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simply enough, positive thinking. “There was a good measure of defeatist outlook,” he reflects, “and where that exists people don’t believe in themselves or in the organisation. Rooting that out is essential, and of course once people see some success you can build upon that and use it as a force for good. It gets easier, and a little success can be made to breed more success and self-belief.
“It’s partly a staff issue but it’s also making sure that people hear about all the great things that others around the world are saying about your products. If people only get feedback when something’s gone wrong, they end up believing that everything they do is wrong. Communication is a big part of building a strong business.” Not only in manufacturing, more and more CEOs in European rental preside over consolidated multinationals. SSE Group’s French PA wing Melpomen acquired MES, a
Thierry Tranchant: Melpomen man
French lighting company, in 2013. Melpomen president and SSE director Thierry Tranchant became joint CEO of the two companies from February that year. “Our biggest role as CEOs in this group is to represent each country,” Tranchant says. “It’s hard for me to understand the [British] market, as it’s hard for the guys in the UK to really understand France day-to-day.
We help each other with that.” “In Germany, the Geschäftsführer [literally ‘business leader’, but more commonly translated as managing director] is responsible for all legal, financial and taxation affairs,” explains Holger de Buhr, “but Vue may be a little untypical as, although it’s a standalone company, I am also one of the owners of Vue Audio based in California. Normally, the big shots in the industry are less flexible: Yamaha Europa in Rellingen, for example, is 100 per cent owned by Yamaha Japan. We have an internal agreement about the direction of the company, of course, but to get things started I have a free hand as CEO.”
Ultimately, though, being a CEO is not about being free but being responsible. “In Germany, France and the UK the owners of a limited company usually have a contract with the CEO that stipulates aims, practices,
AMERICAN PIE CHART
From the spiritual home of the CEO, Jim Mack of PreSonus reports that the right blend of Wall Street and wah-wah pedal is essential. “It’s a common story,” he says. “Founder Jim Odom wanted to bring in somebody else so that he could focus on his strengths, and some on the board wanted a business- educated candidate. Thankfully, Jim decided to pool from the industry and found that my background at SaneWave, Tascam and Alesis was the right fit. It is such a unique business model: the things that
reporting and so on, and the CEO must report to them at the AGM,” de Buhr adds. “That’s more freedom than the CEO of a publicly owned company: they have to report to the shareholders every few months, which is why Avid was de-listed from NASDAQ. They did not report frequently enough.” Many would cite Avid as the ultimate creative powerhouse
Jim Mack, PreSonus
make the customer tick are very special, and you have to connect with that.”
punching under its weight thanks to a succession of CEO policies that, ultimately, we know very little about. It has no shortage of critics in financial circles, but its losses may be due to several other factors. That’s the thing about power: it comes with duties that demand transparency. ‘Moral leader’ or ‘addict of power’? Your silence will only make other tongues wag.
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