Shell Chief to Leave Next Year

Abstract: LONDON — Royal Dutch Shell’s chief executive, Peter Voser, plans to retire next year, after a decade in top management jobs in which he helped the company recover from an accounting scandal and become the world leader in liquefied natural gas and related businesses. Mr. Voser, 54, made the unexpected announcement as Shell reported first-quarter profit that reflected only a modest gain from a year earlier but still exceeded analysts’ expectations. “After such an exciting executive career I feel it is time for a change in my lifestyle and I am looking forward to have more time available for my family and private life,” Mr. Voser said Thursday in a statement. One longtime associate said Mr. Voser had long privately expressed a wish to retire by age 55. Although Shell’s chairman, Jorma Ollila, said the board would consider outside candidates to replace Mr. Voser, the company has a team of executives who might be contenders in what the industry assumed would be an orderly transition. With 87,000 employees across the globe, and second only to Exxon Mobil in terms of production by Western oil companies, Shell would not be an easy company to change, in any case. Mr. Voser, who began his business career at Shell in 1982, left in 2002 to become the chief financial officer of a struggling maker of industrial equipment, Asea Brown Boveri, in his native Switzerland, where he made his reputation by helping to lead a turnaround. He returned to Shell in the wake of a scandal on the misreporting of reserves that had led to the departure of both the chief executive, Philip Watts, and chief financial officer, Judy Boynton. Mr. Voser started as chief financial officer and was promoted to chief executive in 2009 upon the retirement of Jeroen van der Veer. One of the few blots on Mr. Voser’s record would be Shell’s high-profile exploration effort in Alaska, which has been plagued by accidents and other problems. Those difficulties have led Shell to suspend drilling until at least 2014. Fellow executives and analysts say that Mr. Voser has pursued a strategy of ambitious projects meant to pay dividends for decades. In particular, he has built up the liquefied natural gas and related businesses to a point where they now account for close to 50 percent of Shell’s exploration and production earnings. “I think Voser has done a good job for Shell,” said Iain Pyle, an analyst at Bernstein Research in London. “The company is left with a strong portfolio of projects and some large, long-term projects which should deliver strong stable cash flows for years to come.” Shell showed evidence of its strength on Thursday when it reported net profit, adjusted for one-time items, of $7.5 billion, up 3 percent from a year earlier. The performance substantially beat analysts’ forecasts. Revenue, at $113 billion, declined 6 percent, but financial analysts pay little heed to revenue figures in the oil industry, given the volatility of prices and the ebbs and flows of production. One of the star performers was the new Pearl GTL plant in Qatar that turns gas into liquids, a technology that only a handful of companies have mastered. Image Peter Voser said he was retiring from Shell because he wants a change in lifestyle and to spend more time with his family. Credit Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated Press Pearl was extremely expensive, costing around $20 billion. But it now looks like a smart bet because its products, like diesel, are linked to high oil prices, giving Shell and its Qatari hosts a hedge against any drop in prices for natural gas. Pearl nearly reached full production at the end of last year, which added an extra 175,000 barrels per day in the quarter, Shell said. The plant has a capacity of 260,000 barrels a day. Shell is considering putting a similar plant on the U.S. Gulf Coast, the company’s chief financial officer, Simon Henry, said Thursday. Mr. Voser has led an effort to build up Shell’s gas portfolio, particularly liquefied natural gas, which is made by supercooling gas into liquid form so that it can be transported, usually on ships. Shell expects global demand for L.N.G. to double by 2025 to the equivalent of about 4.5 billion barrels of oil per year. The business unit called integrated gas, which includes L.N.G. as well as facilities like Pearl, brought in $2.5 billion this quarter. Shell has invested $40 billion in this business in recent years, much of it under Mr. Voser. Analysts say that the advantage of L.N.G., which has extremely high upfront costs, is that it produces steady returns with relatively low capital spending over decades. Shell says it is earning returns of about 25 percent on the capital invested in the integrated gas business. The risk for Shell is that a surge of exports of L.N.G. from the United States and Canada using inexpensive shale gas lowers gas prices in the rest of the world. Recently, North American gas prices have been in the range of $4 per million British thermal units. European prices spot prices, though, were around $10 per million B.T.U.s and Asian prices about $15. Contract prices, especially in Asia, where most of Shell’s L.N.G. goes, are often higher and indexed to oil, which is currently much more expensive than gas. A European oil company chief executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that Shell’s gas emphasis put the company at risk of not only being hit by lower gas prices but also of losing any potential upside if oil prices were to rise. As one indicator of that risk, Shell’s stock price has been flat over the past year while that of Chevron, which is more oil-based, has risen about 15 percent. But Shell executives appear to have made the choice of hedging their oil portfolios. During a conference call with reporters on Thursday, Mr. Henry, the chief financial officer, criticized companies that “bet the farm” on the continuation of $100-a-barrel oil. “We don’t,” he said, saying Mr. Voser was leaving a company “much less exposed to the vagaries of short-term cycles.” Among the internal candidates to replace the chief executive, Mr. Henry, a 51-year-old Briton who has also served as head of investor relations, would probably be a popular choice with investors. But if the board wanted to reward smooth project execution, a top candidate might be another Briton, Andrew Brown, 51, who joined the top management team a year ago as head of international exploration and production, after presiding over the construction of the Pearl plant and a giant L.N.G. facility in Qatar. A third possibility is Marvin Odum, 54, an American, who runs the Americas exploration and production business. Of the three, the only broadly experienced operations executive is Mr. Odum, though he might carry the stigma of the Alaska debacle.

Royal Dutch Shell
Oil and Gasoline
Appointments and Executive Changes
Earnings Reports
Natural gas
Alaska
Qatar
Peter Voser


Barclays Faces Toughest Test in Investment Banking

Abstract: Barclays faces the biggest test in retooling its investment bank. Chief executives at Barclays, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank have now all left, meaning new leaders will tackle their respective divisions’ futures. All three have lost market share to Wall Street over the last few years. But Barclays’ shrinking broker-dealer revenue makes it the top contender for further slippage. Each bank has distinct investment banking challenges. Credit Suisse looks to be the weakest on capital: It allocates equity on the basis of 10 percent of the segment’s risk-weighted assets. Had it done so at 12 percent, as Barclays and Deutsche did last year, its investment bank’s pretax return on equity would have been 5 percentage points lower. That would still have been comfortably above Deutsche’s, however. Blame its exorbitant cost base, which devoured 77 percent of the division’s 2014 revenue and 85 percent of the top line in the first quarter. If Deutsche’s cost-to-income ratio had been 69 percent, as was the case for Credit Suisse and Barclays in the first quarter, its return on equity would have been 12 percent. Barclays could also have produced a first-quarter investment banking return on equity of that magnitude, were it not for a huge effective tax rate linked to the foreign exchange market-rigging scandal. But Barclays has a bigger issue: Its investment bank has shrinking revenue. Credit Suisse produced more investment banking revenue than Barclays last year — a first since Barclays’s integration of Lehman Brothers. Barclays also ceded its sixth-ranked position in fixed-income trading last year to its Swiss rival, according to the research provider Coalition. Of the 14 investment banking businesses tracked by Coalition last year, Deutsche had top-three market share positions in six and Credit Suisse in four. Barclays had that in just one business — rates trading. The good news for Barclays’s executive chairman, John McFarlane, is that Barclays’ noncore assets are easier to wind down than Deutsche’s, according to Morgan Stanley, and the bank’s first-quarter return on equity improved. But market positioning matters, especially in trading. Despite Mr. McFarlane’s recent backing for the business, Barclays may yet lose more ground in investment banking.

Banking and Finance
Barclays
Credit Suisse Group
Deutsche Bank


Virginia Tech Increases Aid to Victims

Abstract: Families of the Virginia Tech students and faculty members shot to death by a student in April will receive more compensation than originally planned, university officials announced yesterday. Each of the families of the 32 people killed will be eligible for $180,000, about $30,000 more than had been envisioned. In addition, those among the 26 wounded who spent at least 10 days in the hospital will be eligible for $90,000 and a waiver of tuition and fees for the remainder of the time it takes them to complete their degrees at the university. Those who spent three to nine days in the hospital will receive $40,000 plus the tuition and fee waiver, and those hospitalized less than three days, as well as other students and faculty members present in classrooms where shootings occurred, can take a waiver of tuition and fees or a single $10,000 payment. The terms apply equally to in-state and out-of-state students. All claims must be filed by Sept. 15. The money will be disbursed from the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund, which was created by the university after the massacre and received some $7.7 million in private donations. The fund is administered by Kenneth R. Feinberg, a leading lawyer who was special master of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. Mr. Feinberg said his initial estimates of the Virginia Tech fund’s benefits had been intentionally low because he did not know how many families would qualify for compensation. He added that the fund had received an additional $250,000 in donations during the last five weeks. Mr. Feinberg also said that those who were in the dormitory where the first two killings occurred, about two and a half hours before the mass shootings in a classroom building, were not eligible for compensation because there was not enough money in the fund. Families of the 32 killed can be reimbursed for psychological counseling through the state’s Criminal Injuries Compensation Fund, he said.

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University


Areva Limits a Sales Process to the French

Abstract: PARIS (Reuters) — A nuclear reactor maker, Areva, will hold exclusive talks to sell its transmission and distribution unit to a French consortium, dismissing foreign offers and keeping the business in domestic hands. The French economy minister, Christine Lagarde, supported the decision Monday, saying the 4.09 billion euro ($6.15 billion) offer from Alstom and Schneider was the best solution for Areva’s “patrimonial interests,” industry and jobs. The decision to pick the French bid over rival offers from Toshiba and General Electric underlines President Nicolas Sarkozy’s keenness to keep the strategic nuclear and electricity industries in French ownership. The state owns 93 percent of the company. The government had stressed that it did not have a preference. All three offers were “relatively similar in value,” Areva said. Alstom and Schneider offered 2.29 billion euros in equity, and the bid included a commitment to maintain all European sites for a three-year period, Areva said. The buyers also promised not to lay off any workers unless the economy deteriorated significantly. The government is forcing Areva to sell the transmission and distribution unit despite objections by the chief executive, Anne Lauvergeon, as a way to pay for Areva’s 11 billion euro expansion plan and to solidify its position as a global leader in nuclear technology. The announcement follows weeks of closed-door talks between the consortium of Alstom and Schneider and the French government, which wanted the two companies to bring their bid in line with more lucrative offers from foreign bidders. In contrast with conventional auctions, the French government placed a safety valve into the process, saying it would evaluate offers not just on price, but industrial and employment policy as well.

