>>>Israel<<< Sorry David your wrong this time. Here is a good read on Eric B.....
Around 3Com Corp.'s Santa Clara, Calif., headquarters, Chief Executive Eric Benhamou has a reputation for being serious, intellectual, even cerebral. He speaks four languages and plays three instruments. Even at off-site meetings, he is likely to wander around reading, colleagues say.
Do not be deceived.
That quiet, serious demeanor masks a fierce competitor who has, through high energy, uncanny foresight and bold strategic planning, turned 3Com into an industry powerhouse that is gunning for networking market leader Cisco Systems Inc.
Strong partnerships with the channel and key strategic acquisitions have long helped Benhamou--who, not surprisingly, enjoys a lively chess match--mold 3Com into an industry giant. This past year has been no exception.
3Com's merger with U.S. Robotics Inc. turned out to be the largest high-tech merger in history. It also helped bulk up 3Com, whose competitors have been on an acquisition binge of their own.
Benhamou now finds himself heading a networking company likely to top $5 billion in annual revenue, second only to Cisco.
For the 1996 fiscal year ended May 31, 3Com posted record revenue of $3.1 billion, up 35 percent from $2.3 billion the previous year. The company earned $374-million, including a $6.6 million charge for the acquisition of OnStream Networks Inc.
The U.S. Robotics merger, completed in June, caught the industry by surprise and nearly doubled 3Com's size. Now the challenge is to make the merger work. Benhamou is characteristically confident. He pledges that by the end of this year, the two companies will look like one.
Colleagues say Benhamou handles pressure well. They say he is appealingly modest, ethical and willing to go the extra mile.
"I got him to come and speak to a group of salespeople at 7:30 a.m," says one employee, who asked not to be named. "Most CEOs would never do that."
"He lives a relatively modest lifestyle," says Robert Finocchio, the former 3Com president who became chief executive of Informix Software Inc. last July. "There is no Ferrari, no $10 million house, no jet, and he does his charity very privately. He has worked hard to raise his kids so they are not jaded by wealth, and he has been married over 20 years. It's so unlike a lot of other situations."
Janice Roberts, 3Com senior vice president, says the modest trappings and low-key style belie Benhamou's competitiveness. "Don't underestimate him," she warns. "He's very focused, very competitive and not at all humble in a business environment."
Benhamou laments "the cowboy mentality" in Silicon Valley, which he says is characteristic of a start-up-oriented culture where people have not yet established roots. Public service is very important to him. That is why 3Com matches employees' charitable contributions and why it donated millions of dollars' worth of networking equipment to local schools.
For his part, Benhamou serves on a presidential commission that is studying high-performance computing and the Internet and that ultimately will make reform recommendations to the Federal Communications Commission. "Now we are trying to envision collectively what the next-generation Internet could and should be, given that it will likely become the primary economic structure for the country and the world," he says.
Despite such pensiveness, Benhamou has a reputation for fast driving, speeding tickets and strenuous hikes. Annual expeditions with senior managers are legendary. Rollerblading and bicycling through the desert are some of the team-building exercises that have made some managers yearn for a good stint at a health spa.
But Benhamou eschews the soft life. As a child in 1960, he fled the Algerian civil war with his parents, landing in Grenoble, France.
Educated in Paris, he attended graduate school at Stanford University after working as an engineer for the French public utility.
"When I was a teenager, I dreamed of creating something that felt like a company, but I had no idea it would be in this field," says Benhamou. "It was the idea of extending your ideas through other people. You get a group of individuals with a common purpose, and they can accomplish things they couldn't [by themselves]."
Colleagues say Benhamou makes that vision a reality. He put Finocchio, a self-described "sales and marketing guy," in charge of research and development. "He said, 'If you screw up, I'll fire you,' " recalls Finocchio. "But he had the courage to let me do it, and he never once stepped on my toes."
Even competitors begrudge Benhamou a certain respect.
"[One] summer Eric and I did the American Leadership Forum together, and as part of that we did some rock climbing in the Sierras," says Cisco Chairman John Morgridge. "I had the occasion to permit Eric to be my ropeman and belay me up and down the side of the cliff. I have no hesitation trusting my life to Eric, but I'd never trust my network. And that speaks well of our relationship." |
