Sanjay Kumar and the Rise and Fall of a Good Leader

Sanjay Kumar was a Sri Lanka-born computer expert. He became the Chairman and CEO of Computer Associates International, which is known today as CA Technologies. Following the civil unrest in Sri Lanka, the Kumar family immigrated to the US in 1976 and settled in South Carolina. Kumar studied at Furman University between 1980 and 1983 but quit the school without successfully completing a degree.

Kumar worked with Computer Associates in 1987 after the company was successful in its buy-out of UCCEL Corporation for $800 million. At the time of the purchase, Kumar was the director of software development at UCCEL.

In 1988, Kumar had to move to Long Island where Computer Associates’ headquarters were located because he was promoted as Vice President of Planning. Kumar had to move from one position of leadership to another while he was with Computer Associates. Kumar was promoted two more times; as Senior Vice President of Planning in 1989, and as Executive Vice President of Operations in 1993, before he became the company’s President and COO in 1994. He was 31 years old.

In 2000, Kumar became Computer Associates’ CEO. He replaced Charles Wang, who was his mentor for a long time. In 2002, Kumar became the company’s chairman. Computer Associates evolved to become more customer-friendly, a corporate image credited to Kumar’s leadership.

Kumar was forced to resign as President and CEO in April 2004 after he was involved in an investigation of alleged obstruction of justice and securities fraud at Computer Associates. He stayed with Computer Associates for six more weeks as Chief Software Architect before he left the company completely.

A Brooklyn federal jury indicted Kumar of fraud charges. He pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and obstruction of justice. The jury sentenced him to 12 years of imprisonment and a fine of $8 million for his involvement in accounting fraud while at Computer Associates. Kumar is serving his sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Miami, Florida. He is expected to complete his sentence by January 25, 2018.

Rose Knox: Her Partnership with Her Husband Made Her a Better Businesswoman

Rose Markward Knox was an American businesswoman. She became the CEO of Knox Gelatin Factory following the death of her husband Charles Briggs Knox in 1908.

The Markward’s were originally from Mansfield, Ohio but the family moved to Gloversville, New York in the late 1870s. Rose met Knox there and married him in February 1883. The Knox’s moved to Johnstown in 1896 to establish their gelatin business after Charles saw Rose make gelatin in their kitchen. This was the beginning of the Charles B. Knox Gelatin Company.

Charles and Rose became business partners and did all things together. Rose took care of the recipe books; Charles taught Rose financial management and budgeting. He allocated weekly allowances for her so she can have money to do what she pleased. Charles prepared Rose to run the company herself.

When Charles died in 1908, Rose took care of the gelatin business. She imposed changes in the company; the most prominent of which were gender equality, the five-day work week, and the two-week paid vacation leave for all workers.

William Knudsen: From Business to Public Service

William Knudsen was a Danish-born American businessman. He had a fulfilling industrial career. He opened a number of assembly plants, directed a shipbuilding program during the World War I, and masterminded the expansion of Ford Motor Company in Europe after the war. He worked with Chevrolet and General Motors as president and was the brains behind America’s production efforts after World War II.

Born as Signius Wilhelm Poul Knudsen, he had little technical education back in his native Denmark. His first job was as a bicycle mechanic. Knudsen immigrated to the US via Ellis Island in New York in 1900. He changed his name to William Signius Knudsen. Knudsen had several jobs – with shipyards and railroad shops – until John Keim Mills invited him to Buffalo at a time when Keim was the leading producer of pressed steel parts used in automotives.

In 1911, Ford Motor Company acquired Keim. Knudsen’s new employer assigned him to Detroit in 1913 to supervise the company’s expansion of its nationwide network of assembly plants. Knudsen used his keenness, toughness and strong temper to direct the mass production of submarine chasers while the World War I was going on.

From 1919 to 1920, Knudsen had developed a plan to internationalize Ford’s production while controlling Ford’s European affairs. However, Henry Ford resented Knudsen’s independent manner. On the other hand, Knudsen also resented Ford’s interference to his work. In 1921, Knudsen decided to leave Ford Motor Company. He worked with an auto parts manufacturer as general manager until 1922 when he received an invitation to work with General Motors.

During the interview, he was asked how much pay he is willing to receive. Knudsen could have said that Ford is paying him $50,000. He simply, said, “Anything you like. I’m here for the opportunity, not for the figure.” GM hired him for $30,000. In one month, Knudsen became the vice president for operations at Chevrolet Motor Division for $50,000 annually.

