 | U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao was one of the speakers at the CEO Leadership Summit sponsored by Yale SOM's Chief Executive Leadership Institute. |
Leaders of top-ranked corporations considered ways to restore the public's trust in America's chief executive officers (CEOs) at a program sponsored by the School of Management's Chief Executive Leadership Institute (CELI).
Titled "Global Commerce Will Never be the Same: Risks, Retreats & Resilience," the semi-annual CEO Leadership Summit examined challenges facing CEOs in the wake of the Enron scandal, which left America's corporate leaders under the public microscope of scrutiny and doubt. As evidenced daily in the business press, corporate leaders continue to be criticized for their role in eroding trust in the marketplace through their business practices and financial reporting.
Those attending the program, held at the end of May, included the executives of such firms as United Parcel Service, The Home Depot, Owens Corning, Campbell Soup, Pepsi, Toys "R" Us, Martha Stewart, Porsche, Harley-Davidson, Prudential, Yellow Freight, Medtronic and Odyssey Investors. The CEOs joined with shareholder activists Nell Minnow and Charles Elson, as well as top public policy figures including U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, Undersecretary of State Charlotte Beers and political strategist Ralph Reed. The event also included CEOs of such nonprofit enterprises as The Whitney Museum of Art, the Girl Scouts of America, Scientific American and the National Council on Aging, as well as the presidents of four universities.
The conference topics included issues high on CEOs' agendas these days, featuring sessions such as "Are Global Risks & Retreats Overstated," "Do Governance Metrics Matter?" and "Restoring Trust in Commerce."
While there was much lively debate among the participants, there was also general agreement on a few specific governance guidelines and on the condemnation of particular CEO power abuses. There was also general concern about safety, security and data integrity, with several participants offering suggestions for enhancing protection. At dinner in the New Haven Country Club, Secretary Chao called on the CEOs to find their collective voice and become active in policy development and reform initiatives.
In a special portion of the program, President Richard Levin and Yale alumnus Jonathan Bush paid tribute to centenarian Albert H. Gordon, a noted Wall Street executive and philanthropist. Gordon, who still works a full week as a financier, spoke to the group about his views on integrity, resilience, Yale/Harvard rivalry and investments. Gordon was also serenaded by Yale's Whim n' Rhythm and Whiffenpoofs.
CELI at Yale SOM is a combination think tank and corporate management education center that brings Yale faculty and students into a closer learning partnership with prominent leaders across sectors. CELI's invitation-only events remain the nation's only confidential, peer-driven CEO learning experience.
"CEOs are easily lionized or vilified but rarely given the opportunity to make themselves vulnerable for genuine learning -- especially in an off-the-record setting," comments CELI founder Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, associate dean of executive programs at Yale SOM. "We were delighted to have drawn together this extraordinary sample of the nation's top leaders and also to have created a climate of immediate trust. On top of this, we were thrilled to help showcase the intellectual power of this great university to the business community. Over a dozen top scholars from SOM joined us, in addition to such luminaries as Paul Kennedy and F&ES Dean Gus Speth."
The CEO Summit also coincided with the release of the Yale SOM-Gallup CEO Survey, a national poll of top business leaders. Among the survey's findings was that as many as a quarter of the polled top executives believe that their boards do not understand the firms they are overseeing. In addition, the CEOs stated that they trusted the integrity of their own top management more than the competence of their top management. (See the June 27 issue of the Yale Bulletin & Calendar.)
The Yale SOM's CELI expects to hold another CEO Summit early next year in New York City. To learn more about CELI, visit www.ceoleadership.com.
In conjunction with the summit for corporate leaders, CELI held a Leadership Exchange and Analysis Program (LEAP) for rising top executives.
The day before the CEO Leadership Summit, over a dozen academics from premier business schools around the country joined with a dozen chief operating, finance, technology and marketing officers for an intensive 28-hour executive roundtable. The scholars discussed topics from current best sellers and soon-to-be-published studies -- from strategy to governance, and from finance to leading change.
LEAP participants from companies such as Goldman Sachs, UPS, Jack in the Box and Praxair were also invited to sit in as observers during the CEO Summit. Over the subsequent six months, all LEAP executives will also participate in a field exchange bringing them side by side with the CEO and top management of a host company.
Often, executives choose to visit with a company in an entirely different industry so that they can "shake things up and really get a new perspective," says Sonnenfeld. "Many of our LEAP alums have gone on to become CEOs themselves. They've told us that having the chance to observe a wide variety of CEO leadership styles by sitting in on the CEO Summit and going in to another company really helped them to think beyond their functional expertise and enhance their external sophistication as a top leader."
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