大人物小心了，美國公司最近對一連串的高階主管，惡行惡狀，都採取明快手段開除！由於網路部落格興起，很多過去被掩護的行為，現在都不再能掩飾，不僅對外、對內，都難逃大眾之眼。因此，大公司都不得不壯士斷腕，不再包疪。
For misbehaving executives, rules are tougher in new arena
By Geraldine Fabrikant
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
NEW YORK: Misbehaving executives, take note: Before you have your day in court, you may already be out of a job.
Last week, Chris Albrecht, the chief executive of Home Box Office and a star at Time Warner, was asked to resign three days after he was accused of assaulting his girlfriend in the parking lot of the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. Two days later, he pleaded no contest and agreed to pay a fine.
Hollywood, where outrageous behavior by studio executives has always been quietly accepted, may have been shocked by the swiftness of Time Warner’s decision. But experts say that public companies are under increasing pressure to respond rapidly when an executive gets into trouble over drugs, alcohol, abusive behavior or an affair that catches the attention of co-workers or others.
Earlier this year, Todd Thomson, the head of Citigroup’s global wealth management group, departed amid questions about his relationship with Maria Bartiromo, a news anchor on CNBC. Questions about his lavish spending played a role in his departure.
A month earlier, Wal-Mart fired Julie Roehm, its high-powered marketing executive, over allegations that she had accepted gifts from agencies and had had an affair with a co-worker.
"Companies are just far less accepting of this omnipotent behavior," said Mortimer Feinberg, chairman of BFS Psychological Associates, which counsels chief executives and corporate boards.
Media companies are becoming particularly sensitive to the image projected by their employees. Last month, CBS Radio and MSNBC fired Don Imus after he made racially insulting comments on his program about the women’s basketball team at Rutgers, despite Imus’s having built his career on comments like those and his show’s ability to generate tens of millions in revenue.
It is a sign of how much the times have changed that when Albrecht, who was seen by the police in Las Vegas with his hands around his girlfriend’s throat, went through a similar episode in 1991, he suffered no repercussions from his company.
At that time, he was accused of choking Sasha Emerson, another executive who was herself on the fast track at HBO. The company, a division of Time Warner, paid her a $400,000 settlement. Despite having a contract, she left the company.
HBO’s decision to protect a male executive back then was hardly an anomaly. In 1999, Richard Beckman, then publisher of Vogue magazine, banged the head of Carol Matthews, a Vogue advertising manager, against that of another woman. Matthews’s cheekbone was broken, requiring reconstruction.
Beckman was known to be a hard-driving executive who also enjoyed partying, according to reports at the time.
The matter was settled for a payment believed to be $1 million to $5 million, and Matthews left the company.
Beckman kept his position as publisher after the incident and is now president of the Condé Nast Media Group and the company’s chief marketing officer.
Maurie Perl, a company spokeswoman, said that Condé Nast had no comment.
One significant change, many experts contend, is the greater presence of women and minorities in the executive ranks. If companies do not act decisively in cases of offensive behavior, they can face opposition from both inside and outside their offices.
Companies, Feinberg said, "are afraid of the exposure, bad publicity and lawsuits, and there is also a greater sensitivity to minority groups and their reactions."
Time Warner has faced criticism from some of its own female employees over a decision to retain another executive, according to a person close to Time Warner. Last year, a woman accused of being a prostitute alleged that she had had a relationship with a top company official. Ed Adler, a Time Warner spokesman, said the company had investigated the allegations and found no illegal activity and Time Warner took no action.
Voices of various insiders and outsiders played a crucial role in the decision last month by NBC Universal to drop Imus from its morning slot on MSNBC’s cable television network.
Faced with anger from prominent blacks like Al Roker, the "Today" weatherman, and Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat who is running for president, NBC said that after "many conversations with our own employees," it decided to drop the show.
"It used to be that people in lower economic groups - women and minorities - had no power," Feinberg said. "If an executive had an affair with a secretary, you would fire her. Now she goes to the gossip columns and that is dangerous for companies."
Those gossip columns - along with tabloid television and blogs - now give heightened scrutiny to every misstep. This means that the news moves so fast on so many outlets that companies want to stop the debate before it harms the corporate image.
Bloggers from the liberal group Media Matters were instrumental in giving wide exposure to the comments of Imus.
Web sites like the Smoking Gun, which swiftly posted Albrecht’s arrest photo, and TMZ.com follow the peccadilloes of studio executives as though they were celebrities themselves.
William Simon, who heads the media and entertainment practice for the executive search firm Korn/Ferry International, said that "there are plenty of people who have survived experiences like what happened to Chris Albrecht."
"But in today’s competitive media marketplace and coverage by such diverse sources as gossip columns, blogs and the Internet," Simon added, "it is impossible to keep such news away from the public."
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