Sunday, August 30, 2009
The Tough Problems
Women are beginning to learn how to deal with hard-core business problems. Exemplary issues include the debate over the leadership of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA), allegations that the California Board of Registered Nursing failed to act in a timely manner to de-register nurses charged with drug violations, performance lapses on the part of Child Protective Services staff, unauthorized and illegal snooping into private patient files at area hospitals, and the latest investigative reports that Los Angeles Unified School District failed to fire problematic teachers.
According to the WSJ.com Golf Forum article, "The LPGA’s Leadership Challenge," (July 31, 2009) at online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204886304574306691319784558.html.
the LPGA is facing a "players’ revolt" -– something like shareholder uprising. The executive director resigned -– reminiscent of like a forced executive turnover. Marsha Johnson Evans, retired Navy rear admiral, was elevated from board member to commissioner – sort of like naming a new CEO from the director pool. Shareholders and stakeholders in the LPGA include the member players and the LPGA Tournament Owners Association consisting of 25 independent entities from sponsors, tournament owners, nonprofits, sports marketing companies, and community organizations.
Press reports describe a three tier strategy that needs to be solidified for the LPGA to succeed.
First, they need to re-build a genuinely trusting and respectful relationship with the players, many of whom come from overseas.
Second, the LPGA Tour has to stop the hemorraging of tournaments: in 2008 there were 34, in 2009 there are 28, but in 2010 there were only 14 commitments. Tournament owners and sponsors both had lost confidence in the LPGA leadership.
The third and final constituency to be wooed includes advertisers, marketers, and the media.
Ironically, the previous executive director focused on the third priority: finalizing a 10 year contract with the Golf Channel to provide the LPGA with a long-term window into the media, the last leg of the triangle.
The job Ms. Evans faces is both to find a new leader willing to take on the multi-headed hydra which the LPGA has become, but also, meanwhile, to operate this multi-ship fleet of diverse operational units and get them all going in the same direction for a change. It’s not just a simple challenge of re-building a broken team spirit. Rather, this must seem much more lot like "herding kittens" to Ms. Evans. Which it is.
According to the WSJ.com Golf Forum article, "The LPGA’s Leadership Challenge," (July 31, 2009) at online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204886304574306691319784558.html.
the LPGA is facing a "players’ revolt" -– something like shareholder uprising. The executive director resigned -– reminiscent of like a forced executive turnover. Marsha Johnson Evans, retired Navy rear admiral, was elevated from board member to commissioner – sort of like naming a new CEO from the director pool. Shareholders and stakeholders in the LPGA include the member players and the LPGA Tournament Owners Association consisting of 25 independent entities from sponsors, tournament owners, nonprofits, sports marketing companies, and community organizations.
Press reports describe a three tier strategy that needs to be solidified for the LPGA to succeed.
First, they need to re-build a genuinely trusting and respectful relationship with the players, many of whom come from overseas.
Second, the LPGA Tour has to stop the hemorraging of tournaments: in 2008 there were 34, in 2009 there are 28, but in 2010 there were only 14 commitments. Tournament owners and sponsors both had lost confidence in the LPGA leadership.
The third and final constituency to be wooed includes advertisers, marketers, and the media.
Ironically, the previous executive director focused on the third priority: finalizing a 10 year contract with the Golf Channel to provide the LPGA with a long-term window into the media, the last leg of the triangle.
The job Ms. Evans faces is both to find a new leader willing to take on the multi-headed hydra which the LPGA has become, but also, meanwhile, to operate this multi-ship fleet of diverse operational units and get them all going in the same direction for a change. It’s not just a simple challenge of re-building a broken team spirit. Rather, this must seem much more lot like "herding kittens" to Ms. Evans. Which it is.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Girl Taxi
In the JULY 25, 2009 Wall Street Journal article, "'Girl Taxi' Service Offers Haven to Beirut's Women" by Don Duncan
online.wsj.com/article/SB124847696096780319.html we learn that a business-minded Lebanese woman (Nawal Fashri) has invested successfully in a fleet of a dozen pink Peugeots tooling around 24 hours a day, providing safe and essential transportation to women, and earning $200,000 in sales this year. Brava to Banet Taxi (”girl taxi”)! The business idea is also succeeding in Dubai, Tehran, and Cairo – all locations in which the Muslum faith bars women from driving and unchaperoned interactions between genders, with the result that women have a demand for secure taxi services offered by women.
