This Month From Knowledge@Wharton

Business Wire, Dec 3, 2007

Stories this month include "'CEO Succession: Has Grooming Talent on the Inside Gone by the Wayside?" and from India Knowledge@Wharton, "HCL Infosystems' Ajai Chowdhry: 'We See India as a Very Young Country'"

Plus: Podcasts on "Getting a Read on Amazon's New Kindle" and "The Subprime Drama Continues, but for How Long?"

PHILADELPHIA -- This past month some of the timely stories from Knowledge@Wharton , the Wharton School's online research and business analysis journal, which will soon launch a new India Knowledge@Wharton edition, include:

CEO Succession: Has Grooming Talent on the Inside Gone by the Wayside?

The recent departures of two chief executives -- Stanley O'Neal of Merrill Lynch and Charles Prince of Citigroup -- in the wake of major financial losses at their firms, have focused renewed attention on the issue of succession planning. Published reports speculated that both positions would be filled by outside candidates, and on November 14, Merrill Lynch announced that it had chosen John Thain, CEO of NYSE Euronext, to succeed O'Neal. While such a move is not surprising for a board wanting to signal a fresh start to investors, Wharton faculty say that, increasingly, companies are looking to fill top spots with external candidates, while spending less time on grooming future leaders and managing talent in general.

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1845.cfm

HCL Infosystems' Ajai Chowdhry: 'We See India as a Very Young Country'

HCL, one of India's -- and the world's -- first computer companies, was launched in 1976 by six co-founders. One of them, Ajai Chowdhry, is the CEO of HCL Infosystems, the company's Indian operation. During the 1980s, Chowdhry, an engineer with a flair for marketing, built HCL's international operations out of Singapore. In recent years, he has turned HCL Infosystems into a distributor of high-tech products ranging from Nokia's mobile phones to Apple's iPods. Chowdhry met with India Knowledge@Wharton in his office in Noida, near New Delhi, to discuss how HCL Infosystems has grown from annual sales of $89 million when he took over as CEO in 1994 to $2.7 billion today.

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/india/article.cfm?articleid=4240

Ted Leonsis: 'It's the Greatest Time to Be an Entrepreneur'

Meet the new consumers of the new media age. They want things to be better, faster, cheaper and, even more important, free, according to AOL vice chairman emeritus Ted Leonsis, who is considered an Internet pioneer and whose business portfolio over the years includes an impressive array of online companies. "We're living in a world where consumers have taken control of everything," he noted. Leonsis, a keynote speaker at the recent Wharton Entrepreneurship Conference 2007, offered his thoughts on making money, the Internet age, contradictions in today's consumers, the global marketplace, blogs and philanthropy, among other topics.

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1849.cfm

Good, Bad or Ugly -- Is It Impossible to Predict What's Ahead for the U.S. Economy?

At the end of October, the Federal Reserve gave the financial markets just what they had been asking for: a 0.25% cut in the federal funds rate. But in early November, stocks plunged and the dollar hit a new low. Applause turned into hand-wringing -- then back to applause as the markets rebounded in the middle of the month. Why can't the experts make up their minds? Is the outlook good or bad? According to Wharton faculty, forecasting is particularly hard now because some of the key factors -- such as the credit crunch arising from the subprime mortgage mess, spiking oil prices and the plunging dollar -- have little historical precedent. The result: Finance experts, including the Fed, may not be able to see too far down the road.

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1842.cfm

Google: In Search of Itself

In a span of four days earlier this month, Google launched an initiative to enable social networking tools to work across dozens of web sites and rounded up 33 partners to develop software to power a new generation of cell phones. While these efforts illustrate Google's determination to keep expanding its territory, they also increase the challenges faced by the $200 billion company. And they pose a question that seems to crop up more and more these days: Where is Google headed?

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1839.cfm

Emerging Market Mania: Is It Different This Time?

The sun is shining brightly at the moment on virtually all the world's emerging market economies. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index rose nearly 45% in the first nine months of 2007, with the IMF forecasting economic growth rates of 8% or higher, versus 2% to 3% for the OECD nations. Indeed, it's been difficult lately to find an emerging market anywhere that hasn't outperformed the developed world. Does all this fair weather for developing markets denote a permanent change in their fortunes? The topic was debated by a panel of experts at the recent Wharton Finance Conference in New York City.