For the second consecutive year, accounting firm Citrin Cooperman gathered a panel of CEOs to UConn Stamford”™s General Re Auditorium ”” filling it again with an audience of 200 ”” for a give-and-take with Mark Fagan, managing partner at the firm.
The questions were designed to plumb the CEOs”™ successes and harvest their anecdotes. The CEOs responded with unguarded responses that ran from whimsy ”” “I always wanted to be a ballerina” ”” to horror: “When you hit the water at 74 mph it”™s like hitting cement.”
The 2015 CEO Evolution panelists were Anne M. Mulcahy, former chairwoman and CEO of Xerox Corp. and current chairwoman of the board of trustees for Save the Children; Denis J. Nayden, former chairman and CEO of GE Capital and now managing partner of private equity firm Oak Hill Capital Partners; and Thomas Kallish, who began textile companies Alliance Integrated Contracting Corp. and Cocona and 5-year-old textile-apparel company Tommie Copper.
- John A. Elliott, dean of the University of Connecticut School of Business.
The tendency to seek commonalities among those who have made it to the top was upended by their unique histories: Kallish is a high school dropout who taught himself physics and who founded Tommie Copper after the battering of a 74 mph waterskiing accident; Mulcahy, an erstwhile ballerina, took over one of the world”™s corporate giants ”” Xerox ”” as it courted bankruptcy and turned back into an investment-grade company; and Nayden was formerly in charge of 20 businesses under the GE Capital name, representing $555 billion in assets in 35 countries and is a self-described “hard-headed, formerly hot-headed, Irishman.”
John A. Elliott, dean of the host/co-sponsor University of Connecticut School of Business, introduced Fagan, promising ”” and soon enough delivering on ”” “an exciting conversation.” Westfair Communications, publisher of the Fairfield County Business Journal, also was a sponsor. Elliott had been introduced by Westfair Associate Publisher Anne Jordan Duffy.
Kallish stitched together an entrepreneurial career in textiles and clothing, first selling for a company at 20 and buying it at 22. For Nayden, the path to success meant trying many things, and he offered the advice: “Do this and that and after 10 years you”™ll say, I liked this and I hated that.”
Mulcahy said, “Communicating with clarity is important so that people get signed up and behind you. It”™s most important in big companies to have people understand the story. We need to tell a story people can relate to and are a part of. I spent a lot of time telling the story. People do amazing things when they trust their leadership and believe the story.”
Nayden, citing the Xerox turnaround, said, “You kept it simple and changed the whole dynamic.”
“It”™s all about having the right partners,” Mulcahy said, adding with a bit of reciprocating praise: “When no one was answering the phone, GE helped. You were an amazing partner.”
The audience sat rapt throughout and after two hours peppered the panel with questions concerning topics, including education and personal “back-of-a-business card” reasons for their successes.
For the many disparities among the CEOs, similarities included a willingness ”” even an eagerness ”” to surround themselves with people who knew more about specific issues than they did.
In response to a Fagan question about creating a network of trust, Kallish said, “I”™m not scared to hang around with people who are smarter than me. I”™ve spent the better part of four years to build my network. A CEO is the sum of his parts and those parts are his network. That”™s how it gets done.”
“You cannot grow and you cannot learn unless you take advantage of those around you,” Nayden said. He described a CEO as an orchestra leader. “We”™re not playing one instrument; we”™re the entire orchestra.
“It”™s very important to decide what the most important things are and to communicate them regularly,” said Nayden. “Keep it simple. Be consistent. Working with 35 countries, I learned there have to be differences. The way I communicate in Connecticut is going to be different than the way I communicate in Indonesia or New Jersey.”
Lacking a single bank ”” out of 58 ”” to sign off on $7 billion to forestall bankruptcy in 2001, Mulcahy explained to a friend the magnitude of the dilemma she faced. The response, as she related it: “You need someone who”™s really powerful.” She made the bold call ”” a banker on the national stage ””and immediately got the results she needed.
Mulcahy”™s Xerox history also taught her about trust: both losing it and regaining it. “It took just 90 days for Xerox to become junk; it took four years to get it back to investment grade. It takes time to gain people”™s confidence.”
- Citrin Cooperman’s Mark Fagan and panelists, from left, CEOs Thomas Kallish, Denis Nayden and Anne Mulcahy.
Mulcahy”™s teacher on time management was financier Warren Buffett. “They want to see results,” she said, recalling Buffett”™s advice. “Put some points on the curve. It cleared the air. It absolutely made sense.” Toward that end, she visits with customers and employees and considers herself the in-house chief communications officer: “I make sure 100,000 people actually get it.”
None of the CEOs set out to be a CEO and that was a major point. “Do what you do best; follow your passion,” Mulcahy said. Nayden said many paths offered many chances to see what works for a person and rare was the person who knew from the start how he or she would end up.
“I am a hard-headed Irishman and I used to be a hard-headed Irishman who was also hot-headed,” Nayden said. “That happens to me very rarely now ”” mainly on the golf course. You can ruin a relationship in an instant. Don”™t be a tyrant. Don”™t be someone who doesn”™t listen. Don”™t be the smartest person in the room. It takes a lifetime to build a reputation and a nanosecond to lose it.”
“The chemistry that emerged between Anne, Denis and Tom demonstrated that the challenges CEOs face are not dictated by the size or complexity of a company or the industry it is in for that matter,” Fagan said afterward, calling the event informative and inspiring. “It was clear, they believe that great leadership requires constant communication with employees and customers, recruiting, developing and retaining talented employees, not being afraid to fail and working hard.”
“Last year launched this important CEO Evolution series and this year was another valuable discussion with a great panel,” Elliott said. “At UConn we teach management, but we also engage with managers to create a dialogue that benefits all of us.”
