Sercer - Find news the fast way - server » Postcards

When Zuckerberg decided Facebook is a business

Patricia Sellers — Fri, 18 May 2012 16:51:18 +0000

"Originally, we were not planning on expanding or anything." - Mark Zuckerberg, August 2006

As Facebook (FB) launched its IPO this morning, I plowed into my archives and found notes from Mark Zuckerberg's visit to Fortune six years ago. The Facebook founder was a 22-year-old Harvard dropout and virgin CEO. I was reporting a cover story about MySpace, then the hottest social-networking site on the planet.

Zuck had a plan to change MORE

Coke CEO Kent’s leadership lesson

Patricia Sellers — Thu, 17 May 2012 14:50:54 +0000

My dad died last week, and I was lucky enough to spend most of his last month with him in Pennsylvania. A great time, a great life, no regrets. Hours before he died, I got an email from Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent, wishing my dad well and commenting on my Coke story in the current Fortune 500 issue. My dad never got the chance to see the story, but I MORE

Muhtar Kent’s new Coke

Patricia Sellers — Thu, 10 May 2012 09:00:56 +0000

In four years as CEO of the Coca-Cola Co., he has cranked up profits and trumped Pepsi in the beverage wars. Now Kent is shaking up Coke's culture and remaking the company in his own image.

FORTUNE -- Muhtar Kent, the son of a Turkish diplomat, grew up in Thailand, India, and Iran, and he runs a company that operates in more than 200 countries. So it is rare for him MORE

Buffett spotlights assistant, tosses papers with Bill Gates

Patricia Sellers — Sat, 05 May 2012 16:44:41 +0000

I had planned to be in Omaha for Warren Buffett's big weekend. But I'm in Pennsylvania with my very sick dad. Trading emails this morning with CNN's Poppy Harlow, I asked her if she would do a Guest Post for Postcards. Thank you, Poppy, for this terrific report on the Berkshire Hathaway annual festivities.

by Poppy Harlow, CNN Correspondent

This morning in Omaha, Warren Buffett welcomed some 35,000 Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA) shareholders MORE

Hillary Clinton welcomes Fortune MPW mentees

Colleen Leahey, Reporter — Tue, 01 May 2012 16:29:54 +0000

The secretary of state welcomed participants into a program that connects rising businesswomen from emerging economies with U.S. corporate superstars.

FORTUNE -- The glasses of Sauvignon Blanc being passed about wasn't what was fueling the buzz that filled the U.S. State Department's Jefferson Room Monday evening. Instead, it was the knowledge that the "strongest advocate for women in the world," as assistant secretary of state Ann Stock put it, was about MORE

Wal-Mart recruits a Googler, and it’s a trend

Patricia Sellers — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 14:16:41 +0000

The news that Wal-Mart (WMT) has invited Google (GOOG) VP Marissa Mayer to join its board of directors signals a trend. Fortune 500 boards are looking hard to recruit social media experts. And their quest is bringing a lot of women to the directors' table.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg is on the Walt Disney (DIS) board.

Clara Shih recently joined the board of Starbucks (SBUX). The founder-CEO of hot startup Hearsay Social replaced Sandberg, MORE

How Avon chose its new CEO

Patricia Sellers — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 19:37:07 +0000

With today's news that Johnson & Johnson's (JNJ) Sheri McCoy is replacing Andrea Jung as CEO of Avon Products (AVP), the Fortune 500 now has two cases of woman-to-woman handoffs.

The first? Xerox (XRX), where Ursula Burns succeeded Anne Mulcahy two years ago.

That transition has been a good one. While Avon is mired in all sorts of trouble--including an unsolicited $10 billion takeover bid from fragrance giant Coty--this succession also looks MORE

Climb the ladder and keep your cool

Patricia Sellers — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 14:16:53 +0000

This week's issue of Fortune includes Best Advice from Kevin Ryan, a master builder of startups who is co-founder and CEO of Gilt Groupe.

Ryan's partner at the helm of Gilt, chairman Susan Lyne, also has wisdom to share--about handling high-bar assignments with finesse. Lyne has worked for an unrivaled lineup of demanding bosses, rarely letting them see her sweat: She developed films for Jane Fonda, launched Premiere magazine for Rupert Murdoch, ran ABC Entertainment for MORE

Will Oprah disown OWN?

Patricia Sellers — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:36:31 +0000

If she wrote a book about OWN, Oprah Winfrey said on CBS This Morning yesterday, she could call it 101 Mistakes.

Oprah's No. 1 error? Launching her cable TV network "when we really weren't ready to launch," she confessed to best friend Gayle King and her co-host, Charlie Rose.

About her 15-month-old joint venture with Discovery Communications (DISCA), Oprah added: "Had I known it was this difficult, I might have done something else."

With MORE

The powerhouse behind The Hunger Games

Patricia Sellers — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 17:01:30 +0000

Sometimes bad things happen for good reason. So it goes with Nina Jacobson, the producer of The Hunger Games.

