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Harold Sydney Geneen (January 22, 1910-November 21, 1997), was a well-known American businessman.
Harold Geneen was born in Bournemouth, S.England. He emigrated to US being an infant with his parents. He studied accountancy in New York University.
Career
During 1956-1959 he was CEO of Raytheon, developing his famous management structure, allowing large degree of freedom for divisions maintaining high degree of financial and other accountability.
During 1959-1972 he was the president and CEO of Telephone and Telegraph Corp. (ITT). He grew it from the medium size company with $760 million sales in 1961 into multinational business with $17 billion sales in 1970 extending it's interests from manufacturing of telegraph equipment into insurance, hotels, real estate management and other areas. Under his management ITT established the standard of what modern multinational corporation is. Company grew primarily by series of about 350 successful acquisitions and mergers in 80 countries, some of the largest of which were Hartford Fire Insurance Company (1970), Hilton hotels and Madison Square Garden.
ITT had a lot of interests abroad. Particularly ITT had $200,000,000 investments in Chile. Headed by Harold Geneen ITT funneled $700,000 to Allende's opponent Jorge Allesandri. When Allende won the election Harold Geneen being president of ITT gave CIA $1,000,000 to defeat Allende playing a major role in financing of Chilean Coup.
In 1972 he was forced to resign as CEO and president staying on the Board of Directors till 1977. With his resignation began ITT decline. His successors were not able to manage such a diverse corporation and began selling parts.
Later Harold Geneen founded MCI Communications.
Quotes
Harold Geneen is famous for his quotes, some of which are:
The worst disease which can afflict executives in their work is not, as popularly supposed, alcoholism; it's egotism.
You can't run a business or anything else on a theory.
Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions.
The only unforgivable sin in business is to run out of cash.
Books
Harold Geneen wrote and co-authored several books:
- Harold Geneen, with Brent Bowers The Synergy Myth : And Other Ailments Of Business Today, St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0312147244
- Harold Geneen, with Brent Bowers Synergy and Other Lies: Downsizing, Bureaucracy, and Corporate Culture Debunked, St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0312200803
- Harold Geneen, Alvin Moscow Managing, Avon Books, ISBN 0380699869
- Harold Geneen, Alvin Moscow Alta dirección, Lectorum Pubns Inc, ISBN 8425318718
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