivals, I can't resist weighing in...

First, on the money. It's strange that yesterday's New York Times MORE

Global mentoring program kicks off in DC

I'm on the run in Washington, following meetings at the White House yesterday and a spectacular "Most Powerful Women Evening With..." dinner that Fortune hosted on Monday night in the Benjamin Franklin Room at the State Department. We had eight U.S. Senators with us--including our speakers, Senators Barbara Boxer of California and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas--and scores of women leaders, a touch of royalty (HM Queen Noor, who is MORE

Know yourself!

Who are you? It's more important than ever to know the answer to this question.

Think about it - When you're on shaky ground (aren't we all these days?), when your bosses and direct reports question your moves (admit it, they do), and when you're rethinking your life or career (you'd better be, or you're a fool), you need one core competency: Know thyself.

A primer in this regard: a book that I MORE

Pepsi's former boss lands a new gig

by Patricia Sellers

Dawn Hudson spent more than a decade chasing stretch goals at PepsiCo (PEP). She headed sales and marketing at Frito-Lay, the consumer giant's snack unit. She led marketing at Pepsi-Cola North America and ascended to CEO of that $5.5 billion business.

That job turned out to be Hudson's ceiling inside PepsiCo, where chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi has put her own stamp on the company. Hudson (who ranked as MORE

How the best bosses find focus

"The hardest thing about the job is staying focused," President Obama told Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes Sunday night.

Are you feeling like the President these days? Unfocused? Maybe fatally so? We're living in an age of "global A.D.D.," as David Brooks, the New York Times op-ed writer said in his column last Friday. Brooks criticizes President Obama for attempting to tackle the "four most complicated problems facing the nation--health care, MORE

Behind Fortune's Most Powerful Women

What makes a Fortune Most Powerful Woman?

This is a question that we get constantly, since rising-star business women (or their PR people!) wrangle to get a spot on Fortune's annual Power 50 list. And many a male CEO takes it as a badge of honor to have one or more of his direct reports in the MPWomen rankings. In just 11 years, Fortune's MPWomen list, which we release in the MORE

It's time to reinvent

Tech companies are rethinking their identities. IBM may buy Sun Microsystems. Cisco (CSCO) is moving into the server market, and also mightily into the consumer space. The latest move by Cisco CEO John Chambers--whose family reportedly owns eight Flip cameras--is a buyout of Pure Digital Technologies, which sells those ultra-simple videocameras. (I love mine.)

Powerful people are busy rethinking their identities too. My  last two stories in Fortune are about ex-CEOs MORE

Reinvent your firm, not your values

Reinvent!

Every manager is supposed be doing that these days. You know, there's a lot more risk in reinvention than just the uncertainty of your fancy new business model. In your rush to reinvent, you could well leave your core values behind.

I've been contemplating this lately for several reasons. For one, I'm sold on the wisdom of Jim Collins, the management guru who was part of a recent Fortune cover package MORE