Nuclear Energy
AREVA
Alstom
France
Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures


Vatican Lays Groundwork for Discussions on Family

Abstract: ROME — A working paper released on Tuesday by the Vatican for a much-anticipated fall gathering of the world’s bishops laid the groundwork for fresh discussions on issues like the Roman Catholic Church’s ban on same-sex unions and the sacrament of communion for divorced Catholics who have remarried outside the church. In an apparent attempt to reach out to such congregants without departing from church doctrine, it suggests that divorced and civilly remarried Catholics follow a path of pastoral counseling and penance, under the guidance of a prelate. But the path to receiving communion, the document states, “requires further discussion” to address various issues, like spiritual communion and whether the couple can commit to remain chaste in marriage as a condition of receiving the sacrament. The path to communion “is achieved in stages through continual conversion,” it says. The document builds on many of the positions adopted at the last global assembly of bishops, held at the Vatican in October, which broached a number of hot-button issues. It notes, for example, that the church should provide special pastoral care for gays and their families, but goes no further toward accepting their unions. The document also analyzes why fewer people are getting married today, and urges the church not to condemn people who have made this choice but instead to embrace “its most fragile children.” Vatican officials said on Tuesday that the document was a starting point for discussion, and not the final word. “These are merely points of discussion, and the pope wants open, frank, bold and courageous discussion,” said the Rev. Thomas Rosica, a Vatican spokesman. The 78-page working paper — or “Instrumentum Laboris” in Latin — also reflects the views of hundreds of bishops, “dioceses, parishes, ecclesial associations, grass-roots groups of faithful, civil movements and organizations” who responded to a series of questions drafted to deepen the preparation for the coming synod, as the meetings are known, said Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, general secretary of the Synod of Bishops, at a press presentation of the document on Tuesday. The months since last October’s synod have been “a valuable opportunity for listening to what the spirit says to the church in the plurality of her components,” he said. A coalition of organizations that focus on social justice and pastoral care for gay people and their families, known as the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics, said it was disappointed by the working document, which it said did not “reflect the rich discussions which have taken place, internationally and at all levels in the church, on the welcome, respect and value which should be afforded to lesbian and gay people in the Catholic community.” The challenges facing the family will be at the heart of the next synod, which will take place at the Vatican from Oct. 4 to 25. But in modern society, where the traditional household is less and less the norm, the church has been increasingly pressed to address issues like divorce, the role of gay people in a church that views homosexual acts as sinful, and cohabitation outside marriage. The synod will conclude with a set of propositions that will be submitted to Pope Francis, who will have the final say and issue a document known as an apostolic exhortation, offering guidelines to the faithful.

Same-Sex Marriage,Gay Marriage
Divorce
Catholic Church
Pope Francis


A Review of ‘Hudson River Explorers,’ in Yonkers

Abstract: Are the swooping falcons swimming, or are the darting catfish flying? And what about the floating coyote in their midst — is it lofted by air or by water? The delicate wash of blue behind them doesn’t really tell you; the one thing you can say for sure about the animals in Holly Sears ’s painting “Hawks” is that they are on the move. That’s as it should be. The oil is part of a series, “Hudson River Explorers,” commissioned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and replicated on glass panels to line the overpasses at Tarrytown’s Metro-North station. So the work’s intended audience is going to be in motion — either dashing on and off trains or traveling up and down the Hudson Line. But until Oct. 13, the 11 paintings that form the basis for the glass panels can be contemplated in a more leisurely way at the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers. And with their exquisitely detailed renderings of flora and fauna and their generous helpings of whimsy, they reward careful study. Ms. Sears’s work reaches back to two deeply American traditions, the literal nature paintings of John James Audubon and the fanciful “peaceable kingdom” images of Edward Hicks , and then upends them both. She asks us to look more closely at and think more seriously about the natural world by gently subverting our expectations, mixing familiar, abundant local species, like white-tailed deer and red-winged blackbirds, with more exotic, more endangered creatures, like elephants and polar bears. She also inverts scale — in “Ride,” the orange-and-black Painted Lady butterfly straddling a sturgeon is bigger than the crow hovering just above them; the black bears clinging to a log in “Undertow” would have trouble swallowing some of the outsize striped bass caught in the same current. But as playful as these nature scenes are — and I defy you not to smile at “Swimmers,” with its intercontinental menagerie taking an unlikely dip in a rippling pool — Ms. Sears never condescends to her animals. They are not cute. They are not anthropomorphic. They are in every particular utterly themselves, rendered with accuracy and tremendous feeling for the shimmer of scales, the richness of fur, the gloss of feathers. The artist’s method of applying thin layers of color until she gets the density she wants lends some of the birds’ wings a transparency that mimics the blur of motion. And she captures the tremor in a river otter’s whiskers and the folds in a deer’s ear with eye-opening fidelity. At the same time, these animals are utterly fantastic, characters from fables yet to be written: “The Bobcat and the Butterfly”; “The Catfish and the Coyote”; “The Seahorse and the Elephant.” Ms. Sears’s pachyderms, both African and Asian, are buoyant, weightless wonders. Her cats, both wild and domestic, love the water. In her Edenic universe, porpoises cavort with perching birds. Herons hover in midair with their long legs dangling straight down. And what exactly is that fuzzy little yellow chick doing beneath a catfish? Because of the laminated-glass technique used to fabricate the panels for the station overpasses, many of the animals on view at the museum are cavorting on plain white backgrounds. But in the fully installed panels — the ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled for Sept. 14, after the morning rush — the beasts of “Hudson River Explorers” will exist in a more natural habitat. Some of the landscape elements are already present in “Owls,” “Herons” and several of the other paintings at the museum. In “Songbirds,” the bristling branches of a flowering mountain laurel are just as correct — in minute gradations of pink — and nearly as dynamic as the undulating line of flying orioles, cardinals, chickadees and blackbirds. The floating water lily pads and clumps of pickerelweed in “Passengers” give off a muted glow amid their reflections. Ms. Sears depicts the particularities of plants and streams as carefully as she does those of animals. But it remains to be seen if the humans leaving and entering the Tarrytown train station will slow their journeys to join her and become Hudson River explorers, too. They’ll be missing a world of pleasure if they don’t.

Art
Yonkers (NY)
Hudson River Museum
Sears Holly


Brooklyn: Man Charged With Identity Thefts

Abstract: A Brooklyn man has been indicted on charges of using other people’s credit cards to make purchases and cash withdrawals of more than $67,000, prosecutors said yesterday. The man, Kevin Griffith, 27, is charged on 211 counts, including grand larceny and identity theft, said Charles J. Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney. Mr. Hynes said Mr. Griffith, of East 82nd Street near Canarsie, contacted banks and, using personal information from legitimate account holders, requested that new credit cards be mailed to his address. Frequently, he told the banks that he needed a card at the new address because his house had burned down, Mr. Hynes said. He said Mr. Griffith used the credit cards to get cash advances and to make purchases ranging from a $5.16 meal at Wendy’s to a $7,406.60 car rental. Mr. Brown said the charges were hidden from the real account holders by Mr. Griffith’s having the bills mailed to him.

Credit and Money Cards
Identity Fraud
Privacy
Brooklyn (NYC)


Mets Want to Take It Slow With Isringhausen

Abstract: PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — The Mets have asked the right-handed reliever Jason Isringhausen to remain in extended spring training for a week or two to increase his arm strength and reassure them that his elbow is healthy. Isringhausen, 38, had been against the idea, but he told the Mets he would consider the possibility. He has said he will not pitch in Class AAA once the season starts. The Mets have also discussed the idea of asking another right-handed reliever, Blaine Boyer, to accept a minor league assignment. He has an opt-out in his contract that would allow him to become a free agent if the Mets do not put him on the 25-man roster. Both Isringhausen and Boyer have pitched well this spring. But the Mets are particularly intrigued by Isringhausen because of his experience as an elite closer, and because he reached 92 miles per hour on their radar gun Sunday in his last outing after experiencing soreness in his elbow last week. They also see him as someone who could provide guidance and leadership to younger relievers, especially Bobby Parnell. The Mets, who are likely to open the season with 12 pitchers, are trying to figure out a way to keep Manny Acosta, too. Their goal is to keep as many pitchers as possible, and they know if they put Acosta on waivers, he will almost certainly be taken by another team. BELTRAN SET TO PLAY The Mets said Carlos Beltran would start Tuesday against the Washington Nationals in Viera, Fla., meaning he is on track to play opening day, Friday against the Marlins in Florida. But Manager Terry Collins would not say if he intended to use Beltran as the cleanup hitter. “Well, that’s something I’ll address later,” Collins said. “I just want to get him in the lineup right now.” The decision to play Beltran in a big-league exhibition is an indication that the Mets are comfortable that Beltran will not have to go on the disabled list because of his sore knees, and that he will be ready for the beginning of the season. After Beltran played in two consecutive minor league games, the Mets said he told them he was ready. “At some point, you’ve got to say, ‘Look, we’ve talked to the player and Carlos said he’s feeling good and ready to go,’ ” General Manager Sandy Alderson said. If Beltran has a setback after playing in a Grapefruit League game and the Mets have to place him on the disabled list, he would have to miss 11 days. But if he played in minor league games, he would miss only four days. CAUTION FOR PAULINO The Mets were awaiting results from additional medical tests on the backup catcher Ronny Paulino after doctors detected something in recent blood tests that they felt warranted more investigation. ... R. A. Dickey returned to camp after the birth of his fourth child. CLASH OF ALL-STAR SONS Boston’s Tony Pena Jr., son of the former major league catcher and current Yankees bench coach, gave up a run and two doubles over three innings to help the Red Sox defeat the Toronto Blue Jays in a matchup of sons of former All-Stars. The Blue Jays’ starter, Kyle Drabek, the son of 1990 National League Cy Young winner Doug Drabek, struck out five in five innings. (AP) PHILLIES PICK FRANCISCO Philadelphia’s Ben Francisco will replace the departed Jayson Werth in right field. Francisco finished spring training batting .385 in 26 games. (AP)

