Mannerisms

I can't tell you how I got this, or the real name of the CEO who wrote this diary, but it's an interesting insight into the daily routine of a serial CEO i.e. a CEO who is appointed by a company's investors and who typically goes from company to company as the CEO.  I have given him the pseudonym 'Ed'.

This is the fourth entry from the diary of Edward Rushbridger (a nom de plume to protect the owner's identity) which fell into my hands recently. Ed, a serial CEO, has been parachuted by venture capitalists into his latest company. He is, it seems, serially adept at putting his foot in it (see previous diary entries here, here and here).

Poor old Ed. I keep finding the most pitiable entries in his diary. Ed is a serial CEO who kept a diary which fell into my hands. In these published extracts I have given him the name Edward Rushbridger to protect his real identity. Ed seems to be having a rough old time of it after being parachuted into his latest company by the venture capitalist backers. Previous entries here, here, here and here document the trail of Ed's woes.

This is the third entry selected from the diary of Edward Rushbridger, (a nom de plume to protect the author) which fell into my hands recently. Previous entries can be found here and here. Ed is the type of CEO who goes from company to company at the behest of venture capitalists or private equity backers.

Ed is having a hellish time at his new company where he was parachuted into the CEO position by VCs. His diary, which fell into my hands recently, shows him lurching from humiliation to humiliation. In this entry, Ed goes out to meet a customer.

Ed has had a tough time gaining credibility since being imposed as CEO on  his latest company by the VC backers. His diary, which recently fell into my hands, shows that Ed decided to try and gain some respect by accepting an invitation to speak at an industry conference.

Ed has been imposed on his new company by the VC backers without the involvement of the directors, founders and management. Ed's brief is to prepare the company for an IPO. His diary, which recently came my way, reports Ed's early struggles as he tries to fit into his new environment.

Ed has struggled after being parchuted into his latest CEO position by VC backers who want to see a company spruced up for an IPO. In his diary, which recently came into my possession, I see he's pleased one day when the Chairman of his lead VC suggests they meet up for a round of golf.

Ed the serial CEO has been foisted on his new company by the VC backers who want Ed to dress up the company for its forthcoming IPO. Ed's diary, which recently came into my hands, shows Ed finding the situation less straightforward than he expected.

Ed is under pressure. The venture capitalist backers of his company, who put him in the CEO's chair, are demanding cuts in the R&D budget. The VCs are after maximising profitability before the IPO in about a year's time. However, the company's founders, who are on the board, are strongly against this.

'Oh dear', writes Ed in the diary entry immediately after his sacking of the CTO, 'today the analogue design team resigned.' 

Ed the Serial CEO has run into a spot of bother. After Ed sacked the CTO, the analogue IC design team resigned in protest, and Ed has to replace them, or see the company's new product programme compromised twelve months before the company's expected IPO.

Ed the Serial CEO  has had a pretty awful Christmas as his rellies quiz him on what he will do with the money he will make when his company IPOs, as planned, in 2010.

Ed the Serial CEO is looking forward to a brilliant year. At last, he reckons, he's going to make his pile. The company is scheduled to IPO during the year.

Ed's diary shows hi is starting the year feeling a bit bruised after getting a warning that some of the VCs might be getting disenchanted with him. However a pleasant chore awaits him.

Ed is feeling troubled since the sacking of company co-founder and CTO Pat Cook. It's not his conscience which is worrying him. It's not the loss of Pat's contribution to the business. It's not the bad feeling caused by forcing Pat out. And it's not even the brutal way the sacking was handled.

Ed is feeling he needs to do something to assert his authority. What better, he thinks, than to announce a product initiative? He calls the product managers to a meeting to announce his new strategic direction.

Ed the Serial CEO is happy to see that the orders are flooding in as the semiconductor market appears to be on an upwards trajectory. He is surprised to find that his product managers are only raising their orders for foundry silicon by 20-30%.

Ed The Serial CEO is scouring the company's accounts looking for costs he can cut out in order to make the company's figures look as good as possible for the impending IPO.

Ed the Serial CEO hits a problem. In this week's diary entry he discloses that he's just discovered that his shares don't fully vest until two years after the date proposed for the IPO.

Ed is looking to boost revenue ahead of his company's expected IPO. He's taken to going out to customers to see if there's any way he can persuade them to take more product.

Ed the Serial CEO is trying to generate some excitement about his company prior to the anticipated IPO towards the end of the year.

'After reading in the papers that Goldman Sachs regularly culls its bottom 10% performers, and remembering from Jack Welch's 'Straight from the Gut' that this was also the practice at GE, I decide this would be a useful discipline to bring to the company', writes Ed in his diary.

'At a meeting of semiconductor CEOs in Munich,' Ed confides to his diary, ' I meet a very switched on guy who told me he had a new kind of memory technology with ten year data retention and 100,000 write/erase cycles, and licenses were going very inexpensively because they needed a final tranche of development money.'