Not only is invention the mother of necessity, but it also seems as if mother is an inventor of necessity.
online.wsj.com/article/SB124847696096780319.html we learn that a business-minded Lebanese woman (Nawal Fashri) has invested successfully in a fleet of a dozen pink Peugeots tooling around 24 hours a day, providing safe and essential transportation to women, and earning $200,000 in sales this year. Brava to Banet Taxi (”girl taxi”)! The business idea is also succeeding in Dubai, Tehran, and Cairo – all locations in which the Muslum faith bars women from driving and unchaperoned interactions between genders, with the result that women have a demand for secure taxi services offered by women.
Not only is invention the mother of necessity, but it also seems as if mother is an inventor of necessity.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Janet Tavakoli
It’s clear that Janet Tavakoli can speak for herself. Anyone trying to understand the meltdown of the financial marketplace would be well advised to listen to her and to read her books on structured finance, credit derivatives and the causes of our current financial mess.
She founded Tavakoli Structured Finance as a consulting corporation in Chicago on March 13, 2003 after a long career inside the major financial investment entities of the 21st century. She’s provided expert reports on many major litigations involving financial institutions to the tune of over $1.2 billion in consolidated litigation total claims.
Following are some outstanding interviews in print and video:
C-Span interview (July 16, 2009) – a must-see TV! Janet Tavakoli On The Causes Of The Global Financial Meltdown
zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/07/janet-tavakoli-on-causes-of-global.html
Get Briefed: Interview with Janet Tavakoli, by David Serchuk, Forbes.com (April 24, 2009)
Janet Tavakoli in a Q&A on housing, credit and who's to blame for the financial crisis.
www.forbes.com/2009/04/24/janet-tavakoli-pre-intelligent-investing-credit.html
The Cassandra of Credit Derivatives by Ann C. Logue of Business Week (January 28, 2008)
www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jan2008/db20080128_934507.htm
Her comments on the SEC's proposed rule-making on nationally recognized statistical ratings organizations (NRSROs)were submitted in a letter (February 13, 2007)
www.sec.gov/comments/s7-04-07/s70407-1.pdf
She authored The Elusive Income of Synthetic CDOs for The Journal of Structured Finance Vol. 11, No. 4: 48-58 (Winter 2006)
www.iijournals.com/doi/abs/10.3905/jsf.2006.614082
Authored the following books:
Dear Mr. Buffett: What An Investor Learns 1,269 Miles From Wall Street (Wiley: January 9, 2009)
Structured Finance and Collateralized Debt Obligations: New Developments in Cash and Synthetic Securitization (Wiley Finance; 2d edition: September 16, 2008; 1st edition, August 28, 2003)
Credit Derivatives & Synthetic Structures: A Guide to Instruments and Applications (Wiley; 2d edition: June 29, 2001; 1st edition: 1998)
Ms. Tavakoli’s professional experience includes:
• Product Development Specialist for the Global Risk Management Department at The First National Bank of Chicago.
• Vice President at the Chicago branch of Bank of America, where she was responsible for the company′s marketing of global derivatives and managed its CreditMetrics initiative.
• Executive Director, Head of Financial Engineering, Global Financial Markets Division, Westdeutsche Landesbank, London
• Head, Market Risk Management, Capital Markets Group, Bank One, Chicago
• Head, Asset Swap Trading Desk, Merrill Lynch, NYC
• Head, Mortgage Backed Securities Marketing to Japanese clients, PaineWebber, NYC
• Head, Quantitative Research Marketing, Bear Stearns, analyzing the assets and liabilities of large U.S. portfolios
Ms. Tavakoli spent the summers of 1999 and 2000 as an adjunct associate professor of finance at Chicago Booth (the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business) teaching "Derivatives: Futures, Forwards, Options and Swaps".
In 1994/1995, she joined the London office of Mitsubishi Finance International as a director working on financial derivatives, structuring and marketing bonds for European and U.S. investors. (Source: Feb 1995, University of Chicago alumni news)
Salomon Brothers offered her a job in New York in 1985. “I was in the Liar’s Poker training program,” she says, referring to Michael Lewis’s 1989 Wall Street exposé.
MBA, 1981 - Finance, Booth School of Business, University of Chicago: where she was
in Merton Miller’s Corporate Finance class. (a prominent authority on derivatives who shared the 1990 Nobel prize in Economics with Harry Markowitz and William Sharpe).