Baseball
New York Mets
Isringhausen Jason


Ibrahim and Khalid el-Bakraoui: From Bank Robbers to Brussels Bombers

Abstract: The two Belgian brothers who blew themselves and 31 other people up in Brussels on Tuesday started out as carjackers and bank robbers before graduating to terrorism. I nvestigators are racing to assemble a fuller portrait of Ibrahim and Khalid el-Bakraoui who — along with at least two accomplices — carried out the suicide attacks at Brussels Airport and a subway station. Here is what is known about each man, based on public records, official announcements, and interviews with neighbors, lawyers and law enforcement officials. Brussels Born and Raised Ibrahim, 29, and Khalid, 27, grew up in Laeken, a working-class neighborhood in northwest Brussels, not far from the Royal Palace. Their father, a retired butcher, is a devout Muslim who emigrated from Morocco; their mother is conservative and reclusive. The brothers shared burly features, and, by their mid-20s, had amassed a formidable record of violent crime. Violent Criminal Records Khalid appears to have gotten an earlier start on his criminal career: He participated in at least four carjackings and a bank robbery in the fall of 2009. How Belgium Became Home to Recent Terror Plots The attacks in Brussels on Tuesday have refocused attention on the Belgian capital as an incubator of radicalism and center for terrorist plots. On Oct. 27, 2009, armed with a Kalashnikov rifle, he and two accomplices kidnapped a bank employee, forced her to drive to a Brussels branch of the AXA bank and deactivate the alarm. They stole 41,000 euros ($60,764 at the time). About two weeks later, Khalid carjacked an Audi S3 and was found later that same night in a Brussels warehouse full of stolen cars. He was detained, but ultimately was not charged. It was not until September 2011 that a Belgian court convicted him of criminal conspiracy, armed robbery, possession of stolen cars and possession of weapons, and sentenced him to five years in prison, less time served. He was paroled in 2013 or 2014. His brother, Ibrahim el-Bakraoui, was the lookout for a robbery attempt in January 2010 at a Western Union branch in central Brussels. Surprised by a police patrol, Ibrahim opened fire with a Kalashnikov, hitting a police officer in the leg. As he and his accomplices tried to escape, they crashed their car and were forced to hide in a house in Laeken, the neighborhood where the Bakraoui brothers grew up, before surrendering to police. Ibrahim was sentenced in August 2010 to nine years in prison for attempted murder and received parole in October 2014. As part of his parole, he was prohibited from leaving the country for longer than a month. Ties to Terrorists In June 2015, Ibrahim el-Bakraoui was detained in Gaziantep, Turkey, along the border with Syria. The Turkish authorities said they notified Belgian officials that they had detained him, warned them that he “ was a foreign terrorist fighter ,” and put him on a plane to the Netherlands, at his request. An arrest warrant was issued by Interpol for Khalid el-Bakraoui (several months after his brother was detained in Turkey) at the behest of the Belgian authorities, evidently because he had violated the conditions of his own parole. The Outsize Role of Brothers in Terrorist Plots In terrorist attacks around the world, pairs of brothers keep turning up as suspects. Perhaps because of that warrant, he used an alias — Ibrahim Maaroufi — to rent an apartment in September 2015 in Charleroi, Belgium, about 40 miles south of Brussels. That apartment was used as a safe house by some of the terrorists who carried out the Nov. 13 Paris attacks . Evading Capture The Bakraoui brothers evaded the police officers investigating the Paris attacks. Earlier this month, the authorities raided the apartment in Forest that Khalid had rented. A suspect, Mohamed Belkaid, 35, was killed and four police officers were injured. Two men escaped; it is not clear if they were the Bakraoui brothers. The police had been searching for Salah Abdeslam, one of the Paris attackers who had been on the run for four months. A fingerprint belonging to Mr. Abdeslam was found in the apartment. A week later, on March 18, he was arrested at a different apartment in Brussels. His arrest may have put pressure on Ibrahim, who wrote in his will, found by police after Tuesday’s attacks, that he feared ending up “next to him in a cell” — referring, possibly, to Mr. Abdeslam. The Brussels Attacks Ibrahim el-Bakraoui blew himself up at 7:58 a.m. on Tuesday in the departure hall at Brussels Airport, along with a second suicide bomber who has not been identified. At least one accomplice fled. At 9:11 a.m., Khalid blew himself up inside the second car of a subway train as it was pulling out of the Maelbeek station in Brussels toward the Arts-Loi station, to the west. Hours later, the authorities found large quantities of explosives and bomb-making equipment in a house in the Schaerbeek section of Brussels, where the brothers had stayed.

Brussels Attacks
Brussels
Paris Attacks
Ibrahim el-Bakraoui
Khalid el-Bakraoui
Terrorism
Turkey


Spike Seen in Russian Military Flights

Abstract: BRUSSELS — NATO on Wednesday reported an “unusual” spike in Russian military flights over the Black, Baltic and North Seas and the Atlantic Ocean during the past two days. Lt. Col. Jay Janzen, a NATO spokesman, said that four groups consisting of Tu-95 Bear H strategic bombers, MiG-31 fighters and other Russian warplanes had been conducting large-scale maneuvers in international airspace. He said Norwegian, British, Portuguese, German, Danish and Turkish fighters were scrambled in response, as well as planes from the non-NATO nations of Finland and Sweden. No incidents were reported, but Colonel Janzen said the maneuvers were unusual in their size. He said NATO was still tracking some of the planes as of midafternoon Wednesday. Tensions have been running high between NATO and Russia since Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in March. According to NATO officials, alliance pilots have conducted more than 100 intercepts of Russian aircraft this year, about three times as many as in 2013. Brynjar Stordal, spokesman for the operational command of Norway’s armed forces, said Norwegian F-16s intercepted one formation of Bear bombers and tankers west of Norway. The tankers turned back north, he said, but the bombers kept flying south all the way to international airspace west of Portugal and Spain. “We’ve had several of these incidents, around 40 a year,” Mr. Stordal said. “What sets this apart from some of the missions we see from the Russian side is the formation was a little bit larger than we usually see, and they went a bit further south than they usually do.”


Dickey Helps Mets Win Series With Marlins

Abstract: MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Among the many problems that beset the Mets last year, perhaps the most confounding was their inability to win on the road, and particularly here against the Florida Marlins . The Mets won only 32 out of 81 road games last year and did not win a series on the road until the middle of June. Worse, they were 1-8 when visiting the Marlins. The one victory came in San Juan, P.R., so the Mets had not won a game at Sun Life Stadium since Sept. 27, 2009, when it was known as Land Shark Stadium. But in the first series of this year, the Mets have already eliminated what became a mounting blight on their season a year ago. By beating the clumsy Marlins, 9-2 , in front of 18,936 fans, the Mets took the series, two games to one, winning their first series on the road in their first try, and eclipsing last year’s victory total on the road against the Marlins. R. A. Dickey pitched well for six innings, allowing one unearned run, five hits and three walks, and Willie Harris continued to make a mark. Harris hit a two-run home run in the first inning off Javier Vazquez , who picked up where he left off last year with the Yankees . Vazquez could not come close to the expertise that the Marlins’ opening day starter, Josh Johnson, exhibited Friday. The Mets took advantage on the road in a way that never seemed possible last year, even when they were playing well over all in April and in June. “I think last year everybody made such a big deal out of it,” Dickey said. “When you go on the road, you’re this, and when you’re at home, you’re this. I think we started to buy into that. I think if we can get out of the gates good here, all of a sudden, there’s a team psychology that comes into play that hey, we’re a good team no matter where we are.” It certainly helped that the Marlins committed three errors and made two more fielding mistakes as the Mets scored five unearned runs. The Mets had only eight hits, a rather lower figure considering how many runs they scored. They also drew nine walks, five of which were issued by Vazquez in only two and a third innings. He faced 17 batters and got only seven out, and allowed four earned runs, seven over all. The Mets’ No. 2 hitter, Harris, playing left field in place of the injured Jason Bay, hit his home run before Vazquez had recorded an out, and Ike Davis slammed a solo shot in the third inning. Harris went 1 for 5, and his batting average fell 200 points to .400. With Bay out until at least April 9, Manager Terry Collins has opted to start the right-handed Harris against left-handed starters. But he was in the lineup Sunday against Vazquez because the left-handed Lucas Duda was already in right field in place of Carlos Beltran, who was given a day off to rest his knees. Collins said that if Harris continued to play the way he has, it would be difficult to take him out of the lineup, no matter who is pitching. “He’s making it awfully hard,” Collins said. “When we get those right-handers, it’s going to be tough to put him on the bench.” The two right-handers Collins was referring to are Joe Blanton and Roy Halladay of the Phillies. After a day off Monday, the Mets’ next stop on this opening trip is another challenging destination, Philadelphia, where the Mets went 4-5 last season. But coming off a successful visit here, the Mets will carry some momentum into that series. What they will not have to carry is the baggage of not winning a series on the road until the middle of June. “All in all, it was a good weekend, especially since last year we had a lot of trouble here,” David Wright said. “It’s good to get off to a good start, and we’re going to have to play just as well in Philadelphia.” INSIDE PITCH Chris Capuano made his Mets debut Sunday in relief of R. A. Dickey, but will be shifted back into the rotation to pitch April 9 against Washington at Citi Field. Capuano allowed a run, three hits and a walk in two-thirds of an inning. ... Jason Isringhausen was scheduled to pitch two innings in extended spring training but was pulled after one because of a twinge in his back. But according to General Manager Sandy Alderson, Isringhausen had no problem with his right elbow.

