#leadership

I don't understand HK as COO. If not due to actual incompetence and misconduct, why invite the optics?

1) Corporate Pillar: be a top quartile performer.

Via LinkedIn, Heather was Baxter President of Global Business Units and Americas (2019-2023), EVP/Group President of Medical Products and Therapies (2023 - Feb 2025), then COO Feb - Oct 2025.

Baxter stock went from $85 to $20 since 2020.

Whether accurate or not, in big roles you are judged on results, not what you do/say. It doesn't matter how intricately you lay out your strategy, vision or "playbook." If you don't grow the company, you fail. Why bring in a failure to lead Solventum?

2) Win with Excellence. Paraphrase of Bryan: "We want to win, but ethically. If you or a family member wouldn't use our product due to safety concerns, we'll do the right thing and pull it."

Just a year ago, Heather was celebrating the Novum IQ launch:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/heather-knight-2620084_novumiq-patientswin-activity-7186818979544346625-TafM/

Heather was boasting Novum sales growth in May 2025, even though recalls were happening a month later. They left the pumps on the market and chose to publish workarounds for hospitals instead.
https://www.medtechdive.com/news/baxter-recalls-novum-pump-one-injury/750127/

Now the pumps are pulled and we have a class action lawsuit citing Heather and Jose (Bryan's brother-in-law), listing 2 deaths and 79 injuries from the Novum platform:
https://rosenlegal.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Baxter-International-Complaint-Upload.pdf

This rundown by a legal firm also suggests issues may have been known via their Canadian launch, which preceded the US launch.
https://zlk.com/learn/baxter-international-inc-bax-securities-class-action-lawsuit

The latest date in the lawsuit text is "September 2025" and web search results covering it start popping up in Oct 2025, so it seems coincidental to hire her in October.

So, of all the possible COO choices... why Heather? I don't get it. Even if we blame all of Baxter's stock issues on the CEO instead of HK, and say she had nothing to do with the pumps... as a new company looking to establish confidence in our next-in-command, I wouldn't touch her with a 10 foot pole. What am I missing?

Welcome to BNY Mellon, where corporate communication is less about informing employees and more about testing their tolerance for absurdity. Think of it as a daily improv show where the punchline is always the same: we don’t believe you.

At the top of this spectacle sits Robin Vince, delivering pronouncements with the solemnity of a statesman and the substance of a clown balloon. His memos promise transformation, transparency, and trust, but associates know these are just corporate Mad Libs—insert buzzword, ignore reality. If they say “transformation,” translate it to “chaos.” If they say “transparency,” read it as “fog machine.” The safest approach is to laugh first, then check if your department still exists.

HR, Public Relations and James L. serve as the Ministry of Spin, ensuring every announcement glows with positivity so artificial even Eliza would blush. “BNY Mellon is thriving!” they declare, while associates quietly check their workloads and wonder if thriving means "dodging HR land mines" or “running on fumes.” Employees now treat official communications like parody scripts, reading them aloud in dramatic voices for comic relief.

Then there are the Directors and wannabees who rush to LinkedIn to applaud these corporate fairy tales. Their posts are the digital equivalent of clapping at a bad magic trick like a trained harbor seal: “Amazing leadership!” they gush, while everyone else mutters, “You do realize the rabbit was stuffed in the hat the whole time, right?” These cheerleaders don’t inspire confidence; they inspire memes.

Inside the company, two realities coexist like parallel universes. In one, associates slog through toxic culture, opaque decision-making, and a daily grind that feels less like a Fortune 500 firm and more like a reality TV show where no one wins. In the other, leaders announce breakthroughs, cultural transformations, and “authentic transparency” with the confidence of actors who forgot the audience already read the spoilers. The result is cognitive dissonance so bad and so intense employees could qualify for dual citizenship: one in the land of lived experience, the other in the fantasy realm of executive spin.

Distrust has become so pervasive that employees now play a game called “Spot the Lie.” Every new communication is dissected for euphemisms and omissions. “Restructuring” means layoffs. “Efficiency” means budget cuts. “Innovation” means someone discovered Teams has GIFs. The prize for winning? A sense of smug validation and the knowledge that you’re not crazy—the memo is.

BNY Mellon’s leaders may believe they’re shaping perception, but in reality they’ve cultivated a culture where disbelief is the default setting. Credibility isn’t just low; it’s subterranean. Employees don’t ask, “Is this true?” They ask, “How false is it, and how quickly will it collapse under scrutiny?” Cynicism has become the lingua franca, the coping mechanism, and the unofficial brand identity.

In the end, BNY Mellon has achieved something remarkable: it has turned corporate communication into performance art, a theater of the absurd where every announcement is greeted not with applause but with laughter, sighs, and sarcastic memes. The Executive Committee may think they’re leading a financial institution with great vision, alignment and execution, but associates know the truth: they’re trapped in a long-running satire, and the punchline never changes—we don’t believe you.

I just watched the recording and something I noticed was a rather despicable technique.