Married and moved to Iran with her husband, returned in 1979 during the Iranian revolution.
B.S., 1975 - Chemical Engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology
1953 – born Janet von Hebenstreit in Chicago, IL
She also refers us to an insightful articles by Allan Sloan, Fortune:
“Junk mortgages under the microscope: a close-up of one deal shows how subprime mortgages went bad,” Fortune (October 16, 2007) by Allan Sloan, Fortune senior editor-at-large
money.cnn.com/2007/10/15/markets/junk_mortgages.fortune/index.htm
She founded Tavakoli Structured Finance as a consulting corporation in Chicago on March 13, 2003 after a long career inside the major financial investment entities of the 21st century. She’s provided expert reports on many major litigations involving financial institutions to the tune of over $1.2 billion in consolidated litigation total claims.
Following are some outstanding interviews in print and video:
zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/07/janet-tavakoli-on-causes-of-global.html
Janet Tavakoli in a Q&A on housing, credit and who's to blame for the financial crisis.
www.forbes.com/2009/04/24/janet-tavakoli-pre-intelligent-investing-credit.html
www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jan2008/db20080128_934507.htm
Her comments on the SEC's proposed rule-making on nationally recognized statistical ratings organizations (NRSROs)were submitted in a letter (February 13, 2007)
www.sec.gov/comments/s7-04-07/s70407-1.pdf
She authored The Elusive Income of Synthetic CDOs for The Journal of Structured Finance Vol. 11, No. 4: 48-58 (Winter 2006)
www.iijournals.com/doi/abs/10.3905/jsf.2006.614082
Authored the following books:
Dear Mr. Buffett: What An Investor Learns 1,269 Miles From Wall Street (Wiley: January 9, 2009)Structured Finance and Collateralized Debt Obligations: New Developments in Cash and Synthetic Securitization (Wiley Finance; 2d edition: September 16, 2008; 1st edition, August 28, 2003)
Credit Derivatives & Synthetic Structures: A Guide to Instruments and Applications (Wiley; 2d edition: June 29, 2001; 1st edition: 1998)
Ms. Tavakoli’s professional experience includes:
• Product Development Specialist for the Global Risk Management Department at The First National Bank of Chicago.
• Vice President at the Chicago branch of Bank of America, where she was responsible for the company′s marketing of global derivatives and managed its CreditMetrics initiative.
• Executive Director, Head of Financial Engineering, Global Financial Markets Division, Westdeutsche Landesbank, London
• Head, Market Risk Management, Capital Markets Group, Bank One, Chicago
• Head, Asset Swap Trading Desk, Merrill Lynch, NYC
• Head, Mortgage Backed Securities Marketing to Japanese clients, PaineWebber, NYC
• Head, Quantitative Research Marketing, Bear Stearns, analyzing the assets and liabilities of large U.S. portfolios
Ms. Tavakoli spent the summers of 1999 and 2000 as an adjunct associate professor of finance at Chicago Booth (the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business) teaching "Derivatives: Futures, Forwards, Options and Swaps".
In 1994/1995, she joined the London office of Mitsubishi Finance International as a director working on financial derivatives, structuring and marketing bonds for European and U.S. investors. (Source: Feb 1995, University of Chicago alumni news)
Salomon Brothers offered her a job in New York in 1985. “I was in the Liar’s Poker training program,” she says, referring to Michael Lewis’s 1989 Wall Street exposé.
MBA, 1981 - Finance, Booth School of Business, University of Chicago: where she was
in Merton Miller’s Corporate Finance class. (a prominent authority on derivatives who shared the 1990 Nobel prize in Economics with Harry Markowitz and William Sharpe).
Married and moved to Iran with her husband, returned in 1979 during the Iranian revolution.
B.S., 1975 - Chemical Engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology
1953 – born Janet von Hebenstreit in Chicago, IL
She also refers us to an insightful articles by Allan Sloan, Fortune:
“Junk mortgages under the microscope: a close-up of one deal shows how subprime mortgages went bad,” Fortune (October 16, 2007) by Allan Sloan, Fortune senior editor-at-large
money.cnn.com/2007/10/15/markets/junk_mortgages.fortune/index.htm
Monday, August 10, 2009
Evelyn Y. Davis
Happy Birthday, Evelyn Yvonne DeJong Davis!
