The the best, hardest working, talented and least expensive employees were deemed to be found overseas .
Now the best, hardest-working (but not least expensive!) executives are deemed to be found only overseas.
So we have this critical quote, with the REAL big question :
“Even though they’re based in the United States, companies are less and less thinking of themselves as American companies,” said Michael Useem, a management professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
At what point does a 'US' firm morph and become some sort of pan-national economic and political entity?
That comes when companies start to incorporate in countries overseas due to tax issues . If a corporation has a minority of employees in the US, a minority of it's revenues from the US and these prospects are on a downward trend , why pay the taxes and costs of doing business in the US (or Europe for that matter).
Stanley toolworks tried this a few short years ago, they tried changing their Connecticut base and US corporation status to 'move' to a base in a Caribbean island. Political and public outcry prevented it then, but will not in the future .
So the next grand idea/trend in corporate America :
The the best, hardest working, talented, cooperative and least tax-expensive corporate headquarters/bases will be deemed to be found overseas .
Seeking Leaders, U.S. Companies Think Globally
The corner offices of corporate America are increasingly being filled from every corner of the world.
Citigroup, the world’s largest bank, named Vikram S. Pandit, a native of Nagpur, India, as its chief executive on Tuesday. Mr. Pandit joins 14 other foreign-born chiefs who are running Fortune 100 companies.
The head of the Altria Group was born in Egypt, for example. PepsiCo’s is from India, the Liberty Mutual Group’s is a native of Ireland and Alcoa’s was born in Morocco.
Their numbers have jumped from roughly a decade ago; there were nine foreign-born chief executives on Fortune’s list of the 100 largest companies in 1996. But the size of the new group does not reflect a noteworthy change — they come from more far-flung countries now than then, when they were more likely to hail from Canada or Europe.
The shift reflects, in part, the focus that companies place on foreign markets for growth. For the first time, for example, the companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index are expected to achieve more than half their sales from abroad next year, on average.
By contrast, six years ago, large American companies that disclosed their foreign earnings earned about a third of their revenue from foreign sales, according to Standard & Poor’s.
Many of these foreign-born chief executives were recruited by companies like General Electric and Procter & Gamble in the 1970s and 1980s for their overseas operations. Now they hold top positions at companies that also include Chiquita Brands International, the Eastman Kodak Company and the Kellogg Company. Chief executives at Dow Chemical, Altria and Alcoa started in foreign units of their companies.
“Even though they’re based in the United States, companies are less and less thinking of themselves as American companies,” said Michael Useem, a management professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
The ranks of top executives will probably become more international, as many business schools now fill their classes with 40 percent or more foreign students, and more companies recruit worldwide.
“It’s just a numbers game,” said S. P. Kothari, deputy dean of the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It’s absolutely nothing wrong with the United States, but our population here is only 300 million. Imagine two billion people from the outside start getting a decent education and going through the pipeline. Well, we are going to encounter more of them who rise to the top.”
Mr. Kothari, who grew up in India and attended business school there, has seen the trend firsthand. Some of his M.B.A. classmates from the early 1980s were recruited by Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Nike, he said, and now they are in line for top positions.
Marijn E. Dekkers, 50, the Dutch chief executive of Thermo Fisher Scientific, based in Waltham, Mass., came to the United States in 1985 through a General Electric program that required new hires to work their first stint in a continent far from their own.
“You’re not intimidated doing business with people who are different than you,” Mr. Dekkers said. “I’m more open to exploring Asian alliances and comfortable doing business in Asia, even though I’m from Europe.”
Executive recruiters at firms like Korn/Ferry International say that corporate boards are asking more for leaders with experience outside the United States. And American-born executives increasingly are spending part of their careers in different countries.
“As you move through the company and you’re looked at for a promotion, one of the things we’re going to look at is, do you have international experience?” said Susan Bishop, a spokeswoman for General Electric.
Some companies have long track records of appointing chief executives with foreign roots. Coca-Cola last week named Muhtar Kent, the company’s president and chief operating officer, to succeed E. Neville Isdell as chief executive. Mr. Isdell was born in Northern Ireland but moved to Zambia as a child. Mr. Kent was born in the United States but grew up in Turkey. (Previous chief executives included Roberto C. Goizueta and Douglas N. Daft, who were also born abroad.)
M. Farooq Kathwari, chief executive at Ethan Allen Interiors, said he had been shaped by his experience moving on his own at age 21 from the Kashmir region of India to the United States.
“A foreign-born person is by nature an entrepreneur,” Mr. Kathwari said. “When you leave your home, leave your family and come to a different country, you have had the instincts of an entrepreneur.”
Mr. Kathwari said his childhood in Kashmir, hiking up mountains, taught him the importance of pacing himself. The political conflict there, he said, taught him the importance of fairness. “Justice” is now a leadership principle at Ethan Allen.
Some chief executives, like Mr. Pandit at Citigroup, moved to the United States for their education. Indra K. Nooyi, the chief executive of PepsiCo, attended the Yale School of Management, and Sidney Taurel, the chief of Eli Lilly who was born in Morocco, attended Columbia Business School. Mr. Pandit earned undergraduate, master’s and doctorate degrees at Columbia.
Howard M. Anderson, a professor of entrepreneurship at the Sloan School at M.I.T., said change in the executive suite has come more slowly than companies’ sales growth abroad. He said that some corporate boards may still not be comfortable with foreign-born chief executives because they feel they have more in common with another American.
“It’s prejudice, but remember, when you’re picking a C.E.O., it’s not an equal opportunity job,” Mr. Anderson said.
But Ramani Ayer, the chief executive of the Hartford Financial Services Group, said he thought that because boards were accountable to shareholders who care about returns above all else, they would pick the best candidate, regardless of race or country of origin.
Mr. Ayer grew up in India, but moved to the United States to attend graduate school at Drexel University. He credits his bosses at the Hartford with helping guide him in his rise to the top, but he also said he had acquired a strong work ethic in India.
“I’ve benefited from my Indian background,” Mr. Ayer said. “Growing up in a very simple family with a real passion for hard work. In other words, you never stopped working. You just worked. Work was liberating and work was part of what defined who you were.”
No comments:
Post a Comment