Kate said that the rumor that there will be another reorg in March isn’t true. And they can’t debunk all rumors. But the only rumor that I have ever heard is there will be massive layoffs next year after P&T is integrated into the businesses. This is a very logical thing to guess they will suddenly have extra people and they may or may not wind up needing or wanting them for their services.

She then proceeded to ask if we wanted another reorg due to all of the rumors about it, which was a “joke” in really poor taste.

Keep in mind that the LT all has media training. I believe that they intentionally debunked a rumor that makes no sense and probably doesn’t exist in order to not address the one that does. This is similar to how politicians these days will say crazy things and then walk back all but 20% of it, and then it turns out that all along their goal was to only get that 20% of bold things done.

Do not trust these people. Weasel words and sus physiognomy and body language. Jokes that serve as confessions.

Another example of this technique of answering a fake question to address a real one that can’t be handled - when asked about the future of US employees, Mark remarked that Shell is dedicated to investing in the region. This doesn’t even answer the question. Spending money the US doesn’t mean it was invested in the employees or that they won’t downsize again. Think critically and be very careful with what they say in town halls. It is literally rehearsed with PR.

What is going on at this company that close to 100 people can sit on a call like this morning and think we have the right people in charge??? It’s almost like they didn’t have months to prepare.

Hope actual leadership watch the recordings (or attempt at recordings and wrong screen share). Cut the experiment and let’s get back to work.

Why does everyone at Lexmark and now the legacy- Xerox SLT think that everything that Lexmark do is fantastic. They lost $600 million last year so I do not understand???

I know that Verizon’s future success is the last thing on the mind of the people who have been laid off, but someone commented that layoffs and AI will help Verizon bounce back and become more competitive. I cannot let that go without an answer. That’s not the case at all. Layoffs are just short term financial engineering so the leadership can report lower labor costs during quarterly earnings.

VZ had voluntary and involuntary layoffs every year for the last 10 years. If layoffs made companies grow, VZ would be growing like crazy and the share price would reflect it.

Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor at Stanford Business School, had studied the available data and came to the conclusion that frequent layoffs hurt in the long run.

https://www.careerusa.org/jobs/179-resources/168-career-files/158-16-must-read-articles/372-lay-off-the-layoffs.html

What is the purpose of VGS - redundant and over headed. Now w Shankar gone - get ridoff that business group.

I said it. Great people leader, passionate about product and people but ultimately the Berm isn’t the right environment.

Tech should make work faster, simpler, and more effective. Even at a company like Nike, where the heart is brand, product, and sport - a strong tech foundation is essential to competing in today’s marketplace.

What’s tough is when leadership decisions prioritize image over capability. We’ve all seen what happens when someone is chosen for pedigree or presence rather than the depth required for the role. As a woman in tech, it’s painful to watch because it reinforces stereotypes and biases that so many of us are working to dismantle.

A strong tech organization needs leaders who actually understand the work, care about the teams, and can build the systems the business depends on. That’s how real change happens.

Something I’ve found deeply unprofessional is leaders openly discussing possible layoffs and the decline of Target culture with a hint of glee. As if they perhaps enjoyed spreading bad news to encourage lower level employees to flee the sinking ship as they could hop onto the nearest lifeboat. My leaders have openly discussed Target’s problems while maintaining their careers for over a decade. One has to wonder if it’s become a strategy to keep their precious little corporate roles.

All to say: if you are worried, stay the course. Don’t leave without your paycheck and a cushion to plan your next step. Target is not the end all be all of anything. Having watched a man get the saddest multiple decade anniversary acknowledgement “party” followed by a layoff the next week… you won’t be missing out on much if you’re fighting over the last life preserver.

IBM CEO Arvind Krishna argues that at current infrastructure and energy costs there is effectively no way for the current wave of AI data center spending to earn an adequate return. Using back-of-the-envelope math, he estimates about 80 billion dollars to build and fill a 1 gigawatt data center, implying around 8 trillion dollars in total commitments if the world builds roughly 100 gigawatts of AI compute capacity.
• He says 8 trillion dollars of capex would require roughly 800 billion dollars of profit just to cover the cost of capital, and notes that AI chips depreciate over about five years, meaning they must be heavily utilized and then replaced, further straining economics.
• Krishna openly disagrees with Sam Altman’s belief that such spending will be paid back, framing it as a belief or bet rather than something he accepts.
• He is very skeptical that current large language model technology alone will reach AGI, putting the probability at only 0 to 1 percent without a new breakthrough. He thinks AGI will require additional technologies, such as combining LLMs with more structured or hard knowledge, and even then calls it only a “maybe.”
• Despite this, he is bullish on present-day AI, saying current tools can unlock trillions of dollars of productivity in enterprises, even if they fall short of true AGI.

And these are the people steering the ship. If there is another layoff coming, here’s a bold idea: Start the same “leaders” of these decisions — not the people actually doing the work.
Remove the placeholders, and watch morale (and maybe the stock) bounce back.