She will be 80 years old this Sunday, August 16 -- born in Amsterdam, The Netherlands in 1929. She’s called "Queen of the Corporate Jungle" and "The Corporate Gadfly." People magazine called her "America's Most Dreaded Corporate Gadfly." U.S. News & World Report described her as "the woman they [chief executive officers] love to avoid."
It is amazing that there is just one of her: one woman willing to challenge the corporate behemoths on their home turf, at their annual proxy meetings which she’s attended since 1960. They say her personal wealth is upward of $3 million and that she holds about $700,000 shares spread across 120 companies. She attends between 30 and 40 shareholder meetings annually. She edits an annual newsletter for corporate presidents and CEOs, Highlights and Lowlights, which she began publishing in 1963 to report on corporate governance, executive compensation, shareholder meetings, shareholder proposals, and selected regulatory actions. They also say she sort of coerces CEOs to sign on at $480 per subscription.
In 1989, she formed the Evelyn Y. Davis Foundation through which she has donated generously to universities, business schools, arts organizations, museums and hospitals. In January 2004, she contributed $100,000 to the University of Pennsylvania to endow a scholarship for students pursuing careers in business or political journalism. In May 2005, she gave $75,000 to support two National Trust Historic Sites, Cooper-Molera Adobe and Decatur House. The gift also went to assist the renovation of the lobby at National Trust headquarters in Washington, D.C. In January 2007, she gave $100,000 to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication to endow four annual scholarships for senior undergraduate students interested in careers in business journalism or political journalism. In November 2007, she gave $100,000 to establish the Evelyn Y. Davis Fund at the Yale School of Management (SOM) in support of the programs and activities of the Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance. In January 2008, she gave $100,000 to support students in the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business Administration. In 2008, she donated $100,000 to Riggs Emergency Department at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas.
On April Fools Day, 2009, Ms. Davis rang The Closing Bell® as the New York Stock Exchange honored her contributions to the financial markets as an investor and shareholder advocate. Did they pick that date or did she?
In September 2005, she married James E. Patterson, a retired U.S. Agriculture Department agricultural affairs officer to Mexico City. It is her fourth marriage and his first.
She’s impressive, if abrasive. Sometimes we need that in our shareholders’ meetings to make sure we’re not being sold a bill of goods. She’s earned the right to speak up and ask tough questions. She’s bought the stock, she’s read the proxy statements, she knows good from bad governance, and she knows when shareholders are being taken for a ride.
Happy Birthday, Ms. Davis. And here’s to many many more!
She will be 80 years old this Sunday, August 16 -- born in Amsterdam, The Netherlands in 1929. She’s called "Queen of the Corporate Jungle" and "The Corporate Gadfly." People magazine called her "America's Most Dreaded Corporate Gadfly." U.S. News & World Report described her as "the woman they [chief executive officers] love to avoid."
It is amazing that there is just one of her: one woman willing to challenge the corporate behemoths on their home turf, at their annual proxy meetings which she’s attended since 1960. They say her personal wealth is upward of $3 million and that she holds about $700,000 shares spread across 120 companies. She attends between 30 and 40 shareholder meetings annually. She edits an annual newsletter for corporate presidents and CEOs, Highlights and Lowlights, which she began publishing in 1963 to report on corporate governance, executive compensation, shareholder meetings, shareholder proposals, and selected regulatory actions. They also say she sort of coerces CEOs to sign on at $480 per subscription.
In 1989, she formed the Evelyn Y. Davis Foundation through which she has donated generously to universities, business schools, arts organizations, museums and hospitals. In January 2004, she contributed $100,000 to the University of Pennsylvania to endow a scholarship for students pursuing careers in business or political journalism. In May 2005, she gave $75,000 to support two National Trust Historic Sites, Cooper-Molera Adobe and Decatur House. The gift also went to assist the renovation of the lobby at National Trust headquarters in Washington, D.C. In January 2007, she gave $100,000 to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication to endow four annual scholarships for senior undergraduate students interested in careers in business journalism or political journalism. In November 2007, she gave $100,000 to establish the Evelyn Y. Davis Fund at the Yale School of Management (SOM) in support of the programs and activities of the Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance. In January 2008, she gave $100,000 to support students in the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business Administration. In 2008, she donated $100,000 to Riggs Emergency Department at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas.
On April Fools Day, 2009, Ms. Davis rang The Closing Bell® as the New York Stock Exchange honored her contributions to the financial markets as an investor and shareholder advocate. Did they pick that date or did she?
