New Year, New CEOs: 7 Companies Where Change Is Now

The recent departure of Research in Motion (RIMM) co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, replaced by Thorsten Heins, got us thinking about the many ways CEOs find their way to their exit. Some lucky few retire at their own speed, exiting the executive office with grace and good wishes. Others stagger out with knives in their backs, are turfed by angry shareholders, or given the boot by unhappy boards. In our list of recent and upcoming personnel changes at the top of eight prominent companies, you’ll find examples of every kind of regime change, from completely seamless to Friday-the-13th bloody.
 

YAHOO
Leaving: Interim CEO Timothy Morse, who stepped in from his CFO position after Carol Bartz was canned in September 2011.

Arriving: Scott Thompson, ex-president of eBay’s (EBAY) PayPal unit.

The Talk: Is Scott Thompson’s appointment as Yahoo (YHOO) CEO the turnaround moment the company has been seeking for years, or just the next step in its ongoing decline?

Yahoo is still the country’s biggest Web portal, and still the fourth largest website overall, after Google (GOOG), Facebook and Microsoft (MSFT).
But Web portals are last decade’s business model, and Yahoo these days has the unpleasant air of something AOL-ish: an unfashionable Web product for your mom.

The company, which lost its search engine prominence in the early 2000s to Google, and failed to find a way to exploit the Facebook-led social media phenomenon, has tried focusing on content, and now promises to turn its attention to mobile computing, but nothing has stopped its key numbers (both market share and display ad sales) from dropping.

Since Bartz’s messy firing, the firm has flirted with prospective buyers – attracted by the company’s still undeniable dominance in on-line content -- but the appointment of Johnson has, at least for the moment, slowed rumors that Alibaba Group (ALBIY.PK), China’s largest e-commerce firm (in which Yahoo has a considerable ownership stake of 40%) was about to lead a purchase bid. The company seems to have currently settled on a complicated sale of its extensive Asian assets back to their majority owners in a tax-free deal valued at about $17 billion.

So, is Thompson the man to finally help Yahoo join Web 2.0? Opinion is mixed. He helped move PayPal from a fringe method of online buying into a 100-million-user, projected-$7-billion-revenue-by-2013 financial service. But he’s not from a media or advertising background, and he’s not necessarily a big-picture thinker. Bartz was, though, and that didn’t end well. “Scott is probably the most hands-on and execution-focused type CEO that Yahoo can get,” says Herman Leung, an analyst at Susquehanna Financial Group.

Bottom Line: Thompson has to find a way to make content sexy again.
 

GOLDMAN SACHS
Leaving: Lloyd Blankfein, hypothetically.
 
Arriving: Current president and COO Gary D. Cohn heads a long list of possible successors.
 
The Talk: Blankfein brazened out the 2008 meltdown. But speculation has been nonstop since then that he’s on his way out: He was irretrievably stained by the toxic activities the bank indulged in leading up to the crisis, critics claimed; the government had placed a bulls-eye on his back; legal troubles would be his and the firm’s downfall.

Blankfein has survived all expert predictions of his ouster so far. Still, intense discussion over his future grows ever louder. In part, it’s just a timing thing: Goldman Sachs (GS) CEOs typically last five years, and guess how long Blankfein has been at the top?

The trading bank is going through some major changes in the current climate, however, which may hasten Blankfein’s departure for more concrete reasons. Its upcoming annual profit report, analysts predict, will be the company’s lowest since it went public. Senior trading chiefs -- most recently the securities trading division’s Edward K. Eisler  and David B. Heller -- are leaving. The business, on the whole, is contracting. And as regulatory changes that will lead to major restructuring across the entire sector come in, it will be time for a fresh(ish) set of eyes.

If Blankfein does decide to vacate his throne, who’s next? Most Goldman Sachs tea-readers pick current president and Blankfein right-hand-man Gary Cohn, and in a stable regime change, that’s what you can expect.

But if things get funky the list of possible successors expands until it includes the company’s entire management committee, depending on which expert you’re talking to.
 
Bottom Line: A few more senior resignations and disappointing quarters will probably see Blankfein out the door. Will Goldman Sachs go for a safe continuation with Cohn or someone less connected to the old ways of doing business?
 

AMGEN
Leaving: CEO Kevin Sharer
 
Arriving: COO Robert Bradway
 
The Talk: The world’s largest biotech company sees a peaceful handing over of the reigns this spring, as 63-year-old CEO Kevin Sharer, a 20-year veteran of the firm, retires and current COO Robert Bradway steps in.

Bradway has been with the company since 2006, rising swiftly up the ranks since he was hired away from the London offices of Morgan Stanley.

The California-based firm is expecting plenty of growth in 2012, with its drug products Xgeva (used to reduce bone fractures in cancer patients) and Prolia (used to treat osteoporosis in menopausal women) having already earned over $500 million in 2011, their first year on the market. This year, the company expects to see the FDA expand the use of Xgeva to include preventing or delaying the spread of prostate cancer to bones.

A Bloomberg survey of industry analysts says they expect to see Xgeva sales to reach $1.78 billion by 2014. Overall, they predict Amgen's (AMGN) revenue to rise 3% to $16 billion over 2012, comparable to 2011’s 3% increase. There are also, according to recent statements by Bradway, several mid- or late-stage studies due in over the next five years: positive results on these will only increase an already rosy future for the biotech giant.
 
Bottom Line: No managerial controversy here, though the company has had safety concerns over other products such as its anti-anemia drug Epogen. The biggest thing to watch out for is the FDA’s April 26 decision on Xgeva. An approval will significantly boost Amgen’s future sales revenue.