Jacobson was in the hospital, with her partner in labor and her father in intensive care, six years ago when her boss at Disney (DIS) fired her over the phone. "Can you come in?" Dick Cook asked Jacobson, then president of the company's Buena Vista movie studio. "No, I really can't," Jacobson MORE

Powerful women fund Gen-Y startup

Patricia Sellers — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 12:18:40 +0000

If you're creating a career platform for aspiring Gen-Y women, it's smart to line up star businesswomen as angel investors. Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg, Gilt Groupe's Susan Lyne, and serial entrepreneur Gina Bianchini invested slivers of the $1.25 million that Levo League has raised to get off the ground, but so what that their stakes are tiny? The two young entrepreneurs behind the new site know how to ask for help MORE

Why women are out-earning men

Patricia Sellers — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 15:44:30 +0000

Women are poised to become America's biggest breadwinners.

The tipping point is a generation away, assuming women's economic power keeps rising as expected. But already, the trend is stunning enough that TIME made it the subject of its current cover.

"Almost 40% of working wives out-earn their husbands," noted Liza Mundy, author of "The Richer Sex"--both the cover story and a new book that goes by the same title--at a breakfast in MORE

Ohio governor’s career-making moment

Patricia Sellers — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 16:25:52 +0000

Spending time with college kids makes you think about formative career moments. Having shared this story with one of my favorite 18-year-olds over the weekend, I realize it's worth sharing with you too.

Last week in Columbus, Ohio, I had dinner with Mark Kvamme, renowned as a Silicon Valley guy through and through. A Valley native and longtime partner at Sequoia Capital--and early backer of LinkedIn (LNKD)--Kvamme had a "moment" in MORE

British women need to be more “American”

Stephanie N. Mehta, Executive Editor — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 16:28:29 +0000

Today, International Women's Day, brings news that progress in the boardroom remains feeble: 10% of directors' seats worldwide are held by women, according to a new report. Meanwhile, as the U.K. contemplates quotas for corporate boards, a British businesswoman exhorts her countrywomen to assert themselves.-Pattie Sellers

By Domini Pettifar, joint managing director, dnx marketing

Do British businesswomen need more swagger? It is a question I raise, in all seriousness, as the MORE

Xerox CEO Burns on the rising value of reputation

Patricia Sellers — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 14:25:31 +0000

Playing a key role in the Xerox (XRX) corporate turnaround, serving on the American Express (AXP) board, doing big deals with Procter and Gamble (PG)—all these things give Ursula Burns unique perspective on the value of corporate reputation. The Xerox chief knows from personal experience how reputation can make or break a company.

Burns takes reputation very seriously. When I asked her to answer a few questions for Fortune's Most Admired MORE

Stand by your Madoff

Patricia Sellers — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 10:00:00 +0000

Catherine Hooper moved in with her boyfriend, Andrew Madoff, three days before his father confessed to the fraud that shook the world. She stuck around. Now Catherine and Andrew are building a business together.

FORTUNE -- Inside the Manhattan apartment of Catherine Hooper and Andrew Madoff, there is a spare bedroom containing items one might need in case disaster strikes. Titanium flashlights, solar battery chargers, and duct tape line one shelf. MORE

Citigroup’s Terri Dial: a “human cyclone” to the end

Patricia Sellers — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 17:52:42 +0000

Tough, tenacious and famously strong-willed, Terri Dial picked up the nickname "the human cyclone" during her four-decade career in banking.

She lived up to her reputation until she died yesterday afternoon, from pancreatic cancer, at age 62.

Rising from teller to CEO of Wells Fargo Bank, a subsidiary of Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), Dial went on to head UK retail banking at Lloyds TSB. In 2008, Citigroup (C) CEO Vikram Pandit MORE

Starbucks’ ex-CEO leads a new team

Patricia Sellers — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 17:31:14 +0000

It's a rare case when a Fortune 500 CEO gets ousted, and then the guy wearing the boot divvies out praise. But this is what happened after Howard Schultz fired Jim Donald as CEO of Starbucks (SBUX) and replaced him with himself. "You cannot meet a kinder human being," says Schultz about Donald in his book, Onward, about Starbucks' turnaround. "A natural talent for building relationships at every level of MORE

Why the guy got the CEO job at J&J

Patricia Sellers — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 17:35:21 +0000

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) watchers--and many insiders too--were betting that Sheri McCoy would be the health-care giant's next CEO. This week, the guy, Alex Gorsky, got the job instead.

What happened?

The contest to succeed chief Bill Weldon, which started in earnest two years ago, was extremely close between the two vice chairmen, according to my sources close to J&J. While some have speculated that the board favored Gorsky, 51, because he's MORE

Wealth advice from Arianna’s mom

Patricia Sellers — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:44:24 +0000

When I ask powerful women what made them who they are (a question I've asked constantly over the years), they often tell me about their parents and then say, "Oh, my mother...!"

