Last week we had our first executive in residence. The Executive in Residence program, funded by a gift from Laurie and John Andrews, will become a permanent part of the Mason School experience, with several executives being invited to spend a couple days with us during the academic year.
The executives in residence will engage in a variety of activities during their several day stay to include such things as small group meetings with students, faculty and/or alumni, formal Mason School presentations, and presentations to classes.
Our first executive in residence was Bertrand Collomb, the recently retired Chairman & CEO of Lafarge, the largest building materials company in the world. Lafarge is an old, (founded 1832), and large (approximately 100,00 employees and $25B in revenue), global company, headquartered in France. Mr Collomb was a terrific choice for our first executive in residence.
Bertrand Collomb
He has not only been a CEO and Chair of a major company but also Chair of the World Council of Businesses for Sustainability, and trustee of the Interantional Accounting Standards Foundation, the foundation that supports the International Accounting Standards Board. This board is responsible for setting the international accounting standards which, reportedly, will replace the GAAP model eventually in the US. These are just two of the international organizations which Mr. Colomb either directs or has served as a member.
Students, alumni, faculty, and staff found Mr. Collomb very impressive in terms of both the range and depth of his knowledge and experience. He provided a number of extraordinary and provocative ideas.
As an illustration, one of the points that he stressed was that there was a direct relationship between ethics and a long term point of view. For example, he suggested that too much short term attention was paid to shareholders. He pointed out that, if shareholders’ long term interests were attended to, then the company would make certain that all of its constituents, employees, customers, suppliers, governmental and societal entities, were properly attended to, and he presented many examples of how this was done in Lafarge.
Mr Collomb also discussed how Lafarge was weathering the current world financial crisis, and pointed out how Lafarge, managed with a long term point of view, was better prepared to weather the storm. Therefore, crises, such as the current one, can be faced with some magnanimity and recognized as occurrences to be expected occasionally. He indicated that, when he became CEO of Lafarge in 1989, his first thought was that his principal responsibility was to help to insure that Lafarge would still exist for the next 150 years.
I found Mr. Collomb to be one of the most impressive C level executives whom I have encountered. I heard from one alum who told me that the experience of meeting and listening to Mr. Collomb was an extraordinary experience, a view I also had, and students seem to have enjoyed him very much.
In the future, we will strive to provide advance notice to our alums so that more of them will be able to take advantage of these opportunities.