Baseball
New York Mets
Florida Marlins
Dickey R A
Vazquez Javier
Wright David


Victims of the Terror Attacks in Paris

Abstract: Among the 12 people who were killed in the attack Wednesday on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo were cartoonists , a proofreader, a maintenance worker and two police officers. A police officer was killed the next day in a Paris suburb, and four hostages were killed at a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris on Friday. These are profiles of the victims. AT CHARLIE HEBDO Stéphane Charbonnier Image Stéphane Charbonnier Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Mr. Charbonnier, 47, known as Charb, was the editorial director of Charlie Hebdo and the face of the newspaper’s defiant stance on publishing cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. Mr. Charbonnier was a staunch left-wing activist, raised in a family of communists, said Daniel Leconte, a filmmaker who was making a documentary about the cartoonists. “He has this education, and this culture, which was one part of his personality, but at the same time he was totally radical.” Mr. Charbonnier’s insistence on publishing depictions of the prophet was not about religious ideology. It was, Mr. Leconte said, about “freedom, liberté.” Elsa Cayat Ms. Cayat, 54, the only woman killed in the attack, was a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and columnist for Charlie Hebdo, where she wrote a bimonthly column called Le Divan (The Couch), the newspaper Le Parisien reported. Her aunt, the author Jacqueline Raoul-Duval, said that Ms. Cayat had found a “second family” in her colleagues at the satirical weekly, according to ELLE magazine. Georges Wolinski Image Georges Wolinski Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Mr. Wolinski, 80, was born in Tunisia to a French-Italian mother and a Jewish father from Poland. “He loved life, alcohol, women,” Mr. Leconte said. “A free man. I loved him.” He was very prolific and reveled in broad caricature and in skewering taboos, said Françoise Mouly, the art editor of The New Yorker. Nothing, she said, was sacred to Mr. Wolinski — neither the feminist movement nor religion — and his willingness to push limits was an inspiration to many contemporary artists. “Certainly he managed to transcend bad taste,” she said, with a drawing style that was deliberately quick and rough but that focused on ideas. “He made it his trademark,” she said. Bernard Maris Image Bernard Maris Credit Christophe Abramowitz/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Mr. Maris, 68, an economist, author and columnist for France Inter radio who also contributed to Charlie Hebdo, was killed alongside cartoonists at the weekly newspaper’s editorial meeting. His death was announced by Radio France’s chief executive, Mathieu Gallet, on Twitter on Wednesday afternoon. “Our collaborator Bernard Maris is one of the victims of the attack against Charlie Hebdo,” he wrote. “France Inter is crying and our thoughts go out to his family.” Mr. Maris was also an economics professor at Université Paris 8. Bernard Verlhac Mr. Verlhac was known as Tignous. (Most of the cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo used some sort of pen name.) He was born in 1957 and contributed to a wide variety of publications, according to Le Monde, the French daily newspaper. “He was the last one to enter the team,” Mr. Leconte said, describing the group that was at the heart of Charlie Hebdo’s creative output. “He was in a way more shy in person. But not when he draws. His caricatures are so dynamic.” Ahmed Merabet Mr. Merabet, 40, a police officer who was killed as he lay wounded on the ground, inspired a Twitter hashtag, #JeSuisAhmed — I am Ahmed — as many praised him for defending a newspaper that was accused of insulting his Muslim faith. At a news conference on Saturday, relatives called him a pillar of their family. “My brother was Muslim, and he was killed by fake Muslims,” said Malek Merabet. The family also urged people to “stop conflating things, triggering wars, burning mosques or synagogues.” Officer Merabet was assigned to the police precinct in Paris’s 11th Arrondissement, according to Rocco Contento, a police union official who knew him. “He was a nice person, very likable, always with a smile and very professional,” Mr. Contento said. Officer Merabet, whose parents were from North Africa, lived in a suburb north of Paris with a large immigrant community, was unmarried and had no children. Philippe Honoré Image Philippe Honoré Credit Francois Guillot/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Mr. Honoré, 74, was the fifth Charlie Hebdo cartoonist to be declared killed in the attack, according to the news agency Agence France-Presse. His cartoon of the leader of the Islamic State group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi — wishing his audience a happy new year and “above all, good health!” — was the last drawing to be posted on Twitter before the attack. After publishing his first drawing in the newspaper Sud-Ouest at the age of 16, Mr. Honoré went on to collaborate with several French media outlets. Frédéric Boisseau Mr. Boisseau, 42, a maintenance worker employed by the Sodexo services company, was killed in the lobby of the building when the attack started. The company said that Mr. Boisseau was married, with two children, and that Sodexo staff members had mourned him with a minute of silence at midday on Thursday. A statement by Sodexo’s chief executive, Michel Landel, on the company’s website expressed “immense sadness” over Mr. Boisseau’s death. “All together, we share the feeling that it is intolerable that one of our colleagues lost his life in such tragic and unfair circumstances, in the name of a cause so contrary to our values,” Mr. Landel wrote. Jean Cabut Image Jean Cabut Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Mr. Cabut, known as Cabu, was born in 1938 and studied art in Paris. He helped found Hara-Kiri, the predecessor to Charlie Hebdo, after serving in the military in Algeria. “He’s an artist, a poet, a sweet man and a great journalist,” said Mr. Leconte, the filmmaker. He said Mr. Cabut was always drawing, sketching even places he passed every day. Mr. Cabut’s style, Ms. Mouly said, was political, and similar to Saul Steinberg, a style more familiar to American audiences. He often caricatured politicians, and his most famous character was Le Grand Duduche, an awkward adolescent. Ms. Mouly compared his cartoons featuring that character to the work of the American cartoonist Jules Feiffer. His political drawings “didn’t stop him from drawing Muhammad,” Ms. Mouly said. “Whatever was at the topic of the day.” Mustapha Ourrad Mr. Ourrad, a proofreader at Charlie Hebdo, was an orphan who was born in Algeria and moved to France when he was 20, according to the Le Monde. He was a self-taught man who impressed friends with his erudition, the newspaper said. Michel Renaud Image Michel Renaud Credit Danyel Massacrier/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Mr. Renaud, 69, a former journalist and the founder of a cultural festival in his hometown, Clermont-Ferrand, was killed alongside Charlie Hebdo staff members, according to Agence France-Presse, which quoted Olivier Bianchi, the mayor of Clermont-Ferrand. Mr. Bianchi told the news agency on Wednesday that Mr. Renaud was visiting the cartoonist Jean Cabut, who had been the guest of honor at the previous festival. Franck Brinsolaro Mr. Brinsolaro was in charge of guarding Mr. Charbonnier, who had received protection since 2011 when Charlie Hebdo was attacked for publishing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. On Wednesday, Officer Brinsolaro fired two shots before the attackers killed him, a police union official said. Officer Brinsolaro had two children, according to the regional newspaper L'Éveil Normand, which said on its website that its editor in chief, Ingrid Brinsolaro, was his wife. AT THE SUPERMARKET Yoav Hattab Image Yoav Hattab Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Mr. Hattab, 21, was a student in Paris. His father is the director of a Jewish school in Tunisia, where his family lives, according to Le Parisien. His brother said that Mr. Hattab often went shopping at the supermarket on Fridays for Shabbat because he lived in Vincennes, the Tunisian website Kapitalis reported. François-Michel Saada Mr. Saada, 63, was a former executive who was married for more than 30 years, according to Le Parisien. He had two children, Jonathan and Emily, who live in Israel. A friend described him to the newspaper as an “exemplary” husband and father: “He was someone who was extremely upright, who led his life for the happiness of his family.” Philippe Braham Image Philippe Braham Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Mr. Braham, 45, worked for a commercial IT consulting company, according to Le Parisien. He attended a synagogue on Montrouge, the newspaper reported, and his children were enrolled at a Jewish school near where a female police officer was shot and killed in a southern suburb of Paris on Thursday. Yohan Cohen Mr. Cohen, 22, worked in the store and lived in the suburb of Sarcelles, which is known for its Jewish population, according to The Jerusalem Post. A shopper, Jeremie Agou, told the newspaper that he saw Mr. Cohen every week when he went there to buy groceries. Mr. Cohen was the grandson of a famous Jewish-Tunisian singer who died a month before him in December, Le Parisien reported. The deputy mayor of Sarcelles, François Pupponi, said that Mr. Cohen’s family was devastated. “He was a nice boy,” Mr. Pupponi said. “I knew him by sight and his friends, too. This is a tragedy that affects all of the city and the Jewish community.” IN A PARIS SUBURB Clarissa Jean-Philippe Ms. Philippe, who was in her 20s, was a police officer who had been on the job a short time and was still in training, according to Le Monde . Her colleagues described her as “lively and dynamic.” She was from the French Caribbean island of Martinique, where she left behind her family to move to Paris, according to Paris Match magazine . She was responding to a report of a traffic accident in the suburb of Montrouge when a suspect wearing a bulletproof vest shot her and drove off. Her death is believed to be connected to the other killings.

Paris France
Terrorism
France
Charlie Hebdo
Franck Brinsolaro
Jean Cabut
Stéphane Charbonnier
Ahmed Merabet


Sun Get Top W.N.B.A. Pick

Abstract: The Connecticut Sun won the top pick in the W.N.B.A. draft lottery. The Tulsa Shock earned the second pick, with the San Antonio Silver Stars getting the third choice and the Liberty receiving the fourth pick. Connecticut, which finished last in the Eastern Conference last season, had a 44 percent chance of winning the No. 1 selection. The top prospects this year include Chiney Ogwumike of Stanford, Odyssey Sims of Baylor and Alyssa Thomas of Maryland.