In 1924, Knudsen became Chevrolet’s president. He had an impressive sales performance and this persuaded Ford to stop producing Model T for Model A. Because of Ford’s changeover, Chevrolet’s six-cylinder engine assumed the lead in sales for the first time in 1927 until 1928. While Ford regained the lead in 1929 and 1930, Chevrolet became the leader for the rest of the pre-World War II. Knudsen assumed Chevrolet’s presidency for the US and Canadian car and body manufacturing in 1933 and Chevrolet’s president in 1937.

President Franklin Roosevelt asked Knudsen to join the National Defense Council in its advisory commission. Knudsen accepted the job even if it means giving up a yearly income of $300,000 because the assignment was unpaid. President Roosevelt promoted Knudsen as the director general of the Office of Production Management in 1941. He became the Department of War’s director of war production in 1943. Knudsen became the first civilian to be conferred with the rank of lieutenant general of the US Army. In 1944, Knudsen was the director of the Air Technical Service Command. That year, Knudsen received the Distinguished Service Medal of the US Army.

Terry Matthews: Wales’ First Billionaire

One of the greatest accomplishments in life is to become known as the first to achieve something. In the case of Terry Matthews, his accomplishment was becoming the first billionaire of Wales.

Not only is Terry popular for becoming the first billionaire of a country, he is also well known to be the owner, or have provided funding to over 80 companies in the tech industry. Today, he is the Chairman of Mitel and Wesley Clover, both of which he founded.

His fascination with tech companies began when he became a research apprentice at British Telecom. After that, he joined MicroSystems International, a tech company specializing in the development and manufacturing of micro chips.

It was during his stay at MicroSystems that Terry ventured into the world of business by establishing Mitel together with one of his co-workers, Michael Cowpland. Mitel actually stands for Mike & Terry Electronics. The company started off by selling electronic lawnmowers. Unfortunately, their first delivery almost turned out to be a disaster that would have destroyed the company. Their first shipment container was somehow lost by the shipping company, but was later recovered. However, when the shipment finally arrived, the season had turned to winter, and no one would buy lawnmowers when their gardens were covered in snow.

Sarah Breedlove: Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company

Perhaps one of the most famous female entrepreneurs in America was Sarah Breedlove, also known as Madam C.J. Walker. The title given to her is in fact the name of her company, Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Co., who at that time had unique business theme, as they developed and marketed beauty products especially made for black women.

Born in 1867, Sarah was the first of her siblings to be born under freedom. Her parents were slaves and so were her elder siblings. Unfortunately, her parents died while she was still young. Her older sister and her brother-in-law took her in but it turned out that she would be maltreated. Sarah decided to marry at a very young age of 14 in order to escape the maltreatment.

Her husband died when she was 20 years old after which she would move to St. Louis where her brother were. Here she met Charles Joseph Walker, a newspaper advertising salesman, who she would later marry.

The idea for creating beauty products designed for black women came to her when she developed a problem with her hair. Most African-American women during that era were having the same problem with their hair. She tried almost every cure for the scalp disease to no avail, so she began experimenting with her own remedy. Sara was able to develop a shampoo that contained sulfur that had effectively cured the disease and made her scalp healthier, thus producing healthy hair.

During those times, Sarah was working as a cook, but would later leave her job in order to focus on the production and marketing of her new product. She sold her product door-to-door and it quickly became popular. Soon after, her product would be advertised in a local newspaper.

Her company, Madam C.J. Walker was established in 1906 and her products started to become popular in almost every part of the country where there were concentrations of black women.

Today, Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company still produces her original recipes. Their products are still sought after by women who have scalp problems.

Henrietta King: A Woman Can Do Good Husbandry

Henrietta Maria Chamberlain King was an American rancher. Her mother died when she was three years old. King became self-reliant at an early age. Her father was a missionary. She was often left alone in their home, being an only child.

In 1849, King’s father went to Brownsville, Texas to begin a Presbyterian mission; and King went with him. While there, King taught at the Rio Grande Female Institute. In 1854, she married Richard King. The young couple lived in small hut located in a cattle ranch in Santa Gertrudis Creek. This ranch grew to 53,000 acres in time.

The King’s ranch became the receiver of the cotton of the Confederacy, who were moving to Mexico during the Civil War. The cotton were shipped to England. In 1863, the ranch was captured by the Union troops. Richard had to escape to avoid being captured. King and her five children fled to San Antonio. King became the sole owner of the ranch in 1868 where she raised horses, cattle, goats and sheep.

King and her son-in-law Robert Justus Kleberg managed the ranch well and experimented on several breeding programs. When King died in March 1925, the ranch measured 500,000 acres.

Steve Kim: Korean Ingenuity in Consumer Electronics

Steve Kim is a Korean tech entrepreneur who became successful in the growing electronics industry. He was responsible in putting up two startups that are known as major players in the industry today. One of these startups was Xylan which Alcatel acquired in 1999 for $2 billion. Needless to say, Steve was successful. He shares his secret for his thriving career – his wife Jung. Kim considers her as his most valuable asset.

