Where Are They Now?
from January/February 2006
by Julie Connelly
Do you ever wonder what happens to the people who appear on magazine covers after the articles come out? Are Us Weekly’s happiest Hollywood couple of a month ago now slugging it out in divorce court? Is Sports Illustrated’s once-winningest player currently deep in a losing streak? For that matter, how are the various folks who’ve graced the cover of Corporate Board Member over the years doing today?
The answer is rather well, thank you very much. For example, Raymond S. Troubh, now 79, who took on the chairmanship of Enron after it went into bankruptcy (“Wow! The Opportunity of a Lifetime,” May/June 2003), stepped down after the plan of reorganization was approved in November 2004. Would he get himself into a situation like that again? You bet.
“I’d leap at the opportunity to be on the board of another Enron,” he says. “It was a huge, complex corporate governance and corporate financial puzzle, and I enjoyed playing with the pieces.” Troubh remains on six boards, including that of Portland General Electric, an Oregon utility and former Enron subsidiary whose common stock will be issued to Enron’s creditors as part of the reorganization over the next year. He describes himself as “married to corporate governance” and adds, “I would like to remain so for a long time.”
Cover subject Betsy Atkins’s account of her 16 days on the HealthSouth board (November/ December 2003) was an unusually candid look at how a director deals with crisis. Partly because of her work at HealthSouth and also because she helped Lucent Technologies navigate a major restructuring when she was on its board, Atkins was one of five finalists for the National Association of Corporate Directors’ 2005 Director of the Year award. Although the honor ultimately went to E. William Barnett, lead director of Reliant Energy, “just being nominated is for me a very big recognition,” says Atkins, 50. “It’s very flattering company that I’m in.” She has remained on the Polycom Inc. board as lead director. And since her appearance on our cover, she has joined the boards of Chico’s FAS Inc., a specialty clothing retailer, and Reynolds American, formerly Reynolds Tobacco Co.
Nigel W. Morris, 47, a co-founder of Capital One Financial Corp., represented “The Next Generation: 10 New Faces for Your Board” (our cover for Summer 1999, back when we did only four issues a year and named them for the seasons). He left Capital One in 2004. “The most spectacular time in my career was transitioning Capital One into a public company and working through the challenges of its evolution. After 10 years with a single focus, I wanted to broaden my experience and become more of a pluralist.” After our story, Morris joined the boards of Quanta Capital Holdings and the Economist Group. He’s also a special adviser with General Atlantic, a private equity firm in Greenwich, Connecticut.
As our Winter 2000 cover predicted, John Barbour, 46, was able to steer Toys “R” Us back to the Web after a disastrous earlier experience with online holiday shopping. Barbour, CEO of Toysrus.com, helped put together a deal in which Amazon.com became the sole distributor of his company’s Internet sales. The alliance fell apart, and the partners are suing each other. But Barbour survived both that and last year’s $6.6 billion acquisition of Toys “R” Us by a private equity group made up of Bain Capital, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, and Vornado Realty Trust—which paid him a fat bonus to stay on as president of the U.S. stores, a promotion he got in 2004. Says Christopher Byrne, an independent toy consultant in New York City: “Barbour’s an amazing merchant. He’s a strong product guy, and people really love to work for him.”
Some of our past cover subjects were tough to nail down for follow-up interviews. One was Tom Croskey, 50, who was featured in “Here Come the Rookies” (Summer 2001), an account of first-time board members. Croskey had just joined the board of Medscape, a provider of digital health records and online health information whose subsequent sale put an end to its public-company status. An executive director of labor relations for General Motors, he has been enmeshed in union negotiations and was not available to comment. But he doesn’t sit on any public boards.
Gary K. Duberstein, 51, and Alfred D. Kingsley, 63, of Greenway Partners—the shareholder activists of “Meet Your Worst Nightmares!” (Spring 1999, our third issue)—didn’t want to talk about what they’re up to these days. “We are less in the limelight, you could say,” Kingsley allows. Though the pair still work together on some projects, they work individually too. Duberstein, for example, is trying to get a new energy fund off the ground.
In the publishing world, there is a phenomenon known as the cover curse, and it doesn’t apply only to sports figures. It has struck some of our cover girls and boys as well. Carly Fiorina, then recently installed as chairman and CEO of Hewlett-Packard, appeared dressed as Queen Elizabeth I on our Winter 1999 cover, “How to Succeed at Succession Planning.” Oops! She was pushed out of HP early in 2005. Fiorina, 51, has since joined the board of Revolution Health Group, a health-care company founded by fellow ex Steve Case (AOL and AOL Time Warner). Other exes on the Revolution board: Franklin Raines (Fannie Mae) and Colin Powell (the State Department).
We por-trayed R. Brad Martin, 54, chairman and CEO of Saks Inc., as Superman to illustrate the retailer’s bet on online shopping (“Saks Appeal Goes Virtual,” Summer 2000). It’s hard to tell how this strategy played out, partly because of a gaggle of problems that the company faces, including various accounting troubles and a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation. In September Saks was finally able to file its 10-K for the fiscal year that ended in January 2005, restating earnings to reflect improperly collected markdown allowances of $34 million between 1996 and 2003 and other matters.
Plaintiffs’ attorney William S. Lerach, 59, the guy every director loves to hate, was the perfect symbol for our March/April 2003 cover, “Fighting Shareholder Lawsuits.” We showed him wielding a baseball bat, which drove his whacker image home. Lerach, who split from his old Milberg Weiss partnership in 2004 to start his own firm, snared more than $7 billion in settlements for Enron shareholders—and he ain’t done yet. A shadow looms over him that could spoil his parade, though. He may face criminal indictment in a federal probe of kickbacks to plaintiffs whose names appeared with frequency in class-action suits brought by his old firm. Both Lerach and Milberg Weiss reject the allegations as baseless.
Let’s wind up this visit to the past with one of everybody’s favorite cover subjects: the gorilla we chose to represent the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (“Living With an 800-Pound Law,” May/June 2004). Most directors seem confident that their companies are compliant. They’d better be. The law doesn’t look as though it’s about to lose any of its muscle.