Kosovo’s Thaci Aspires to Statesmanship, but Guerrilla Past Haunts Him

Abstract: PRISTINA, Kosovo — WHEN Hashim Thaci directed a bloody guerrilla war from the mountains of this poor and rugged country, he was so adept at evading capture that fellow fighters called him the Snake. Now, Mr. Thaci, 45, the former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army and the current prime minister of Kosovo, wants to be remembered as a statesman. In June he agreed to put in place a landmark power-sharing agreement with Serbia that is being hailed in Europe and the United States as a triumph of peace and reconciliation in the region after the Balkan wars of the 1990s, in which about 120,000 people died, more than 10,000 of them in Kosovo. Mr. Thaci (pronounced THAH-chee) is being hailed in Washington and Brussels as the Gerry Adams of the Balkans, his country on the road toward Europe, his name even invoked, however improbably, as a possible Nobel Peace Prize candidate. But in Serbia, he remains a deeply reviled figure, a complication that underlines the challenges to overcoming ethnic enmities in a region where memories run deep. Former K.L.A. commanders and Western diplomats say he was a ruthless and much-feared leader during the 1998-99 Kosovo war, who ordered arrests, assassinations and purges within the rebel army’s ranks to fend off potential rivals. Mr. Thaci has strongly denied this. “Most people in Serbia consider Thaci to be an unindicted war criminal who personifies the double standard of the victor’s justice,” said Ljiljana Smajlovic, a prominent Serbian commentator who is president of the Serbian Journalists’ Association. “He now wants to forget his past and go by the book, and he is no doubt sincere in that pursuit. But every warlord in the former Yugoslavia reinvents himself as a liberal democrat.” In an interview, Mr. Thaci rebuffed that characterization, arguing forcefully that he had been fighting a brutal war against a violent enemy. “I was fighting on the right side of history, liberating my people from tyranny against a ruthless enemy engaged in a massive attempt at genocide,” he said. Yet the past keeps coming back to haunt him. In 2010, a Council of Europe report accused Mr. Thaci of having led a “mafialike” group that smuggled weapons, heroin and human organs during the war and its aftermath. Mr. Thaci has rejected those accusations as well, and the Kosovo government at the time called them “despicable.” In August 2011, the European Union set up a special task force to investigate the veracity of organ-trafficking claims, including whether or not Mr. Thaci was involved. It has not yet delivered its findings. Asked about the accusations, including that Kosovar Albanians kidnapped Serbs during the war and harvested their kidneys at a secret “yellow house” in Albania, Mr. Thaci transformed his grin into a grimace. “Something like that never happened; we have nothing to hide,” he said. “The earlier the issue is clear, the better it is for Kosovo. It is really a very heavy burden for us, and we believe in truth and justice.” Such demons hover over regional reconciliation, and the success of the power-sharing accord would mark a rehabilitation of sorts for Mr. Thaci and a turning point for his country, which has struggled to gain full international acceptance. MR. THACI said his wartime experience had taught him to keep his patience during six months of 12-hour-a-day talks this year when he faced his former foe, Prime Minister Ivica Dacic of Serbia. Mr. Dacic was the wartime spokesman of the former Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, whose forces had tried, without success, to hunt down and kill Mr. Thaci. “It wasn’t easy to sit opposite one another at the table, two former sworn enemies,” Mr. Thaci said, recalling his first awkward handshake with Mr. Dacic. But he said pragmatism had ultimately prevailed. Being celebrated at home as a former soldier also helped. An athletic and lanky man with a vise-grip handshake, Mr. Thaci, the seventh of nine children, comes from a family of farmers in the Drenica region of Kosovo, the heartland of Albanian resistance to the Serbs. He said fighting was in his blood. His paternal grandfather fought the Nazis, and after the war his family became staunch anti-Communists who fought against Serb forces in the Yugoslav Army. Already an activist in his teens, he said, he became politicized while visiting family in Vienna and Paris in the 1980s, and glimpsed the possibility of a “normal” life away from Serbian police batons. He later went underground to join the Kosovo Liberation Army. While some, like Kosovo’s first president, Ibrahim Rugova, favored Gandhian passive resistance, Mr. Thaci was a forceful advocate of armed struggle. “The Serbian regime would not be pacified by smiles and hugs,” he said. In the early 1990s, he pursued postgraduate studies in politics and history in Switzerland. He is married and has a son. He is credited with transforming the unwieldy and divided K.L.A. into a unified fighting machine in the late 1990s, as clashes with Serbian forces intensified. Colleagues recalled how during the war he walked the mountainous border between Kosovo and Albania more than 50 times, wearing a threadbare camouflage uniform and evading Serbian snipers, sometimes through snow several feet deep. “He was viewed as charismatic, tough, courageous and brave,” recalled Petrit Selimi, Kosovo’s deputy foreign minister. At the NATO-sponsored peace talks in Rambouillet, France, early in 1999, Mr. Thaci made a strong impression on Madeleine K. Albright, the United States secretary of state. He proved to be a pragmatist, signing a compromise deal that fell short of guaranteeing Kosovo’s independence. The talks eventually collapsed when Belgrade refused to withdraw all of its military forces, prompting NATO’s bombing campaign. AFTER the war, he has been credited with demilitarizing the rebel army, though thousands of Serbs were nevertheless forced to flee from revenge attacks. He founded the Democratic Party of Kosovo, or P.D.K., which was made up largely of former guerrillas. After the party lost two consecutive elections — an unexpected blow — he overhauled its nationalist fighter image, preaching closer ties with the West. He finally won an election in November 2007. He has also tried to revamp his macho reputation and recently startled even his closest advisers in this conservative country by championing civil rights for gay people. He has developed a love for fine Italian wines, is an avid skier and has long since traded in his camouflage gear for dark designer suits. Although he has been widely credited with shepherding Kosovo toward independence — Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has called him the “George Washington of Kosovo” — his government has also faced repeated accusations of rampant corruption. In May, he suffered another blow when a European Union court here ordered the arrest of seven former K.L.A. commanders accused of war crimes, including two former close aides. Mr. Thaci insists that he and his fellow soldiers were freedom fighters. He quoted the lyrics of a favorite Sting song he said he had listened to as a young guerrilla leader. “Takes more than combat gear to make a man. Takes more than a license for a gun. Confront your enemies, avoid them when you can. A gentleman will walk but never run.”

War Crimes,Genocide,Crimes Against Humanity


2,000 to Watch Inauguration at City Hall

Abstract: For those who were thinking of going to City Hall on Jan. 20 to watch a live broadcast of President-elect Barack Obama ’s inauguration , the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, has an urgent message: Sorry, you’re too late. More than 2,000 New Yorkers have already registered to watch the inauguration on several large-screen televisions in City Hall, Ms. Quinn said on Wednesday. As a result, there is simply no more room — not in the Council’s Chambers, not in its Committee Room, not in the Red Room, not even in the Rotunda. “I’m sorry that it got so full so quickly, though I think that’s an incredibly exciting thing that so many people want to come to City Hall, want to be in their local seat of government, to watch this incredibly exciting event,” said Ms. Quinn, a Democrat who, like almost 80 percent of city voters on Nov. 4, backed Mr. Obama. Ms. Quinn had announced the public screening on Dec. 22 as a way of offering residents who could not travel to Washington (much less find a place to stay) a way to mark the occasion publicly. But city officials got so many responses that they had to halt the registration process much earlier than the original Jan. 16 deadline. Those who cannot get in will be given information soon, Ms. Quinn said, as to other locations where screenings are planned. So far, these include York College in Jamaica, hosted by Councilman Thomas White Jr. of Queens; Trinity Church on Wall Street; and the Queens Theater in the Park in Flushing. Details for the City Hall screenings are still being ironed out. But doors will open at 10:30 a.m. for the noon inauguration. And no, you can’t bring Champagne — food and drinks are prohibited. Anyone who wants to catch a glimpse of Ms. Quinn, though, will have to look very closely at the television, because she, along with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, will be in Washington attending the ceremony.

Obama Barack
Inaugurations
City Hall
Manhattan (NYC)


