Largest Companies in the World

Source: www.seekingalpha.com

Below we highlight the 30 largest companies in the World by market cap ($). As shown, Exxon Mobil (XOM) is the top dog by about $70 billion. Exxon is trailed by another energy company, Petrochina (PTR), then General Electric (GE) and Microsoft (MSFT).

Eleven of the top 30 are based in the United States. The Energy sector has the largest representation at 8, followed by Technology at 5. Only 3 companies in the top 30 are up in 2008 -- Wal-Mart (WMT), IBM (IBM) and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ). And Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG) followers will be happy to see them ranked 25th and 26th in the world.

Bringing biz logic to search for a Prez

Think about how most large organizations hire a new leader. Then think about our presidential campaigns. Is this the best way to evaluate candidates vying to become the nation's chief executive? You know, the person who will lead a trillion-dollar global organization, command the world's most lethal military, wield the power to write and enforce laws, and maintain the authority to print money.

Most organizations looking for a new boss start with an executive search firm. They write a job description. They create selection criteria, solicit applications, review résumés and then conduct interviews. The presidential process reverses this logic. Voters meet and "interview" the candidates first. Then they just keep doing that for months, in all the states and U.S. territories.

Candidates tell the voters what criteria we should use to evaluate them. And as for qualifications, we let the candidates self-certify as well: "I'm the best-qualified candidate running for president." So what if we used the 2008 election for an experiment? Instead of voting, let's say we hired an executive search firm to find the next president of the United States.

How might the headhunters work? Which qualities and qualifications, traits and experience would they deem crucial to this position as the most powerful of all CEOs? "Being president shares an important and defining similarity to every CEO position: There's no one above you," said Paul Schneider, a partner in Chicago's SSP BPI Group, a leading international executive coaching firm. "However, what we observe repeatedly ... is that reaching the top requires one skill set, while a distinctly different set is needed to work effectively from the top," Schneider said.

So what does working effectively from the top as president entail?

In my own White House experience under President Bill Clinton in the mid-1990s, I looked at the presidency as akin to being an NFL coach—except the president was running all 32 teams at once, all playing at the same time.

The White House is a most dynamic environment. And unlike the CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation, a president faces the scrutiny of the Congress, the public, the media, even the world, with almost every decision.

"It is interesting that we have no requirements other than age and citizenship to become president," said Edward Santimauro of Korn/Ferry International. "When we do CEO searches, we labor very hard to define the specific requirements and competencies necessary for the successful placement."

Santimauro's firm focuses on "20 key leadership characteristics."

"We have our clients rank these and arrive at their top seven mission-critical factors organized into categories of: strategic skills, operating skills, courage, energy and drive; organizational positioning skills, and personal and interpersonal skills," Santimauro said. "The candidates' skills are then matched with mission-critical skills."

Jason Hanold, a search executive with Russell Reynolds Associates in Chicago, said the best candidates combine hard skills that can be measured and quantified; and soft skills that generally refer to how well someone works with people.

"Most leaders fall down on the soft issues like relationships/chemistry/values/ability to motivate," said Jack Clarey, president of Clarey, Andrews & Klein in Northbrook. "Very seldom do I see failure because the person was simply not smart enough or lacked the technical skills to perform.

"All the more important in the presidency, because this isn't office politics, this is real politics!" Clarey added.

Santimauro agreed: "Study after study says that executives fail not because of their technical skills or industry experience, but because of their [lack of] ability to lead and fit into a culture."

So how can voters evaluate these skills in the candidates?

Hanold provided a chart that lists some of the hard and soft skills a firm might evaluate if searching for a president, something that each of us voters is already engaged in. A handy checklist, perhaps, for the electoral booth in November?

Finding one person who is an ideal fit for such a profile is a tall order, but the competencies and personal qualities are a valuable tool.

So what is the most important competency that search executives look for? Teamwork and whether the candidate can lead, create and play well on the best teams.

