President Bush has brought a corporate management style to the White House that the country hasn't seen since the administration of Dwight Eisenhower 40 years ago. He is a consummate delegator, giving his cabinet and agency heads remarkable authority and autonomy in running their separate domains.
When called upon to make a decision, he is said to like short, factual presentations from his advisers. He then quickly renders a verdict. He is a great keeper of schedules–on a recent two-day tour to promote his tax proposals he led some dozen rallies in several states, all of which began on time–and, we are told, he leaves the Oval Office no later than 6:30 p.m. He is, by all accounts, the very model of an efficient corporate chief executive. In the days ahead, management theorists will carefully track whether he can sustain the model and, more importantly, how well he keeps his lieutenants focused on a central agenda in a decentralized administration.
If our new chief executive is acting out a Harvard Business School case study, it is one that risk managers also are watching carefully. As our senior contributing writer Russ Banham notes in our cover story, companies nationwide are adopting a top down-bottoms up approach to risk management. It also involves a strong central hand, and a concerted effort to make risk consciousness a priority for all employees.
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Turn to page 20 to learn about the compensation sticks and carrots companies are using to achieve this. Derivatives, of course, have long been an acceptable way to manage financial risk. But most corporations outside the finance field have ignored the credit derivatives that banks and other financial institutions have popularized over the past five years. With bankruptcies and bad debt now soaring, however, that's likely to change. "Equity investors are showing concern [and corporates] realize they should think about managing their credit risk in a different way," a J.P. Morgan Chase banker told our London correspondent, Lisa Cooper. As Lisa learned, however, it's still not easy for most corporations to use the derivatives.
Her story starts on page 41. Elsewhere in the issue, you'll find a report on why Nortel Networks is centralizing its far-flung treasury operations, a look at how the falling market is affecting pension plan surpluses, a story on what companies are learning from the California energy crisis, and our buyer's guide to bundled 401(k) plan providers.
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