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Most powerful people in networking

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Factoid: Three of the 25 CEOs on our list are new to their position this year, whereas last year we had six newcomers. The total of nine means that more than one-third of these companies have changed CEOs within the past two years.

It's not easy to stay powerful.

That's the message behind this year's CEO Powerometer rankings, which saw 16 of the 25 CEOs lose power as compared with last year, 10 of them by five points or more. OK, three of them actually lost power as compared with the CEO they replaced in the past year, but still - that's close to an indictment of this entire group.


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See the powerful ranked by industry, then find out more about them.
Complete charts
Who has power now, who's rising, and who will likely have it next year.
Interactive Powerometer
Compare two or more top-25 CEOs from our survey.

The most notable exception is Scott McNealy. The Sun chief jumped four positions on the Most Powerful CEOs chart, to No. 3, and came out on top of the CEO Power Gain Index in terms of the largest improvement vs. last year. He is also one of only three CEOs, Bill Gates and Hewlett-Packard's Carly Fiorina being the others, who has a better Power Predictor score this year than last. Fiorina, however, is being compared against Lew Platt, her predecessor.

As with the company ratings, the CEO Power Gain Index is derived by subtracting the percentage of respondents who said a CEO lost power in the past year from the percentage who said a CEO gained power. The CEO Power Predictor uses the same formula, but respondents are asked to state whether they think a CEO will gain or lose power in 2000.

McNealy's strong Power scores can be interpreted as a vote of confidence in his thin-client, anti-Microsoft stance, as well as his alliance with Netscape for Web and groupware software. The fact that he's a colorful, funny guy doesn't hurt, either. If you've ever seen him speak, and if you're not crazy about Microsoft, you'd probably be inclined to give him a high score.

Other than McNealy, Fiorina and Cisco's John Chambers are the only CEOs to score better this year than last on the Power Gain chart. But again, Fiorina is actually being compared to Platt. The rest had the same or lower Power Gain figures than they did last year. Ouch.

On the Most Powerful CEOs chart, Gates once again comes out on top by a comfortable eight-point margin over second-place Chambers. However, we conducted the survey in October - before Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ruled that Gates didn't play by the rules. Chambers would be justified in feeling good about his chances at finally topping Gates next year.

MCI WorldCom's Bernie Ebbers jumped five spots on the Most Powerful CEOs chart, to No. 9, while two other CEOs - Charles Wang of Computer Associates and John Roth of Nortel Networks - moved up four positions, to No. 12 and 15, respectively. Wang was also one of only five CEOs who didn't fare worse this year than last on the Power Gain chart - he was dead even with an index of 9.2, although it's hard to get too excited about coming in 19 out of 25. Not much in any of the other Power indicators explains Roth's jump in the Most Powerful list, so we'll chalk it up to the generally good year Nortel had, with a steadily climbing stock price.

A few other CEOs are notable for their decidedly poor power ratings, and two of them are CEO newcomers: Michael Capellas of Compaq and Piyush Patel of Cabletron. While perhaps it's a little unfair to compare their scores to those of their predecessors, the fact is these CEOs have to play the hands they were dealt. In terms of power, both hands are losers.

Capellas pays the price for Compaq's well-documented struggle to turn itself into a services organization following its Digital and Tandem acquisitions, its floundering PC sales and its tumbling stock price. Capellas, who was appointed CEO in July, joined the company as chief information officer less than a year prior.

Cabletron carries the distinction among this power crowd of being the first company to have a different CEO three years in a row. This year's model, Patel, isn't faring so well. He had the largest drop in the Most Powerful CEOs rating vs. last year, coming in 31.19 points behind his predecessor, Craig Benson, and moving down four spots on the list as a result. Benson replaced Don Reed, who replaced Bob Levine.

Patel was dead last on the Power Predictor and next-to-last on the Power Gain chart, right above GTE's Charles Lee, whose future will be uncertain should Bell Atlantic's planned acquisition of his company happen.

To be fair, however, it should be noted that respondents apparently had some trouble with the Power Gain and Predictor questions when it came to CEOs. For example, on average more than half the respondents answered "Don't know" or "No" when asked about any given CEO. The nonresponse figure was just 28.9% on average for the company Power Gain questions.

Therefore, it stands to reason that the CEOs who fare best in this category are those with the highest profile: Chambers, Gates, McNealy, Ebbers and C. Michael Armstrong. HP's Fiorina, the only woman on the list, comes in sixth, perhaps riding the wave of publicity she received upon being appointed to the top spot two months before the survey was conducted.

One CEO who doesn't have name recognition problems but nonetheless didn't fare well is Eric Benhamou. He dropped four rungs on the Most Powerful CEOs chart, to No. 13, and had the third-largest drop (12 percentage points) from last year on the Power Gain chart. Respondents expect more of the same next year, as his Power Predictor score is 15.2 points lower than last year, the second-highest drop. Apparently respondents are hearing the talk that 3Com is a takeover target, a buzz that grew loud in late summer when the company's stock was trading in the low-20s. 3Com stock has since rebounded to the mid-30s but is far below the $50+ high of late 1998. Maybe respondents figure that, for one reason or another, Benhamou won't be calling the shots much longer.

Read more
Below are our top-75 most powerful networking people (as ranked by a survey of 250 Network World readers), organized by industry.


Related links

A former Network World editor, Desmond is vice president of King Content, an editorial services company in Southborough, Mass. He can be reached at paul_desmond@king-content.com.

Read this year's Powerometer
The top most powerful companies.

Around the network world with John Chambers
In an interview, Cisco's CEO says the high-growth enterprise network market will rise again; applauds the government's Internet savvy. Network World, 12/06/99

Hey Scott, lighten up
McNealy spent much of last week yucking it up and taking shots at Microsoft in front of anyone who would listen - that is, the mostly captive audiences at Comdex in Las Vegas. Network World, 11/22/99

Comdex: McNealy slams Microsoft with top 10 list
Network World, 11/18/99

CEO Fiorina touts a 'reinvented' HP
Network World, 11/16/99

Telecom industry could use a McNealy
Network World, Network World, 10/18/99

Users blast WorldCom merger
Network World, 10/11/99

Users on edge as MCI WorldCom grabs Sprint
Network World, 10/05/99

Piyush Patel: The Tom Sawyer of high tech
Network World, 09/13/99

HP names Carly Fiorina CEO, president
Network World, 07/19/99

3Com captain remains calm despite stormy forecasts
An interview with Eric Benhamou. Network World, 07/05/99

The new face of Cabletron Systems
Piyush Patel, Cabletron Systems' new CEO, has an aggressive game plan to stimulate revenue growth and keep the beleaguered company on the cutting edge of new markets and technologies. Network World, 06/14/99

Cabletron moves on
Benson steps down as Patel takes over the reigns. Network World, 06/07/99

Weekend at Bernie's? Bring your cell phone!
Fusion columnist Fred McClimans pens an open letter to MCI WorldCom chief Bernie Ebbers. Network World, 05/17/99

Gates pushes 'Net use for businesses
Network World, 04/15/99

Chambers: Economy moving at Internet speed
Network World, 04/15/99

Does Bill still use e-mail?
Network World, 01/18/99


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Related links
Interactive power-o-meter
Interactive powerful people
Profiles in Power
Profiles in Power
Power Struggles
Power Sign-off
The Signature Series



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