"When Ed Whitacre decides, it's not negotiable. If he decides against you, you're done."
--Coca-Cola (KO) exec Wendy Clark, about General Motors' (GM) new CEO, whom she worked for when he headed AT&T (ATT). Today, the GM board ousted CEO Fritz Henderson, who was in the post just eight months, and installed Whitacre, GM's chairman, as the new chief executive.
No doubt, Whitacre had a key role in the power shift.
And hearing Clark talk about the man, you understand that anyone working under him is on a short leash. Clark, a rising star who is SVP of Integrated Marketing and Communications at Coke and previously headed marketing for Whitacre at AT&T, spoke about his unusual leadership style last month at a Fortune Most Powerful Women dinner event in Atlanta. "He doesn't talk much. He listens intently. He surrounds himself with experts who know everything," Clark said. She calls Whitacre "the greatest mentor" she's ever had.
Her view of Whitacre at GM? "If Ed can't fix it, no one can fix it," she says.--Patricia Sellers
by Patricia Sellers
You might call Al Koch the world's biggest trash collector. As bankrupt General Motors (GM) splits into two parts -- New GM, containing Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick, and GMC, and Old GM, containing designated bad assets such as Pontiac, Saturn, Hummer, Saab -- Koch is the hired gun who's supposed to create value from that latter lot.
Bringing "New GM" out of bankruptcy will be difficult enough. Why would anyone MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jun 1, 2009 2:41 PM ET
We love this ad:
"You can file our obituary where the sun don't shine. It's times like these that raise the important questions. Do you cower, or do you live free. Do you succumb to fear and doubt, or do you seize the throttle and give it a fearless twist forward. From where we sit in the saddle, we see American companies and good old American ingenuity wrenching the life back MORE
Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Mar 30, 2009 6:46 PM ET
Barack Obama's hair is turning gray. The New York Times reported the other day that a President typically ages two years for every year in the job. Thank goodness our new President is only 47 years old. The way things are going right now, I suspect he'll age twice as fast as other Presidents.
We learned this week that things are worse than we thought. General Electric (GE) CEO Jeff Immelt, MORE
Patricia Sellers - Mar 6, 2009 1:02 PM ET
I was in California this past week and I'm happy to report that the Golden State did not fall into the Pacific Ocean.
It seemed it might, as inches of rain drenched Silicon Valley and the state government fought off insolvency. What a disaster California is right now, even after the legislature yesterday approved a plan to close a $42 billion budget deficit and end the "fiscal emergency" that the action-hero MORE
Patricia Sellers - Feb 20, 2009 1:51 PM ET
You think you lost a bundle in the market? The CEOs who lead the companies in the upper decks of the Fortune 500 have fared even worse: Their stock holdings in their own companies declined in value by $54 billion last year.
A just-released study by executive compensation consultancy Steven Hall & Partners sums up the damage. For CEOs who head 175 of the top 200 corporations in the Fortune 500, MORE
Patricia Sellers - Jan 22, 2009 2:06 PM ET
by Jessica Shambora
When Ellen Kullman stepped into the CEO role at DuPont (DD) this month, she became the 13th female Fortune 500 CEO. That's a milestone. But Kullman's ascension passed with little fanfare. She addressed employees in a year-end video on DuPont's intranet site but has yet to address them as a group or to send out a company-wide email since the start of the year.
Why so quiet? Well, unlike MORE
Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Jan 8, 2009 2:31 PM ET
By Jessica Shambora
It's Christmas week, always a quiet time at workplaces across the country. But this holiday is anything but typical. The quiet will stretch way beyond Christmas at many offices and factories this year.
No surprise, the Big Three automakers are temporarily shutting North American plants, in numbers correlating to their varying degrees of peril. Chrysler closed all 30 of its plants for a month. General Motors (GM) followed suit MORE
Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Dec 22, 2008 3:27 PM ET
"You think I would have gone through what I did the last two months if I didn't want to stay?"
-- General Motors (GM) chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner, reiterating today that he's determined to keep his job. In exchange for a $13.4 billion rescue package (which will come from the government's $700 bllion TARP fund aimed at banks and Wall Street firms), executives at GM and Chrysler agreed to limits MORE
Patricia Sellers - Dec 19, 2008 6:39 PM ET
"We have a chance of being hung with a softer rope."
-- Denny Fitzpatrick, chairman of the California New Car Dealers Association, in the New York Times today. A government bailout of the Detroit automakers looks increasingly likely, but that's not necessarily good news for Fitzpatrick, a Chevrolet-Hummer dealer, and his brethren. The big three -- General Motors (GM) , Ford (F) , and Chrysler -- have told Congress that they MORE
Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Dec 9, 2008 5:20 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
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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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