Home > Business Insider > Archives > 2008 > May > 22
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Home Depot co-founder moves on
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The ever-present Ken Langone retired from Home Depot’s board today without a look back to the company he co-founded with Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank.
“It’s time to move on,” said Langone, Home Depot’s lead director who had served on the board since 1978. “Now I’m onto other things.”
Langone, 72, didn’t seem to want to dwell on sentimentality, adding that both he and Marcus believed there should be a retirement age of 72 for directors.
“Bernie created a great company, and Bernie and Arthur did a hell of a job,” Langone said. “But I think the company today is probably in the best shape it’s been in for a long time.”
Langone spoke highly of the current CEO Frank Blake and his team. “I feel very good about the company,” he said. ” Frank’s leadership is going to take this company to incredible heights.”
Then I asked Langone about the former CEO, Bob Nardelli (who is now with Chrsyler). It was Lagone who was largely responsible for bringing Nardelli to Home Depot, an era that was fraught with controversy and bad morale.
And even today, Langone continues to defend Nardelli.
“I think Bob made a lot of necessary changes,” he said. “I think Bob was great for the company at the time he was there.”
Langone did acknowledge that “I would have done some things differently than he did.”
Of course Langone still has big stake in the company. The proxy lists him as holding more than 16.5 million shares of Home Depot stock.
“It’s quite a change,” Blake said of the transition on his board. “It’s going to be hard to imagine a board meeting without a Ken Langone. I have a feeling I’ll continue to hear from Ken just as we do from Bernie and Arthur.”
The annual meeting did bring back Ron Brill, another one of Home Depot’s founding leaders who served as chief financial officer and later chief administrative officer before retiring in 2001. Brill half-jokingly said that had he stayed, he probably would have been fired by Nardelli.
Brill applauded the current management team and board. “I think it’s exciting that there’s a lot of new blood,” he said. “It was time to change management. And now there’s a lot of new thinking.”
Marcus attended the annual meeting, and afterwards was approached by an angry shareholder. “Go after him,” Marcus said pointing to Blake. “Not after me. I’m out of work here.”
As for the board changes, Marcus said: “This is the last of the old guard.”
Told that Langone was still defending Nardelli, Marcus said: “I don’t know what I can tell you.”
Then he referred to one of the shareholder complaints about Home Depot’s sales force lack of expertise in helping customers with their home improvement projects.
“A lot of the quality people who left, they left during Nardelli’s tenure,” Marcus said, adding that reporters keep asking him about Nardelli. “We are done. We are finished with Nardelli. He’s out of my life.”
To read preview column of annual meeting…
Permalink | Comments (10) | Post your comment |
With retirements, no Home Depot founders on board
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When Home Depot holds its annual meeting today, there will be a bunch of new faces in the room.
For the first time, none of the co-founders will be on the board as two of the founding directors retire - Ken Langone and Milledge Hart.
And seven of the nine outside directors will have joined the board since Frank Blake became CEO in January, 2007. (Blake became a director in 2006).
To read more about Home Depot, see my full column below.
I also would love to hear your thoughts on the changes at Home Depot.
TURNOVER ON HOME DEPOT BOARD BRINGS IN NEW ERA
When Home Depot holds its annual meeting today, it will be entering a new era. It will be the first time that one of the company’s founders won’t be on its board.
And all but two of its directors have come on board since Frank Blake became CEO.
In short, this is Blake’s board.
As of today, the longest serving director is Bonnie Hill, former CEO of the Times Mirror Foundation who runs her own consulting firm. She joined Home Depot’s board in 1999 when co-founders Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank were still at the home improvement company (at the time, Blank was CEO and Marcus was chairman).
Hill now becomes the company’s lead director, succeeding Ken Langone, one of Home Depot’s co-founders who is retiring from the board.
Langone won’t be the only longtime director leaving the board. Milledge Hart, a director since Home Depot’s inception in 1978, also is retiring.
The two other directors who are retiring are: retired BellSouth CEO John Clendenin (on the board since 1996) and Claudio Gonzalez, chairman of Kimberly Clark de Mexico and on the Home Depot board since 2001.
Interestingly enough, Home Depot doesn’t have one outside director that came on board during the tenure of controversial CEO Bob Nardelli.
Other than Hill, the only director who predates Nardelli is Gregory Brenneman, CEO of Quiznos who was president and chief operating officer of Continental Airlines in 2000 when he joined Home Depot’s board. At that time, Blank was CEO.
“Greg was one of the candidates I seriously promoted to become CEO of the company,” Blank said in a telephone interview this week. “He has a very good sales background.” Instead, the board, largely at Langone’s urging, hired Nardelli.
The new board does have one outside director from Atlanta: Duane Ackerman, retired CEO of BellSouth, who joined Home Depot’s board last year.
But he’s the only one - another significant difference from the Marcus-Blank era when there was a distinct Atlanta flavor on the board. Among the directors then were Clendenin, then Coca-Cola executive Don Keough and then Spelman College President Johnnetta Cole.
“We were very sensitive to that. We raised our company here, and Atlanta was our home,” Blank said. “It is a different company, but the times are different.”
At Wednesday evening’s board dinner in Buckhead, the retiring directors were honored by the company.
Blank couldn’t attend the dinner or today’s annual meeting because he’s been busy with meetings of National Football League.
But Marcus planned to be at both to thank the retiring directors and welcome the new ones.
“The world goes on. It didn’t stop when Arthur and I left,” Marcus said, calling the transition “a natural progression.”
Marcus specifically mentioned Langone. “Since I left the board, Ken has worked very, very hard.”
So who’s on the new board?
In addition to Blake, Hill, Ackerman and Brenneman: David Batchelder, (joined in 2007) principal of Relational Investors; Ari Bousbib (2007), president of Otis Elevator Co.; Albert Carey (2008), president and CEO of Frito-Lay North America and former president of PepsiCo Sales; Armando Codina (2007), CEO of Flagler Development Group; Brian Cornell (2008), CEO of Michaels Stores; and Karen Katen (2007), chairman of the Pfizer Foundation.
Blake, in an analyst call earlier this week, said he was looking for a board that was strong with marketing and customer service.
“Frank is doing the things he should be doing,” Blank said. “He’s looking at today’s challenges and opportunities and using his own good judgment,” Blank said. “I feel good about the company, and when the economy turns, we are in a good position.”
Atlanta Spirit co-owner backs Friendship Games
Bridging the world through basketball. That was the dream of Atlanta Spirit/Atlanta Hawks co-owner Ed Peskowitz and his wife, Penelope.
And so they created the Friendship Games two years ago - a competition in Tel Aviv, Israel that brings together college students from many nations.
“The purpose is to use a sport that they care about, basketball, to help people overcome religious differences, political differences, to overcome stereotypes and to foster a sense of understanding,” Peskowitz said.
The third annual Friendship Games begins May 30. It will have 36 teams (10 will be women teams) from 22 countries. Among the countries participating: Jordan, Israel, Russia, Germany, Croatia, Kazakhstan, Cyprus, Ireland, China, Estonia, Italy, Canada, Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania and Serbia.
So far, Peskowitz and his wife have financed the Friendship Games. But as the competition has grown, Peskowitz has sought other donors. He was in town this week to present the idea at a reception hosted by the GreenbergTraurig law firm at the Jewish Federation.
“Our hope is that we are planting seeds,” Peskowitz said. “These are really small steps. But it can only do good.”