Cindy Whitehead: No Nickname? Just Leave That to Me

Abstract: This interview with Cindy Whitehead , chief executive officer of the Pink Ceiling , which finances and supports innovations for women, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant. Q. What were your early years like? A. I had a nomadic childhood. I moved every year from the fourth grade through my senior year of high school. My father was with the State Department. We spent some time in upstate New York, where I was born. We bounced back and forth between there and Washington, D.C., and then overseas in both the Fiji Islands and in Italy. How did you feel about moving around so much? I went kicking and screaming every time because I’d finally get established and then we would move again. But in hindsight, it’s made me good at observation, pretty good at appreciating different points of view and hugely adaptable. Tell me more about your parents. They have very strong personalities. My mom is the quiet power, with a lot of compassion for others. She has always found a way to give back. My dad has a strong will to challenge the status quo. He was deeply a public servant who believed it was his duty to instigate change. What was your first formal management role? I had a sales team at Dura Pharmaceuticals. It was fun. The people in the group were very quirky, and they all were self-made. If someone is self-made, the skills they used to get to that point are going to ultimately make them successful in a team-based environment. How do you determine if they’re self-made? I’ll explore it in a conversation. How did you grow up? What did you do to first make money? I’m listening for whether they created their own destiny. If they’ve got that, they have that passion and that drive to pave their own path. Those are my kind of people. Other lessons you learned early on? I learned to speak up. I talk to a lot of women about that today. They often use all these qualifiers — the apology before they ask a question, or they’ll say, “Can I ask a question?” You just did. Ask the question. I learned to push myself out of my comfort zone, because if I had something to say and didn’t say it, I would stew on it. You’re on your fourth company that you’ve started. Have you noticed big changes to the culture as they’ve grown past certain milestones, in terms of employees or revenues? I have this wish to never go above 50 employees. Above that, there is a shift in the personal interaction you have with them. Below that, I can still remember your dog’s name and whether you just had a baby. At a certain size, you lose some of that. I love knowing everybody. My quirk is that I nickname everybody who works for me, and I don’t know if I can nickname 250 people the same way I can with 50. How do you come up with the nicknames? Through the stories they tell over time. There will be something that is very memorable that totally captures them. It becomes a big thing the day you are nicknamed, and everybody knows the story behind why you get that nickname. You can literally go to company events and we only call each other by our nicknames. I assume you have a nickname. It’s H.B.I.C., which they have promised me stands for Head Betty in Charge, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what the B stands for. But it’s out of love. My business card says Head Betty. You built up Sprout Pharmaceuticals to bring Addyi, a drug to treat low sex drive in women, to market. Was it hard to watch your grand plan go south after you sold the company to Valeant? In a word, it’s disheartening, maybe heartbreaking. Exits for founders are often unsatisfactory in that you have this baby, and the baby will probably live its best life through adoption. The goal was that women around the world would have access to the drug. But the adoptive parents don’t always have the same vision. Tell me more about how you hire. I’ll have them give me their three-minute commercial — tell me about yourself, soup to nuts — to see where they start. They may start when they were born, or in their résumé. I also love to hear what their favorite business is and why. It’s probably not a question they’re commonly asked, but those who will fit in with our culture will find it pretty quickly. And it will probably not be a formulaic answer. It will probably be about some mom-and-pop store that they grew up going to and why it was great. What career and life advice do you give to new college grads? I tell people to walk into your boss’s office in the first week and say, “I want to be great at this. I’m here to add value. I’d love any opportunity to learn.” If you’re sitting in front of me and telling me that you want to be great, I’m going to believe you. Why don’t more people do that? Because when you show up out of college, you think you’re there to learn the rules, and what you’re really there to learn is how to contribute. But you’re in an unfamiliar environment, you’re sort of feeling your way, and you would never have the audacity to say that to your boss. But I think it will be a defining moment if you decide that you are there for a reason and you have a lot to offer. You need to declare that you’re ready to offer it. Given your work advising female entrepreneurs, what’s a key lesson you try to pass along? At the Pink Ceiling, we give really candid feedback to women who pitch us. I think we’re having a great moment around women. What I fear is that if we do too much cheerleading and not enough straight talk, we’re going to set up a lot of young women for failure. They were brave enough to start a business from scratch and we congratulate them for it without telling them candidly that their business plan isn’t scalable or sustainable. It’s not about raining on their parade. It’s about setting them up for long-term success. That’s what is not being said right now.

Women and Girls
Management
Small business
Entrepreneurship
Cindy Whitehead


Some See Restraint in Goldman Chief’s Bonus

Abstract: Once again, a bonus at Goldman Sachs has all of Wall Street talking — only this time, over how small it is. After weeks of intense speculation, Goldman Sachs disclosed late Friday that its chief executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein , would receive an annual bonus valued at $9 million, a figure that, to the surprise of many, put him in the middle of the pay scale for the nation’s banking chiefs. While most people can only dream of such a reward, the news was widely seen on Wall Street as a show of restraint and a nod to the uproar in Washington and elsewhere over resurgent pay and profits at banks like Goldman. Indeed, the award represents a fraction of the record $68 million bonus that Mr. Blankfein received in 2007, when Goldman made less money than it did last year. In 2008, in the midst of the financial collapse, he collected no bonus. Mr. Blankfein received no cash bonus. The award is entirely in the form of deferred stock, which he cannot sell for five years. Many on Wall Street had been anxiously awaiting the figure, amid talk that the bonus might be anything from nothing to $100 million. “It takes a lot of the oxygen out of the argument that Goldman’s top of the house is overpaid,” said Brian Foley, an independent compensation consultant in White Plains. “For running an organization that big, and bringing it through the way he did, nine million is not a lot of money.” Goldman made a series of political and business calculations in tallying Mr. Blankfein’s rewards. The timing, too, seemed deft: hours earlier, JPMorgan Chase had announced that its chief executive, Jamie Dimon, would receive a $16.6 million bonus and $1 million in salary. For once, Goldman, known for its big paydays, had grabbed the high ground by paying its chief executive less money. At the top, John G. Stumpf, chief of Wells Fargo, was paid $18.4 million in cash and stock for 2009 though he runs a less complex company. Vikram S. Pandit of Citigroup vowed to accept only $1 in salary until the bank is profitable. For Mr. Blankfein, the news arrived on Friday afternoon, after a tumultuous day of trading on Wall Street. While Mr. Blankfein’s bonus had been the subject of internal debate for weeks, the final decision came quickly. On Thursday, the compensation committee of Goldman’s 10-member board of independent nonexecutive directors called a meeting for Friday afternoon. Some of the directors convened at Goldman’s headquarters at 85 Broad Street, in Lower Manhattan, while others joined in by telephone. Before the close of trading at 4 p.m., the decision was final. Less than an hour later, Goldman disclosed the figure in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mr. Blankfein, whom the firm insisted was not privy to the discussions, had been traveling in the Middle East and returned to New York only this week. Lucas van Praag, a spokesman for Goldman, insisted that the timing and size of the award was unrelated to Mr. Dimon’s announcement, and he would not say how the directors had arrived at the bonus figure, other than to say: “It’s a reflection of the times. Notwithstanding that there has been some extremely ill-informed speculation and a great deal of unpleasantness, we have shown respect for the environment.” A person close to the board, however, said that in their discussion the directors had agreed they needed to send a strong statement that the firm understood the mood of Washington and the public. On top of the bonus, Mr. Blankfein will receive a $600,000 cash salary, the same as in previous years, and other perks like a company car and driver. The current award must, however, be put in the context of his past compensation — in 2006 he received $53.4 million, and the firm said that since 2000 he has received $181.5 million in total salary and bonus, though he has cashed out only part of it. Goldman Sachs also announced the bonus awards for four other senior executives, including Gary D. Cohn, the firm’s president and chief operating officer, and David A. Viniar, the chief finance officer. All received stock valued at $9 million. In December, Goldman announced that its top executives, including Mr. Blankfein, would forgo cash bonuses. Instead, the executives would be paid in the form of special stock — an arrangement that could still turn out to be enormously lucrative if Goldman’s share price rises. Many other big banks had disclosed the compensation of their top executives in recent weeks, but Goldman had appeared to delay its announcement, leading to intense speculation about what the firm would do. Many on Wall Street thought Goldman was waiting for a good public relations moment to release the news — and calculating what figure the public mood could tolerate. Some analysts suggested that Goldman’s — and Wall Street’s — show of restraint would be fleeting, and the banks would quickly return to its ways. “I am still waiting for one of the banks to come forward with a long-term performance-related incentive plan,” said Paul Hodgson, a senior compensation analyst at the Corporate Library, a corporate governance research firm. “They are just making everybody wait for the pay.”

Blankfein Lloyd C
Goldman Sachs Group
Bonuses
Executive Compensation


Wie Is in Three-Way Tie for Lead

Abstract: Michelle Wie shot a six-under-par 66 for a share of the first-round lead with Angela Stanford and Candie Kung in the Lorena Ochoa Invitational in Guadalajara, Mexico. ¶ Charlie Wi ended his opening round with back-to-back birdies for an eight-under 64 on the Palm Course at Disney to take a one-shot lead in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.

Wie Michelle
Kung Candie
Stanford Angela
Golf


Bank Analyst Sees No Payoff in Customer Focus

Abstract: First came the unhelpful bank tellers. Then the unexplained monthly fees. Then the fumbled mortgage application. When Richard X. Bove encountered this string of bad experiences at his Wells Fargo branch in suburban Tampa, he didn’t sit quietly and fume like other Americans who have grown frustrated with their banks. He began by moving his business to a bank down the street — then he used his platform as one of the nation’s most outspoken bank analysts to tell his story to thousands of clients. But instead of trashing the bank and its stock, Mr. Bove in his Tuesday note shared his latest epiphany: catering to customers may actually distract from the pursuit of making money in the new world of finance. What really matters, he now believes, is pushing products and managing risk. “I’m struck by the fact that the service is so bad, and yet the company is so good,” said Mr. Bove, an analyst with Rochdale Securities. “Whatever it is that drives people to do business with a given bank, in my mind, now has to be rethought.” A Wells spokeswoman, Mary Eshet, said that the company would not comment on Mr. Bove’s report but noted that, “Customer service is incredibly important and central to our vision and values at Wells Fargo.” Ms. Eshet pointed to the company’s internal surveys of customers, which found that their satisfaction had reached a record high in the second quarter of 2012. Mr. Bove has a history of taking controversial positions in his research reports. In one case, he provoked a Florida bank to sue him for defamation — a case that was ultimately settled. But Bove’s defection from Wells highlights a broader tension in modern banking in the wake of the financial crisis. A Gallup poll in June showed that only 21 percent of Americans had confidence in banks, down 2 percentage points from a year earlier and way off the 41 percent in 2007 before the crisis. This, however, has not stopped the nation’s largest banks from growing in size and power. Wells’s deposits, for instance, have more than doubled since its purchase in 2008 of Wachovia, where Mr. Bove was a longtime customer. The popularity of Wells among investors recently pushed it past JPMorgan Chase to become the largest American bank by stock market capitalization. But annual surveys by J. D. Power & Associates suggest that Wells has dragged down the formerly stellar customer satisfaction ratings of Wachovia. In 2007, Wachovia was among the most highly rated banks in the regions where it operated. This year, Wells got below-average customer service ratings in seven out of the 11 national regions where J. D. Power does its surveys, and was just above average in the other four. In Florida, where Mr. Bove lives, Wells was 10th out of 11 banks. Mr. Bove noticed the difference even before the Wachovia signs had been taken down from his branch. As he tells it, the booth where a manager used to stand to greet customers was removed and replaced by a desk where an employee was selling bank products. After a few bad experiences, Mr. Bove called Wells Fargo investor relations representatives and questioned statements from the bank’s executives about the importance of customer service to the company. He said the representative told him that his branch was an anomaly. But Mr. Bove said he soon began to realize that all the bank employees who were not catering to his whims were instead padding the company’s bottom line. “Spending time solving problems with people is not selling products,” said Mr. Bove. “It’s wasting time.” Mr. Bove upgraded his recommendation on Wells Fargo stock to a buy last year at about the same time that he began to move his personal bank accounts to a nearby JPMorgan Chase, where he said he is getting the kind of personal service he used to receive at Wachovia. He decided to write Tuesday’s note when Wells Fargo rejected his application to refinance his mortgage, even though he had already withdrawn the application. “One of the core beliefs you have about any company is that the quality of their product is the determinant of the company’s financial success,” Mr. Bove said. “The point is, it doesn’t work here.”

