Verbatim Transcript of Rosen
Heres something that I got from a friend at Compaq texas_zippy
Apr 20 1999
3:55PM EDT
Office of the Chief Executive's Management Communication Meeting
Compaq Chairman Benjamin M. Rosen and directors and vice chairmen Frank P. Doyle and Robert Ted Enloe, III – the three members of the Office of the Chief Executive – led a worldwide management teleconference Monday, in which they discussed Compaq's future direction. An edited transcript of that session is published here.
Mr. Rosen: Good morning, everybody. This is a new role for me, although I've been with Compaq since it started in February of 1982. Let me tell you why we're here today. I want to discuss what happened over the weekend, where we are now, how we're going to operate, and where we're going. Yesterday, as you know, Eckhard Pfeiffer submitted his resignation to the board of Compaq Computer and Earl Mason also submitted his. Earl, as you know, is going to become a chief executive of a food company in the Midwest.
We have formed an Office of the Chief Executive. That office will be comprised of me, Ted Enloe, on my left; [and] Frank Doyle, on my far left. We've begun the searches both for a full-time CFO and a new CEO. In the interim, Ben Wells, our treasurer, will serve as acting CFO.
Let me give you some perspective on these changes. The strategy of the company is fundamentally sound. We think there are issues that can be looked at that we're going to look at, but I think we have a sound company and a sound strategy. We are a market leader. We are going to enhance our market leadership. We have tremendous products, great technology, wonderful people.
In fact, in the-let's see, '82 to '99-in the 17 years I've been associated with Compaq, I don't think there has been greater potential for this company. For most of our history, we were a PC box company, if you will…but we are a much broader company today, with such great capabilities, with the people and the capabilities that we have internally from the original Compaq, through the talent we got from Tandem, [and] the talent we got from Digital Equipment. We have a team that I think is unparalleled in the information technology industry.
Our potential is great. But in the last two years, we really haven't fulfilled our potential as well as we should…. Going around the company, I sense energy, creativity, ideas. And yet we're not completely allowing these ideas and this creativity to flow forth. So we're going to try to re-energize the company. And it was for this reason that the board felt that we had to change the leadership of the company-that we needed new skill sets.
Let me talk to you a little bit about the Office of the Chief Executive, its members, and how it will work. First of all, we're a team-the three of us. We operate as a team. But a decision made by one is a decision made by all. We are on-site here in Houston. Although I live in New York and Ted in Dallas and Frank in Connecticut and Florida, we felt a responsibility, a duty and an opportunity to come here to create this office and to [work] full-time ... until the new chief executive is on site.
This process will probably take several months. We're not sure how many. But in the meantime, we're not caretakers. We're here to make decisions, starting today. And you'll see some of our early decisions a little later…. My first decision now is to turn this over to Frank and to Ted and to let them chat with you a little bit….
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