Source: chicagotribune

Developing Trend: Sustainability-Recruitment Battle Looms in Brazil, Russia, India, China

Source: www.thecro.com
How to attract environmental staff when Western-educated talent looks for new challenges

For decades, U.S. and European corporations have been importing talent--programmers from India, researchers from China, and many other permutations of competence and geography. But in sustainability, Western-trained talent will reverse the tide, as individuals increasingly seek opportunities to work in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries and other developing nations. To win the war for this increasingly valuable human resource, Chief Responsibility Officers (CROs) of multinationals and domestic companies operating in those countries must understand the dynamics of this movement of environmental talent--and they must act strategically to tap into it.

Members of this “Have Green: Will Travel” generation will migrate to BRIC for two reasons. First, they want to go there. Because the explosively growing BRIC countries cannot afford to waste resources, companies operating there will need to pursue sustainability and innovation on a vast scale. Meanwhile, sustainability efforts in the U.S. and Western Europe will remain comparatively incremental, given existing infrastructure and years of work at it. As a result, much Western-trained talent will look to the developing world for opportunities to have an impact that matches their passion and aspirations.

Second, they will be in great demand there. Multinationals and domestic businesses in those regions will increasingly need highly talented people who can establish sustainability as a core principle of operations, and profitably address the enormous challenges of sustainability their companies face. Sustainability will not be a corporate luxury but a strategic necessity as resource availability--from metals to water--presents real limits to growth. Because such talent is disproportionably cultivated in the U.S. and Europe, supply and demand will be geographically unbalanced.

On the face of it, these conditions appear to be in sync: the talent wants to go where it’s needed most. But in this emerging talent market, the intensifying demand for environmental talent will likely outstrip supply in the near term. Faced with these conditions, CROs can do three things to make sure they will be able to secure and retain the people they need:

Map the talent
Knowing where the environmental talent is, tracking it, and being poised to cultivate relationships with it are the first steps in a comprehensive talent strategy. Much young talent will emerge from a number of leading academic institutions, which have created strong programs in sustainability. For a pool of more experienced talent, CROs can look to extractive industries like oil, paper, coal, and other markets where regulation has driven significant advances in sustainability.

The best of this talent combine three essential ingredients for success: environmental understanding focused on sustainability, experience in a demanding business context focused on value creation, and knowledge of how to harmonize both.

Balance company and candidate recruiting needs
To attract candidates who expect--and are expected--to take on assignments that are both challenging and unforeseeable, offers must be both sensible and equitable, which means less cookie-cutting and more tailoring. Opportunities to work in developing countries will attract talent, but companies shouldn’t assume that the lure will be sufficient without competitive compensation. These professionals might be expats, with the tax and other issues that living abroad brings, or they might be returning to their home country after studying in the U.S. or Europe, all of which must be taken into consideration.

Drive retention through talent development: Many members of the “Have Green: Will Travel” generation want ever bigger and more challenging assignments, and if they don’t get them they are likely to seek them elsewhere. The CRO can do two things to ensure that this talent--often driven as much by the desire for impact as by personal economics--will stay with the company for the long term: (1) consistently demonstrate the importance of sustainability to the company and (2) pay close attention to talent development--the sequence, size, and complexity of the assignments of high-potentials.

By adopting these principles, CROs can find the right people for the developing world and ensure that they have maximum impact on company value as they take on bigger projects, responsibility for larger regions, and greater leadership roles.

Christoph Lueneburger specializes in sustainability talent for Egon Zehnder International, a leading global firm in executive search, management appraisal, and talent management. Prior to joining Egon Zehnder, he was a principal at private equity house 3Stone Advisors, leading the partnership’s water investment practice. He has been published in Global Water Intelligence and Environmental Finance, among others, and is a frequent speaker and moderator at forums devoted to Cleantech in general and the water industry in particular. He has lived and worked in the United States, Germany, and France.