Steve was born in Seoul in 1952. He moved to the US in 1976 after his mandatory service in the Korean military for two years and studying electrical engineering for four years. He worked in an auto parts warehouse stocking shelves for one year. He used his savings to travel back to Korea in 1977 to marry Jung.

Jung used to point out what Steve overlooked in himself and others. She helped Steve realize his need to increase his income. While attending night school in Cal State Northridge, Steve worked with a local store in Burroughs, and later with Litton Data Systems. He had a third job with a small fiber optics company. This job inspired Steve to establish his own garage-based company named Fibermux that would create networking products.

After seven years, Steve sold Fibermux and earned him $54 million in the deal. In 1993, Steve founded Xylan in Calabasas, California. Xylan would produce the next generation, power-packed switches used in high speed routing in LANs. Xylan’s switches resembled the shape and size of a pizza box, thus Xylan switches were known as pizza switches.

Xylan held its IPO in 1996, which was known as the most successful IPO since Netscape’s. Its shares, priced at $26 for $4.2 million quickly jumped to $75. In 1998, Xylan reported sales of $350 million. This was exceptional considering that the industry is dominated by giants as Bay Networks, Cisco ad 3Com.

Steve’s hard work, coupled with his creativity were instrumental in the most important engineering advances that would keep Xylan’s switches remain on the cutting edge. In 1999, France’s leading telecom company Alcatel showed interest in acquiring Xylan. After the hefty $2 billion payout, Steve remained with Xylan, taking care of Alcatel’s Internetworking division.

James Kim: A Good Son and a Great Businessman

James Kim was an Asian-American businessman who founded the electronics company Amkor Technology. He was a former economics professor who quit his teaching career in 1968 to help his father’s struggling electronics firm, Anam Electronics of Korea. After establishing Amkor, Kim continued to help his father by acting as Anam’s agent in the US.

During the early goings of Amkor, Agnes, James’ wife had to help him by selling calculators and transistor radios in a mall in King of Prussia Pennsylvania in 1977. After more than twenty years Kim’s fortune has grown in a dramatic fashion. In 1998 Amkor has become the world’s leading independent fabricator of chips and ICs for companies like Motorola, Toshiba, Texas Instruments and Philips.

1998 was a year of slump in the semiconductor packaging industry but Amkor has managed to increase its earnings by 10%, or $1.6 billion. The success of Amkor has contributed to the stability of Anam. Amkor had its IPO in May 1998, in which the company has raised $450 million. Kim had to travel from Seoul, taking care of Anam, to West Chester, Pennsylvania to take care of Amkor Technology.

Alfred Knopf Sr.: In Pursuit of a Dream

Alfred Knopf Sr. was a 20th century publisher who founded his own publishing house named Alfred A. Knopf Inc. Knopf’s publishing house has earned the reputation of producing books with high quality of design, printing and binding 204,325 his clients cited him as a purist in presentation and content.

Knopf was born on September 12, 1892 in New York City. His family was of Jewish descent. His father, Edwin, had a short stint working in his company as film producer and director. Knopf attended the law school of Columbia University where he was honed as a debater and literary writer. In his senior year at Columbia, Knopf became very interested in publishing, a passion he attributed to the engaging correspondence of the British writer John Galsworthy. After his visit to Galsworthy in England, Knopf returned to New York, gave up his plans to pursue his career in law and went to publishing.

In 1912, Knopf worked at Doubleday as a clerk after he received his Bachelor of Arts degree. He also worked for Michael Kennerly as editorial assistant in 1914. In 1915, Knopf left Kennerly and established his own publishing house. Knopf focused on European, especially Russian literature at a time when European literature was neglected to a large extent by most American publishers. Knopf published the works of the likes of Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Joseph Conrad, Sigmund Freud, Thomas Mann, and D.H. Lawrence. He also published American authors like James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Theodore Dreiser, and his personal favorite Willa Cather.

Between 1924 and 1934, Knopf published The American Mercury, a literary magazine established by Mencken and Nathan. Knopf was very personable as he has developed and maintained personal friendships with various authors in the fields of science, sociology and history. Some of the historians with whom Knopf has developed close friendships were Samuel Eliot Morison, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Richard Hofstadter.

Knopf was also an accomplished writer. His writings included Publishing Then and Now, Random Recollections, Sixty Photographs, and Portrait of a Publisher.

In 1959, Knopf’s son Alfred Jr. left the company to establish his own company Atheneum Publishers. In order to survive, Knopf merged his company with the publishing house of his friend Bennett Cerf, the Random House in 1960. He remained the editor for the next five years. Knopf calls the merger “a perfect marriage.”