September 26th, 2005
Motorola's Ed Zander on leadership
As part of the Churchill Club’s 20th anniversary event, entitled “Leadership Defined,” at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, Motorola CEO Ed Zander was interviewed [podcast here] by Elizabeth Corcoran, senior editor at Forbes Magazine. Zander talked about how he came into the struggling 75-year-old company about two years ago, after 15 years as a Sun executive, and replaced 34 percent of the top 135 executives. Motorola had major problems with customer satisfaction and product quality, and also didn’t watch the competiton, he said. He also said that Motorola’s biggest challenge is speed, outpacing competitors like Samsung and Nokia and delivering innovative products at a rapid rate. His management goals: Inspire people to win and coach the management team, and help them hire good people.
An audio of the Zander interview is available as an MP3 that can be downloaded or, if you’re already subscribed to ZDNet’s series of podcasts, it will show up on your system or MP3 player automatically (See ZDNet’s podcasts: How to tune in). In addition to the Churchill Club interview, Michael Singer of news.com and I interviewed Zander about the latest Motorola products and his challenges in making the company more agile.
Dan Farber, editor-in-chief of CNET News.com, has more than 20 years of experience as an editor and journalist covering technology. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
