Postcards

Genentech president jumps to a new life

Another Fortune Most Powerful Woman -- a longtime member of our annual Power 50 list -- is leaving the corporate world. Susan Desmond-Hellmann, who was Genentech's (DNA) president of product development, is heading to the University of California San Francisco as chancellor.

Desmond-Hellmann's departure from business's upper echelons (She ranked No. 13 on Fortune's 2008 Power 50 list) adds to the trend of top women execs leaving corporations and deciding not 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

Why P&G's president quit

by Patricia Sellers

Procter & Gamble (PG) lost its president today: Susan Arnold, a 29-year veteran who drove the company's high-margin beauty business to $20 billion in sales and went on to oversee all of P&G's brands, stepped down one day after her 55th birthday.

"My dad retired at 62," Arnold said, phoning this afternoon on her way to a Walt Disney (DIS) board meeting. "Then he got really sick. You know MORE

Power Point: Don't wait for the worst-case scenario

"You identify areas where you think you can be more efficient by assuming the worst-case scenario. Then you end up saying, Why don't we just do that anyhow?"

--Intuit (INTU) CEO Brad Smith, from the article "How to manage your business in a recesssion," in the current issue of Fortune. The article may be helpful reading for bosses reporting fourth-quarter earnings.

Alcoa (AA), one of the 30 companies that makes up the MORE

Wrath for Rubin, and Mack's shot at redemption

Such wrath! Readers' comments on Friday's post about Bob Rubin were angrier than I ever expected. A half-dozen commenters suggested that the onetime U.S. Treasury Secretary, whose reputation collapsed along with the fortunes of Citigroup (C), should go to jail for bungling the job that he's now leaving. On the one hand, I'm tempted to say: Calm down! There's no evidence - not a whiff - that Rubin did anything MORE

Powerful women bet their careers

I'm on vacation this week -- or I'm supposed to be! The blog world never sleeps, I guess, nor does learning while away. So I'll share with you a few things I'm learning here in Allentown, Pa.

Aside from plowing snow, I've been plowing through the invite list for next year's Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit. This, as you may know, is the annual powwow that accompanies the release of what MORE

Jamie Dimon: No bonuses for you!

"I feel like I'm riding a bronco and holding on for dear life most of the time." That's how JPMorgan Chase (JPM) chief Jamie Dimon described his life last Thursday when he picked up a "Legend in Leadership Award" at the Yale CEO Summit in New York.

No boss, in banking at least, is as candid as Dimon -- as we've learned at Fortune over the years, and the Summit attendees MORE

CEOs step up to a higher calling

Is the role of the Fortune 500 CEO changing? I think it is. Of course, we've never seen so many corporate chiefs gain fame by testifying in the halls of Congress -- and then get skewered on Saturday Night Live. Any leader's nightmare, indeed. But as the world spins out of control, even the admired CEOs (a rare breed!) are feeling a need to step up and broaden their traditional MORE

Power Point: Pay for performance

"Clearly, the performance of Merrill's top executives throughout Merrill's abysmal year in no way justifies significant bonuses for its top executives, including the CEO."

-- New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, in a letter to Merrill Lynch's (MER) board of directors, regarding CEO John Thain's request for a $10 million year-end bonus.

It worked. The top brass at Merrill agreed today to forgo bonuses. The money-losing brokerage, whose acquisition by Bank MORE

Wachovia's Sutton moves to Morgan Stanley

Amidst the news that Morgan Stanley (MS) will cut 10% of its institutional securities employees, you might have missed this: Cece Sutton, Wachovia's (WB) former head of retail and small business banking and No. 33 on Most Powerful Women list this year, is moving to Morgan to be president of its new retail bank.

Pattie wrote about Sutton in September, just as Citigroup (C) was poised to acquire Wachovia--before Wells Fargo MORE