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Executive power starts with personal integrity Who has it? That's one question I posed to a group of venture capitalists and executive recruiters recently when I asked them to help me build an ultimate network industry "Dream Team."
I required this executive power team to include a CEO along with leaders for an imaginary start-up's financial, marketing and technology departments. No holds barred, I told them - yank 'em out of retirement, steal 'em from competitors, rob other companies of their business acumen, market savvy, technical expertise who would they want on the executive management rosters?
Dream Team CEOs
Cisco CEO John Chambers, as you'd expect, popped up without fail as an exemplary CEO candidate.Although well beyond taking a start-up's helm, he possesses the characteristic trio of intelligence, motivation and maturity that must mark today's CEO, says Len Doherty principal at L.J. Doherty & Associates, an executive search firm in Sudbury, Mass.
True, says Stuart Phillips, general partner with U.S. Venture Partners (USVP) and onetime Chambers' employee. Chambers embodies what a CEO should be:"intellectually honest, very smart and someone who is adaptable," he says.
Chambers surely does a good job of passing those fundamentals on to his underlings - half...