Postcards

More women fall off the tracks

The ouster of Bank of America's (BAC) chief risk officer, Amy Brinkley, was inevitable, as I wrote in "Behind the shakeup at BofA" on Friday.

And as I mentioned in that piece, two years ago, Fortune featured Brinkley and five other execs in "One Step Away," about rising-star Most Powerful Women on track to be CEOs of Fortune 500 companies someday. So what's happened to the other five?

One woman made it MORE

Power Point: Stay nimble like David

"We need to see ourselves and conduct ourselves not as Goliath, but as David—not as a giant, but as a nimble and innovative competitor in every market."

-- Wal-Mart (WMT) CEO Mike Duke at Friday's annual meeting for shareholders and employees in Fayetteville.  Fortune's Suzanne Kapner attended the gathering, which given Wal-Mart's success in this economy, was more of a celebration. Actor Ben Stiller emceed a program with surprise performances from MORE

Two Lindas leaving lofty corporate posts

Two more Most Powerful Women -- the latest, both named Linda -- are leaving big companies.

One is Royal Dutch Shell's (RDS.A) Linda Cook -- whose exit lends fresh meaning to the term "leaky pipeline." Cook, executive director at the Anglo-Dutch oil giant and No. 3 on Fortune's 2008 international Most Powerful Women list, will leave next Monday after losing the CEO race there, according to the Wall Street Journal. Strangely, MORE

Defying the downturn: Bravo and beyond

Defining a brand and sticking to it is always difficult. Particularly in a downturn.

Which is why the success of Bravo - the NBC Universal cable network that serves up food, fashion, beauty, design and pop culture to upscale audiences - is all the more impressive.

This morning, I went to Bravo's "upfront" presentation, where NBCU's Lauren Zalaznick, who built the network, and her team pitched their new season and their growth MORE

Power Point: Up the ante!

"While economic challenges forced others to step back, we moved forward."

- Wal-Mart CEO Mike Duke, in a memo to employees announcing that the company is awarding some $2 billion in incentives--bonuses, profit sharing, merchandise discounts, and contributions to 401(k) and stock-purchase plans--to hourly employees in the U.S. That's up from $1.2 billion in incentives a year ago. Good for the folks in Bentonville, doing their part to pump up the U.S. economy and MORE

Most Powerful Women answer Obama's call

On Friday, I left you with a promise: that I'd find something new and proactive to do to answer President Obama's call to "responsibility"--which seems to be the buzzword of his Administration.

I found my "to do" this weekend--but before I tell you what I decided on, let me share briefly what I spent yesterday working on. Carrie Welch, my onetime Fortune colleague and former Most Powerful Women Summit co-chair, and MORE

Hope amid retail's rough week

It was, to steal a Malcolm Gladwell term, a "tipping point" in my outlook on the cratering economy. I call it my "That Girl" moment.

It was the fourth Monday in November last year. I was at a Thanksgiving party at the home of Cathie Black, the president of Hearst Magazines. Marlo Thomas was there, too. "Saks is selling shoes for 75% off. It's incredible!" TV's onetime Ann Marie was crowing, 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

Guest Post: Wal-Mart's and Southwest's magic

When the ashes clear from this economic Armageddon, the leaders and organizations left standing will be the ones that stand for something. That have a clear purpose.

I'm sure of this because I worked with two CEO-founders who indeed stood for something: Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines (LUV) and Sam Walton of Wal-Mart (WMT). I worked with these iconic entrepreneurs on their companies' advertising, marketing and internal culture. They taught me MORE

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