Postcards

Meeting Governor Arnold...and Meg and Carly's political chances

by Patricia Sellers

Sometimes Los Angeles behaves like a small town.

This past Sunday, I ran into Maria Shriver at Room at the Beach, a Malibu store owned by my friend Elizabeth Lamont.

The next morning, coincidentally, I had breakfast with a close friend/colleague of Shriver. And no sooner did I sit down at Le Pain Quotidien than the Governator walked in. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was on his way to Sacramento, presumably to MORE

In an info-overloaded world, who wins?

by Patricia Sellers

Facebook claims more than 400 million users. Skype (EBAY) has over 20 million users at peak times. Ten billion financial market price movements happen daily.

In a world of information overload, another winner: Thomson Reuters (TRI), whose EVP and chief strategy officer, David Craig, was on a panel that I ledon Saturday at the Aspen Ideas Festival. Thomson Reuters, purportedly the world's largest financial real-time data network, spews out MORE

Women execs rising, moving, struggling

by Patricia Sellers

I'm back from Brazil. Looking forward to filling you in on my whirlwind adventure, where I saw a booming middle-class and lots of opportunity.

But right now, a catch-up on well-known women who moved up and down and over while I was away. Christiane Amanpour's leap to ABC News is big. For perspective, last year at a Fortune Most Powerful Women dinner in New York, Amanpour gave a tribute MORE

Google vet snags a CEO job

by Patricia Sellers

One of the most interesting rising stars in Silicon Valley landed a CEO job this week. Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, the former President of Asia-Pacific and Latin American Operations at Google (GOOG) until last April, is the new CEO of Polyvore. The three-year-old company is an online platform to do "social shopping" for fashion and lifestyle products.

Social shopping? I had never heard of the concept, or of Polyvore, until MORE

Hank Paulson's next big gig

I delved into On the Brink last evening. That's the new memoir by Hank Paulson, the former Treasury Secretary, about trying to save the world--or at least the global financial system--when Bear Stearns (JPM) and Lehman  Brothers (BCS) and AIG (AIG) were collapsing around him.

The hell, the fear, the physical illness he felt are long past. When I spoke with Paulson on Friday, he seemed mightily relieved about that--and that MORE

NBCU's Zucker beats the odds, again

With Comcast (CMCSA) finalizing its deal to buy 51% of NBC Universal from General Electric (GE), skeptics are asking: Why would Comcast CEO Brian Roberts put his faith in Jeff Zucker, the NBCU chief who has dragged the NBC broadcast network from first to fourth place?

Because Jeff Zucker is one of the most determined, driven, ambitious, ingenious, competitive, compelling, resilient people you will ever meet.

Read "Life imitates TV," a Fortune MORE

GM's new CEO Whitacre: Uncompromising

"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 MORE

A pair of Dimons at JPMorgan Chase

by Patricia Sellers

Ted Dimon Sr. started a new job yesterday.

Not just any job. Formerly a broker at Merrill Lynch, Dimon joined the brokerage unit of JPMorgan Chase (JPM). His son happens to be CEO of the parent company.

Word is, Jamie Dimon steered clear of the deal to hire his 78-year-old dad, who arrived with five other Merrill brokers in tow. According to people close to father and son, Ted MORE

Gilt Groupe's Lyne takes on AOL

Gilt Groupe CEO Susan Lyne has joined the board of AOL--soon to be spun off from Time Warner (TWX).

Does Lyne love trouble, or what? Five years ago, after Martha Stewart began her five-month prison stint in West Virginia, Lyne stepped up from the Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO) board to be CEO of the company--and worked, eventually hand in hand with Martha, to rebuild the crippled company.

That was a slog MORE

Avon's ex-president's odd leap to CEO

by Patricia Sellers

Liz Smith, who was on track to succeed Andrea Jung as CEO of Avon Products (AVP), is moving to a new company and a new industry. Again.

The onetime star exec at Kraft (KFT), who made an unlikely leap from food to cosmetics in 2004, is the newly named chief executive of OSI, a chain of casual-dining eateries.

"What?!!" is a question that Smith admits she's been asked MORE