Title: CEO, BEA Systems Inc.
Home Base: San Jose, California
If you can believe it, we planned for our CEO transition to take place in the Windows on the World. Then September 11 came. I can't even begin to describe the psychology of the company at that point. We lost employees; one man was in one of the airplanes that hit the World Trade Center. It was very difficult to return to work.
Add to that the change in the economy. I've lived in San Francisco since the 1970s -- this is my fourth recession in the Valley. But this is different. We've never had a bubble this big. We really went nuts. Even now, I think a lot of people still refuse to believe that the bubble has burst.
In the wake of both of those changes, my job as BEA's CEO is to recalibrate the madness into reality. It is my responsibility to ask, "Okay, what do we have to do to maintain the best conditions for our employees and shareholders?" The obvious first step is cost trimming. Next, I believe we can refocus by increasing communication within the company. In fast-growth times, it's easy to hear the message that we're doing fine. But in a difficult economy, people need to hear what we're working on, what we want to leverage, and what management thinks about where we're heading.
I've institutionalized an all-company Webcast every six to eight weeks to meet this need. With about one-third of our employees outside the United States, Web technology and email help us to answer questions and get the message out. Managers also walk around the office more often, talking to individuals, especially about their careers. We have been talking to them about longer-term trajectories. In the Bay Area, people have had career horizons of 9 to 12 months, when it needs to be 3 to 5 years. I believe that if people can see where we're going, if I can give them concrete metrics for where we want to head, then that will help us get through.
Alfred Chuang is cofounder of BEA Systems Inc. and became president and CEO in October 2001. Prior to taking on this role, he was chief operating officer and president of business operations. Over the seven years since the company's founding, Chuang has been chief technology officer in addition to managing BEA's global operations, which include engineering, product development, marketing, sales, services, finance, corporate development, and human resources. Chuang holds a bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of San Francisco and is also a nine-year veteran of Sun Microsystems, where he met his BEA cofounders.
Title: President, Princeton University
Home Base: Princeton, New Jersey
When I became president of Princeton, two issues took priority. First, I had to replace a number of people who had announced that they were retiring. Second, I had to learn about areas of the university that were unfamiliar to me -- departments that are essential, such as human resources, but that are often invisible to the faculty.
The key is being truly interested in listening. In my weekly meals or meetings with students, I sense a profound change in the way they think of their futures. There was a headiness before, where now there is deep anxiety. At the same time, I applaud the heightened interest in public service and nonprofit work that is replacing the tendency to run off to Wall Street to make money.
My science background helps me bring good analytical skills to the job. Science is a life of problem solving; being a president is too. Thinking about a problem, laying it out, being good with numbers -- these are all skills that translate well. The huge difference is that as a scientist, the best strategy is to focus on a single thing. Then you burrow into the problem and go as deep as possible. To be a successful president, you have to do exactly the opposite. You don't have the time to burrow because the agenda is so enormous. You rely much more on others to do the background work for you -- and you end up with what a scientist would consider highly digested material.
Shirley M. Tilghman became president of Princeton University in June 2001, after serving for 15 years on the faculty as the Howard A. Prior professor of the life sciences. She has also been an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and has served as an adjunct professor of biochemistry at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Tilghman is the founding director of Princeton's Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics and is a founding member of the National Advisory Council of the Human Genome Project Initiative for the National Institutes of Health.
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