So when I read one mother's take on the topic of wealth, below, it struck a familiar chord. The passage is from Unbinding the Heart, a new book by Agapi Stassinopoulos, Arianna Huffington's sister. I knew a little about MORE

Will peer pressure help women?

Patricia Sellers — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:14:13 +0000

Sheryl Sandberg keeps on giving. Journalistically, that is. Last week, here on Postcards, we riffed on the New York Times profile of Sandberg, whose ambition for young women in business seems to match her ambition for Facebook, where she is COO. That is: Just do it...take over the world.

On Saturday, CNN.com ran a story titled "How to have more Sheryl Sandbergs." The key? "Peer influence," posed the authors, Courtney E. MORE

Startup advice: Find the shortest distance from A to B

Patricia Sellers — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:59:07 +0000

The best entrepreneurs see a gap in the market and fill it. Today, the start of Fashion Week in New York, is a good time to share lessons from Mona Bijoor, who spotted inefficiency in the fashion industry and created a company to fix it. With $2.25 million from Battery Ventures and angel investors, Bijoor, 34, is building an online marketplace for boutiques and brands to buy and sell contemporary women's MORE

Facebook COO Sandberg’s next crusade?

Patricia Sellers — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:25:48 +0000

Sunday brought another glowing profile of Sheryl Sandberg. The Facebook COO, who is No. 12 on Fortune's Most Powerful Women list, is on a PR roll. Though being called "the Justin Bieber of tech" in the New York Times comes close, I think, to jumping the shark image-wise.

The Times article honed in on Sandberg's third "job" besides playing backup to Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook and wife and mother to her MORE

How Indianapolis won the Super Bowl: a lesson in persuasion

Patricia Sellers — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:03:09 +0000

When I read in the New York Times last Sunday that Indianapolis won the opportunity to host the Super Bowl by sending a bunch of eighth graders to appeal to NFL team owners across the U.S., I wanted to know more about this tale of masterful persuasion. So I called Allison Melangton. the president and CEO of the Indianapolis Super Bowl Host Committee, and asked her if she would elaborate. I MORE

Sandberg’s Facebook pay places her on top

Patricia Sellers — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:53:17 +0000

Who is Facebook's highest-paid executive? Sheryl Sandberg.

The Facebook COO received a base salary of just $300,000 last year, but Sandberg's total comp turned out to be $30.8 million, according to Facebook's pre-IPO filings. Meanwhile, her boss, CEO Mark Zuckerberg, got $500,000 in salary and some $1.5 million in total comp. (Don't feel too sorry for Zuckerberg. The 27-year-old boss owns more than a quarter of the company he co-founded--a stake MORE

Before Google, the Wojcicki girls learned from Mom

Patricia Sellers — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:06:59 +0000

Her daughter Susan is the most powerful woman at Google (GOOG). Her daughter Anne started 23andMe, a company that dissects your DNA makeup. Her daughter Janet is a PhD anthropologist and epidemiologist.

You have to figure that Esther Wojcicki taught her daughters pretty well.

The mother of Silicon Valley's well-known Wojcicki sisters is, in fact, being honored today, Digital Learning Day, as one of a small group of "great teachers" who use technology MORE

The money behind Glenn Close’s Oscar bid

Patricia Sellers — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:47:54 +0000

When I ran into Glenn Close at the Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA) annual meeting last spring, she told me that the movie she had just completed, Albert Nobbs, was one of the most challenging projects of her career.

This morning, Close got an Academy Award nomination for her offbeat role in the film: Close plays a woman posing as a man in order to get a job and survive in nineteenth-century Dublin. MORE

Where the girls aren’t: finance…and are? Healthcare

Patricia Sellers — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:39:24 +0000

Lisa Suennen is one of the few big-deal venture capitalists in health care. Not that this distinction makes her happy or proud.

Suennen, whose Psilos Group has $577 million under management, would rather see more of her kind in her industry, as she wrote today in a Guest Post on my colleague Dan Primack's Term Sheet. Attending JPMorgan's Healthcare Conference last week in San Francisco, Suennen noticed that only about 10% MORE

Handler and Huffington on managing stress and life

Patricia Sellers — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 16:23:19 +0000

Chelsea Handler showed us a new side of her media brand-ness last night on the premiere of the NBC (CMCSA) sitcom Are You There, Chelsea? The standup comic/late-night TV host/best-selling author/rising-star entrepreneur plays main character Chelsea's pregnant and proper sister on the show.

Let's be clear, this is not Handler's fantasy life. At the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit in October, Arianna Huffington tried her best to convince Handler of the MORE

Social media success Rx: “Be a little crazy”

Patricia Sellers — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 15:22:32 +0000

Clara Shih is an early achiever. At age five, she arrived in the U.S., from Hong Kong, with her parents. With no access to bilingual education, she was initially placed in special classes for kids with speech impediments and advanced so rapidly that she scored a 1420 on her SATs -- in eighth grade. She started her company, Hearsay Social, at age 27, made Fortune's list of Most Powerful Women MORE