Thursday, May 10, 2007

Siemens in Germany Bob Gill posted a comment on Tuesday's post about Siemens asking for thoughts about the sudden likely departure of Klaus Kleinfeld from Siemens' top executive spot. It may have made a little news splash in the US, but not so much in trade press, about the troubles at the top of Siemens' corporation. It seems that German law changed just a few years ago to deal with those sticky situations where a German company is doing business in a country that does business more on, shall we say, a relationship basis rather than a contract basis. Sometimes the relationship gets better if some local currency changes hands. Evidently German prosecutors believe that some people in the Siemens telephony division forgot to change when the law changed making that illegal. So even though the top two people at Siemens were not implicated directly, the mud splattered widely and they left (or are leaving) the company. What we'll never know for sure would be what role Kleinfeld's management style (called American style by the German press that I've seen) played in the ouster. I haven't detected any immediate fallout in the US, but we'll have to look long term and see what a change in the top means for the company. He has been bold. Will the company revert to more of an engineering-type person and become more cautious? Time will tell. 5:32:01 PM    comment []

Paliwal leaving ABB For the third time this year, I'm learning of the exit of a high ranking executive whose perspective and conversations I'll miss. Dinesh Paliwal is leaving ABB at the end of next month to become CEO of Harmon International Industries (I'm trying to remember if my first guitar had Harmon pedigree). Previously, Isao Uchida stepped aside as CEO of Yokogawa into partial retirement and last week came the announcement that Aubert Martin was retiring from Siemens Energy & Automation. I'm somewhat surprised at this latest move, but then Paliwal was not likely to become CEO in the near term. Fred Kindle is relatively young. I'm sure you reach a point when you'd like to run your own ship. So, I wish Dinesh well. 10:37:47 AM    comment []