Rob Cox: Double-duty CEOs are a worrisome trend - Reuters Blogs (blog)
Among those most far along are Tesla Motors’ electric cars, SolarCity’s renewable energy grid and SpaceX’s rockets to Mars. As far as the world knows, though, one thing the billionaire has not managed to develop is a cloning device. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles boss Sergio Marchionne – who could don another hat to run Ferrari – and Twitter and Square entrepreneur Jack Dorsey may also be exceptional leaders. Investors in public companies, especially young or challenged ones, need 100 percent dedication from the boss. That’s physically and mathematically impossible if one person becomes chief executive of more than one company. There are very few instances of the same person holding CEO titles at two separate listed companies with aplomb. As it happens, Musk’s only listed-company CEO job is at Tesla, though he also runs private SpaceX and chairs public SolarCity’s board. Meanwhile in the more traditional auto manufacturing business, Carlos Ghosn is a notable exception to the one man, one job rule. He became the first person to run two Fortune Global 500 firms at the same time when he took over Renault and Nissan in 2005. Marchionne is another car-industry star who might seem capable of taking on more than is. Source: blogs.reuters.com