In September 2005, she married James E. Patterson, a retired U.S. Agriculture Department agricultural affairs officer to Mexico City. It is her fourth marriage and his first.
She’s impressive, if abrasive. Sometimes we need that in our shareholders’ meetings to make sure we’re not being sold a bill of goods. She’s earned the right to speak up and ask tough questions. She’s bought the stock, she’s read the proxy statements, she knows good from bad governance, and she knows when shareholders are being taken for a ride.
Happy Birthday, Ms. Davis. And here’s to many many more!
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Christine Varney
Christine Varney is an advocate of aggressive antitrust regulation, based on sound economics.
She was named (confirmed April 2009) as Assistant Attorney General to the Department of Justice for the Antitrust Division (reporting to Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli). For a more details, see her profile in: www.whorunsgov.com.
She was personnel counsel to the Obama-Biden Transition team (November 2008 to January 2009). Previously, she was general counsel to the Democratic National Committee (1989 to 1992), chief counsel to the Clinton/Gore Campaign, and general counsel to the 1992 Presidential Inaugural Committee. As Assistant to President Clinton and Secretary to the Cabinet, she was a liaison between the White House and cabinet departments. She was a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s Presidential campaign bid in 2008.
From 1997 to 2009, Ms. Varney was a partner at Hogan & Hartson’s Washington, D.C. office heading up the firm’s Internet Practice Group and was an associate at that firm from 1990 to 1992. Her practice included providing advice and counsel on antitrust, regulatory, consumer protection, privacy and intellectual property in various industries, including technology, media, airlines and health care. She has also provided her expertise to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on international competition issues. She had rejoined Hogan & Hartson in 1997 after serving five years in the government.
From 1994 to 1997, (in the Clinton Administration) Ms. Varney was a Commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) working on a wide variety of information policy and technology-related issues including innovation markets, vertical theory and privacy issues in the information age.
She was involved in establishing industry self-regulation associations, such as the Network Advertising Initiative and Online Privacy Alliance, designed to identify Internet best practices.
She is a member of several committees of the American Bar Association including the Antitrust Section and served as Chair of the Committee on Election Law. She has lectured in the United States and abroad and has published articles on a variety of issues, including the computer industry, media, and privacy and data security.
Ms. Varney received a B.A. from The State University of New York, University at Albany in 1977, an M.P.A. from Syracuse University in 1978, and a J.D. from Georgetown University in 1986. She is married to Thomas Varney, they have two sons and live in New York.
She was named (confirmed April 2009) as Assistant Attorney General to the Department of Justice for the Antitrust Division (reporting to Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli). For a more details, see her profile in: www.whorunsgov.com.
She was personnel counsel to the Obama-Biden Transition team (November 2008 to January 2009). Previously, she was general counsel to the Democratic National Committee (1989 to 1992), chief counsel to the Clinton/Gore Campaign, and general counsel to the 1992 Presidential Inaugural Committee. As Assistant to President Clinton and Secretary to the Cabinet, she was a liaison between the White House and cabinet departments. She was a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s Presidential campaign bid in 2008.
From 1997 to 2009, Ms. Varney was a partner at Hogan & Hartson’s Washington, D.C. office heading up the firm’s Internet Practice Group and was an associate at that firm from 1990 to 1992. Her practice included providing advice and counsel on antitrust, regulatory, consumer protection, privacy and intellectual property in various industries, including technology, media, airlines and health care. She has also provided her expertise to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on international competition issues. She had rejoined Hogan & Hartson in 1997 after serving five years in the government.
From 1994 to 1997, (in the Clinton Administration) Ms. Varney was a Commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) working on a wide variety of information policy and technology-related issues including innovation markets, vertical theory and privacy issues in the information age.
She was involved in establishing industry self-regulation associations, such as the Network Advertising Initiative and Online Privacy Alliance, designed to identify Internet best practices.
She is a member of several committees of the American Bar Association including the Antitrust Section and served as Chair of the Committee on Election Law. She has lectured in the United States and abroad and has published articles on a variety of issues, including the computer industry, media, and privacy and data security.
Ms. Varney received a B.A. from The State University of New York, University at Albany in 1977, an M.P.A. from Syracuse University in 1978, and a J.D. from Georgetown University in 1986. She is married to Thomas Varney, they have two sons and live in New York.
