Hey, I almost forgot that round one voting is taking place todayIt looks like Mike Zafirovski is wasting no time revamping Nortel's
management team. According to UBS Securities, the executives shown the door recently include
chief research officer Brian McFadden and Sue Spradley, president of
global services and operations. Both McFadden and Spradley were
long-time Nortel executives who had been shuffled around recently. They
were also among the group of senior executives who “voluntarily” returned
large bonuses in the wake of Nortel's accounting scandal.
So who's next on the hit list? While it would be a major surprise if
CFO Peter Currie leaves the company (Zafirovski has made some positive
public statements about Currie), you have to wonder about Steve
Slattery and Richard Lowe. In yet another corporate reorganization
unveiled in September that split the company into two product groups,
Slattery was appointed head of Nortel's corporate
and
packet networks business while Lowe was named head of
wireless and converged core networks. Niether long-time executive was
seen as a star within Nortel so you have to wonder whether Zafirovski
will keep them in such key posititions. Like a baseball manager or
football coach who wants to be surrounded by his own people, Zafirovski
will likely recruit people he knows and trusts. His settlement with
Motorola – where he spent five years before leaving in January after
losing a bid to become CEO – will keep him from poaching former
colleagues – at least for awhile. But look for him to start shuffling
Nortel's management ranks in short order as he works on this turnaround
plan.
Robert Cringely
I started to leaf through the latest Wired magazine