Customer Relations
Banking and Financial Institutions
Wells Fargo & Company
Bove Richard X
JPMorgan Chase & Company


A Worrisome Peek at Strained U.S. Air Travel

Abstract: I DON’T usually write about relatives’ travel travails, but this one may be instructive as the domestic air travel system steadily contracts. My mother-in-law, who is 82, was stranded Saturday night at Dulles International Airport outside Washington on a trip home that began when my wife and I drove her to the Tucson airport at 4:30 a.m. Her flight on United Air Lines took off at 6 a.m. She connected through Los Angeles and arrived at Dulles in the late afternoon. But her final leg home, United Flight 3876 to Binghamton, N.Y., was canceled a few minutes after its scheduled 5:25 p.m. departure. She finally made it home to Binghamton late Sunday night — after being rebooked on the only practical option out of Dulles, a Delta flight on Sunday to Elmira, N.Y., with a connection through Detroit. Relatives drove the 60 miles from Binghamton to Elmira to pick her up. Her experience, I suspect, is a portent for domestic air travel, especially as rising fuel prices prompt airlines to cut capacity and reduce flights to small and midsize markets. For many travelers, multiple connections are now the norm. And often, there are no seats available to be rebooked on the limited number of flights scheduled at many midsize airports. So a canceled flight can mean spending a night at the airport or, as in the case of my mother-in-law, at a hotel provided by United. Getting from Point A to Point B is becoming ever more challenging, especially when Points C, D, and E are part of the itinerary. I could bore you with a detailed explanation of how the domestic airline system is shrinking, even as planes remain full. United’s domestic seat capacity, for example, was down 6.4 percent in January compared with a year earlier. Most airlines are cutting domestic capacity this year. I could explain exactly why the system is shrinking, especially at “markets that we simply cannot make work in the current fuel environment,” as Bob Jordan, the chief commercial officer at Southwest Airlines, put it last month. He was referring to the planned elimination of service by AirTran Airways (which Southwest bought last year) at airports in Sarasota, Fla.; Lexington, Ky.; Harrisburg and Allentown, Pa.; Huntsville, Ala.; and White Plains. But let’s not get into all that right now. Let’s just look at the plight of passengers on Saturday night on United Flight 3876, operated on a 34-seat Saab 340 turboprop by Colgan Air, doing business as United Express. Some of the Binghamton-bound passengers who lined up for hours at Dulles seeking to rebook were told that bad weather had caused the cancellation. But others said they had been told it was a mechanical problem. A United service representative on the phone on Saturday night blamed a mechanical problem. It took my wife over an hour to get through, incidentally. On Monday, Rahsaan Johnson, a United spokesman, cited the effects of high winds on Friday night and said weather problems had caused the cancellation of Flight 3876 on Saturday. But, according to FlightAware.com , United canceled only nine of its 947 flights on Saturday. Both the Dulles and Binghamton airports reported clear weather, and the Federal Aviation Administration reported no significant flight delays anywhere in the country on Saturday night. Now, given half a chance, airlines will blame weather for every disruption, including the onset of World War I. So let’s get past that and look instead at how United handled the problem, because I don’t think this will be an isolated kind of incident in the future. On Monday, I spoke to another passenger who had been on that canceled flight, Marilyn Petkov. She and her husband, Ted, finally got home on Sunday night, too. Their trip, like my mother-in-law’s, had been circuitous. At Dulles on Saturday night, Ms. Petkov said: “We waited in line over two hours, but they said they couldn’t get us to Binghamton till Tuesday. My husband is a physician, and he had to be at work on Monday.” Frustrated, she said she told the United agent at the service counter: “Tuesday is not acceptable. This is not our problem, it’s United’s. But he told me, ‘Listen, if you don’t stop complaining I could call the police and have you arrested, because I feel insulted.’ ” She said she then deferred to her husband, who sympathized with the agent, telling him how hard his job must be. “That’s probably why the man put us on a flight the next morning,” Ms. Petkov said. “I don’t think he would have given it to me.” Mind you, the flight was not to their original destination, Binghamton. The only option available was a flight on Sunday to Allentown, Pa., where the Petkovs paid to rent a car for the roughly three -hour drive home to Ithaca, N.Y. “We were ready to fly anywhere within three hours of our house,” Ms. Petkov said.

Airlines and Airplanes
Travel and Vacations
Airports
Delays (Transportation)


Surgery for Roethlisberger

Abstract: Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger had what Coach Mike Tomlin called minor surgery to deal with discomfort in his right knee. Roethlisberger, 31, will miss next week’s minicamp, but he is expected to return when Pittsburgh opens training camp in July.


Shares of Weight Watchers Jump as Oprah Winfrey Takes a Stake

Abstract: Her show might be gone but the “ Oprah Effect” clearly endures. After Oprah Winfrey said on Monday she would buy a 10 percent stake in Weight Watchers and take a seat on the board, the company’s slumping stock doubled to $13.92 per share, adding about $400 million to its market value. For years, Ms. Winfrey has helped make countless little-known brands wildly successful by endorsing them through one of the media ventures that made her a billionaire. But this is the first time she has made such an investment in a public company. Ms. Winfrey also plans to give Weight Watchers unfettered access to her name and face for marketing purposes. “Weight Watchers has given me the tools to begin to make the lasting shift that I and so many of us who are struggling with weight have longed for,” Ms. Winfrey said in a statement. “I believe in the program so much I decided to invest in the company and partner in its evolution.” Though one of the best-known names in weight loss, the 52-year-old Weight Watchers has had declining membership rolls in recent years as it has lost out to newer and more technologically oriented paths to shedding pounds, including weight-loss apps and fitness-tracking devices. This year, Weight Watchers announced plans to cut roughly $100 million in additional costs and laid off the president of its North American business. After 10 straight quarters of declining sales, the stock had slumped 73 percent, to $6.79 on Friday. Only one analyst out of eight had encouraged investors to buy shares of Weight Watchers. But that did not stop Ms. Winfrey. “It’s like a win on steroids,” said Erich Joachimsthaler, the chief executive and founder of the Vivaldi Partners Group, a brand-strategy consulting firm. “Weight Watchers cannot stay where they are, and by having that endorsement, it’s not just about visibility but it helps them to build those brand values and associations that Oprah stands for.” Throughout the years, Ms. Winfrey has been open about her struggle to maintain her own ideal weight. She embraced a liquid diet in the 1980s and lost more than 60 pounds — sending sales of the regiment, Optifast, skyward — only to regain some of the weight and later renounce the move. Years later, she ran the Marine Corps Marathon, finishing in 4 hours, 29 minutes. As a sign of her enduring popularity, her “Oprah Winfrey Show” ran for 25 seasons until 2011, when she decided to start a cable channel, OWN, for the Oprah Winfrey Network. Her successful endorsement of products through her annual list of favorite things so often produced skyrocketing sales and popularity that the result was called the “Oprah Effect.” Spanx, an undergarment used to make women look slimmer, was on the list in 2000, giving the then-unknown product national fame and helping turn its founder, Sara Blakely, into a billionaire. Ms. Winfrey is expected to bring some major gravitas to Weight Watchers’ marketing department. She agreed to offer her name and face to Weight Watchers and no other weight-loss products for five years with the option to renew afterward, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission . The company already has a picture of Ms. Winfrey on its website home page. But it is unclear whether Ms. Winfrey’s backing can help Weight Watchers expand outside of its core demographic and attract younger users, according to R. J. Hottovy, an analyst at Morningstar. “There have been a lot of questions about the company’s marketing and its ability to stay relevant in this day in age,” said Mr. Hottovy. “The company still faces challenges. It’s a very competitive field, but certainly having Oprah’s backing is by all means positive.” This is not Weight Watchers’ first marketing foray with a celebrity. The singers Jennifer Hudson and Jessica Simpson have been spokeswomen for the company, appearing in commercials and talking about their experiences using the program. The company agreed to issue Ms. Winfrey 6.4 million shares of common stock for $43.2 million, with the option to purchase an additional 3.5 million shares, the regulatory filing showed.

Weight Watchers International
Oprah Winfrey
Weight
Stocks,Bonds
Nutrition
Political endorsement


Biden’s Plane in Minor Accident at L.I. Airport

Abstract: Air Force Two with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. aboard was involved in a minor accident with no injuries on Wednesday morning at a Long Island airport. A small private plane, a Piper Cub, was lifted a few feet into the air by the gusts from Mr. Biden’s nearby plane as it taxied to take off from Francis S. Gabreski Airport in Westhampton Beach, an Air Force spokeswoman, Maj. Michelle Lai, said. The left wing of the Piper Cub was damaged but no one was on board, Major Lai said. Mr. Biden’s plane, a 757, took off with those on board apparently unaware of what had happened. Mr. Biden was returning to Washington from vacation, his office said. An investigation will be conducted, including determining the cost of the damage to the Piper and whose responsibility it will be to pay, Major Lai said. The damaged plane belongs to an aerial media company. Last week, two New York City police motorcycles were in a minor accident while escorting Mr. Biden to Kennedy International Airport, but his vehicle was not involved, and no officers were seriously hurt. In November, a Police Department car ahead of Mr. Biden’s motorcade on the West Side of Manhattan had a minor collision with a livery cab.

Accidents and Safety
Biden Joseph R Jr
Westhampton (NY)


At the U.S. Open, a Fortunate Bounce Can Make all the Difference

Abstract: When the loser of a tennis match talks about luck, it can lead to controversy. After Novak Djokovic hit a blistering crosscourt forehand return to save a match point against Roger Federer in the 2011 United States Open semifinals , Federer said Djokovic had been lucky. The comment was a rare instance of spontaneous indignation by a usually unflappable player. Whether it was luck, skill or a combination, Djokovic prevailed and beat Rafael Nadal in the final. Only 12 men in the Open era, which began in 1968, have saved a match point on the way to winning a Grand Slam title in singles. Another was Djokovic’s coach, Boris Becker, 25 years ago, when he won his only United States Open title , his first championship in a major besides Wimbledon. Luck was the only way to describe Becker’s momentum-changing shot in the second round against Derrick Rostagno. Becker’s stroke of good fortune came when he was on the verge of exiting the tournament in the second round for the second straight year, facing a match point at 5-6 in a fourth-set tiebreaker. A net-rushing Californian, Rostagno, then ranked 65th, had hair down to his shoulders and sported a colorful woven necklace given to him as a gift from a toy store. He had already squandered one match point at 6-4 in the tiebreaker by pushing what he called a “horribly easy” forehand volley long. On the next point, Rostagno struck a backhand return down the line and steadily approached the net. With depth on Rostagno’s slice, trouble beckoned for the second-ranked Becker. His left leg gave way about the same time he connected with a topspin crosscourt forehand. Video All eyes will be on Serena Williams and Roger Federer at this year’s United States Open. Credit Credit Michael Appleton for The New York Times “I felt in control of the point immediately after hitting the backhand approach shot and still more so after he slipped,” Rostagno said in an email. “I really thought it was over and that all I needed to do was make a relatively easy volley.” But Becker’s ball clipped the top of the net, popped up and left Rostagno no chance to control his volley, which landed long and wide. “Without the net, he probably would have reached the ball and put it in the open court,” Becker said in a telephone interview. Becker closed out the tiebreaker and surged to win in the fifth set, 6-3 . “Boris seemed inflated with confidence and strength after the net cord, as if he couldn’t do anything wrong anymore,” Rostagno said. Over the course of a best-of-three or especially a best-of-five match, instances like Becker’s fortuitous forehand rarely make for such obvious turning points. But the role of luck in this year’s Grand Slam tournaments should not be discarded. Trailing Simona Halep by 4-2 in a first-set tiebreaker in the Wimbledon semifinals, Eugenie Bouchard hit a forehand net-cord winner. Halep said the shot contributed to a loss of concentration, and Bouchard won in straight sets . Djokovic was facing a break point at 3-3 in the third set against Grigor Dimitrov when a mishit backhand winner aided in Djokovic’s recovery in the semifinals at Wimbledon . On match point, a Djokovic forehand skidded off the top of the net and landed in. “Luck is one of those intangibles and can be as important as hitting a great shot,” Leif Shiras, a Tennis Channel analyst and a former pro, said in a phone interview. “It can be as important as hitting a great shot.” At the Australian Open, Lucie Safarova had a match point in the second set against Li Na in the third round. She hit crisp backhand down the line that went just long . Li rallied in the match and won the tournament , not conceding another set. “Luck plays a role in the sport,” said Martina Navratilova, the 18-time Grand Slam singles champion. “I’m not sure it ever evens out because Boris’s let cord was much bigger than any let cord that would have happened in that match or in any other match.” It did not even out for Shiras. At Wimbledon in 1987, he played Peter Doohan the round after Doohan had stunned Becker, the two-time defending champion. Shiras was in control with a two-set advantage. But a net cord in Doohan’s favor in the third set irreversibly transformed the affair, Shiras said, and Doohan edged him in the fifth, 12-10. “Instead of momentum shaping the net cord, it was the net cord shaping the momentum,” Shiras said. “He had all this momentum, and he was a player of destiny.” Becker could be labeled the player of destiny in New York in 1989, capping his tournament by overcoming Ivan Lendl, who was competing in his eighth consecutive United States Open final. “It was one of my proudest achievements because it was a very difficult tournament for me to win,” Becker said. Rostagno, now a lawyer, is not burdened by thoughts of what might have been. “Everyone’s life includes events of good and bad fortune, and I wrote the net cord off as one of the latter,” he said.


Palestinians to Seek U.N. Recognition Regardless of Peace Talks, Envoy Says

Abstract: The Palestinians will seek United Nations recognition as an independent state in September even if peace negotiations with Israel are under way, a Palestinian diplomat said Thursday. Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian envoy to the United Nations, said the Palestinians were working on three independent tracks: restarting negotiations, building institutions for an independent state and gaining recognition for statehood. “If we succeed in opening the door for negotiations, we’re not going to stop from attaining what belongs to us as Palestinians in this General Assembly starting on Sept. 20,” he said. American and European diplomats have been trying to restart Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, hoping progress could avert a United Nations vote, which they see as counterproductive.

International Relations
Palestinians
United Nations
Israel


Karen Abramson, on Going to the Front Lines

Abstract: This interview with Karen Abramson, chief executive of Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant. Q. Were you in leadership roles as a kid? A. My first memory of a leadership role was when I was in eighth grade. I was interested in working on the yearbook but didn’t get a spot. I was upset about it and my mother said: “Do something else. Start a newspaper.” So I brought a group of friends together and started a paper in our middle school. That was an early management lesson: You learn pretty fast how important it is to have the right people on the team. When you end up with one friend who’s not really pulling their weight, you have to figure out how to deal with that. What did your parents do? My mother is a restaurateur. My father started in accounting and became a management consultant. Over time, he started to buy some of the businesses he worked with. He moved from industry to industry, and I saw him use the same management skills in each company, whether it was a pool business or a steel-fabrication business. That was a good lesson. I’ve been in a multitude of industries, and I learned from him that if you know how to run a business, you know how to run a business. What was your first management role? I was 23 and working for a defense business. I was given a mandate to lower the cost of a line of environmental test chambers while making sure we were complying with new regulations. I knew nothing about it, so I went to the shop floor and spent time with the guys who built the chambers to understand what they did, and why the chambers were so expensive to build. It’s something I’ve done in every job since. I call it “go to the floor.” At the beginning of any new assignment, I will always go right to the people who are on the front line, whether it’s our salespeople or a client or customer service people. You learn so much more. Other early leadership lessons for you? I learned to be really clear about expectations. Even though you might think things are intuitive, people don’t always understand what you’re doing and thinking. So you really have to set clear expectations. I realized that I needed to tell people why I was doing what I was doing if I wanted them to trust me and follow me. Any surprises in your transition to C.E.O.? I was surprised by all the little things people paid attention to, all of a sudden. I’d say something offhand and people would act on it. So I learned I’d better be really careful about what I say, because everybody’s paying attention to every little word. If I were seen having a conversation with somebody in the hallway, people assumed they were my best friend, though it was the first time I had talked to them all month. Everything was under a magnifying glass in a way it hadn’t been before. Even my clothing became an issue. Really? Yes. That was a surprise. I’d speak at staff meetings and get notes about what I was wearing or that I should wear a different color of lipstick. The first couple of times it happens, you feel very insecure, but then you learn to move on with your life. Have you heard feedback over the years about your leadership style that made you make a slight adjustment? Sure. I’m very blunt, so I prefer to tell people, “This is what I think, and this is what you need to do.” I’ve had feedback about how that needs to be softened sometimes. I also moderate my style considerably when in Europe or Asia, or frankly even different regions in the U.S. So I might say to someone, “What do you think has happened and do you see that that might be a problem?” I’ll take a very different kind of tone, and it’s more of a suggestion about, why don’t you try to change this next time or why don’t we work together to make this different? You do have to modulate for the culture you’re operating in. How do you hire? I look for a balance between strategy and execution. Can you be strategic and can you get the job done? If you can spin me a great story about what the strategy should be and you can’t execute against it, that’s not of much interest to me. I’ll also ask people to tell me about something they did that was unsuccessful, and what their role was, because that tells me how they plan a strategy. Why weren’t you able to execute the strategy? It also lets me know how introspective they are and whether they’ll blame problems on everything around them or take ownership and learn from problems. You also get a good idea of how they’ll fit with the team, because if they come from a blame culture, it’s not going to work. If they can say, “It was a problem but we made lemonade out of lemons, and here’s what we did,” that’s someone who finds the “yes,” and is going to fit better with the team. After I interview someone, I’ll send them along to the team to get their feedback. It’s interesting what someone will tell a team member that they won’t always tell me during an interview. What is your advice to recent college grads? Work hard, do your best and when opportunities present themselves, don’t turn them down. Follow those opportunities and see where they lead, and don’t be so worried about setting your own plans, because I find those to be the most unproductive plans. They’re frustrating for the people who try to follow them, because they can’t get the company to follow them. And they’re annoying for the manager who’s offering someone a great opportunity and has to say, “Just because you want to do something else doesn’t mean that that’s really the right place for you right now.” So we encourage people to participate in different task forces across the business that are outside their particular area of expertise. That gives them exposure to other managers so we can help move them around and grow their career.

Wolters Kluwer
Karen Abramson
Management
Job Recruiting and Hiring