Anyone else watching this stock drop like, “Yep… checks out,” considering the same “leaders” (air quotes) who built the perimeter list are still in charge? Only here could tower-only folks get listed to go with a fiber sale while people who’ve never done tower a day in their lives — pure fiber/small-cell — were kept? Made zero sense. It felt less like a workforce plan and more like someone drew names out of a hat, but that work require planning they aren’t capable of so doubting they even did that.

Until then, we’re all just updating our resumes watching them ruin what we worked to build and pretending to be surprised while hoping someone stops it, we have a good business that is profitable once we remove the fake leaders.

It shows her location as WA field instead of WHQ.

I'm trying to make sense of the mixed messages and bringing in another industry CIO like Paula Krantz in our current climate. The leadership of this company seems to burns money on shiny new hires but layoffs and hardly cost living raises are the table scraps fr the rest of us who put in the years building the backbone of the company. I know a couple people in another department who left for better pay at SSM and Express scripts. It is probably time to clean up the resume which is unfortunate.

The heading says it all

See Ram’s email? Rat’s are fleeing the sinking ship.

Consolidating the Tech leadership under a "sustainability" COO IN the same 2 weeks everyone is being told to hurry up and update their skills listing in Workday. The writing seems on the wall for another season of tech "reorganization".

Does this mean we're finally done fu--ing around with NFTs and trying to homebrew dead-end AI hype?

Discuss.

That's all.

I want to revisit a question someone once posed: Who is/was Frank Kosd??

The rumor is that he was one of Frankservs buddies and got installed as an EVP with next to nothing in experience.

His linkedin confirmed this with really no previous roles listed, which is odd for someone who is an EVP at a major company.

Now I don’t even see him in Workday, and I saw him there as recent as last week…. was he freshly let go as of this week?

I’m surprised he continued for this long after Bisig left… it was always bizzare that he didn’t have any profile pictures anywhere, considering his level with the company.

Can anyone confirm he’s a real person?

I feel like I haven't seen this many execs decide to step down with no announcement of a new position somewhere else. If these were retirements, would they be announced as retirements? Or would they say "stepping down" and "spend time with my family" and keep retirement under wraps? Has this many step downs happened at HP before.

The company as a whole may be doing OK, but North America has been in a down hill spiral since the appointment of the current CEO. Changes need to be made, some may be unpopular ,but the reputation is terrible, of what was once a respected company.

Heard that WFRs continue on a smaller scale. Any major mass layoffs planned?

Love to see VPs/Sr.Dir/Dirs let go first…will save Veritas tons of $$$$.

I’ve had multiple senior leaders confirm this to me over the past couple days casting doubt over their own roles and my own. I know this doesn’t help, but prepare yourselves as best as you can over the course of the next week.

Post any info you have!

I feel like the leadership in this company is so confused about how to run a good healthcare company and it starts from the top. Sarah London is not a good leader and she needs to go.

Curious with the recent spate of telelcom CEO changes, wondering who's next in line for T throne? Thoughts..

I thought this guy Dan was about customer and employee first experience. Looks like my experience so far is sh-t. Makes me miss Hans

I am typically not a fans of unions, but I think it’s pretty hilarious if the North Slope field staff unionizes in response to the continued incompetence and favoritism displayed by company leadership.

Dead yet? Wondering how long the leadership can rest and vest doing nothing but errands for Uncle Hock. Lord knows nothing engineering related could have happened after I left the funhouse of mirrors that is bcom.

Check-out #2 on the list. . .

https://time.com/7333715/best-companies-future-leaders-2026/

Joe IBM and his gang have pushed the outsiders fully out the way of the leaders team so he can continue his takeover of marketing. Sandy Oh-No is either helping plot his succession to CMO or is too busy with her AI characters to even notice the empire building going on. Sad to see things falling a part due to incompetence and egos winning over good leadership but has happened to many teams and this week to ours. Why do they keep moving functions under someone who not done anything and still thinks he works at big blue?.

Anyone in attendance who can share the highlights?

Where is our CHRO when we need her tone deaf and inauthentic posts the most? Culture OS was bragged about and now she’s MIA during the most consequential time in decades? Maybe she’s mad she didn’t get a $4M retention bonus on the backs of thousands of lives ruined like her best buddies. Tough to say, but I am confident AI will guide her in whatever post she does to address us all eventually. And the spineless leadership will all like and repost it.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/ford-workers-told-their-ceo-none-of-the-young-people-want-to-work-here-so-jim-farley-took-a-page-out-of-the-founder-s-playbook/ar-AA1Rm4Kk?ocid=winp2fptaskbarhoverent&cvid=33ecd332359944accd2916f4674dbd4a&ei=13

POV - Say you don’t care about people and have no idea what’s going on without saying it ……..

“I’d like to say thank you to MM for having ran the Atlantic South Market”

• Sampath

Hahahahahahahahaahahahhaah

Each day gets a little worse with BE in charge. There is no communication no big vision. It feels like the last days of a company going out of business where even the shelves are being put up for sale. People are visibly miserable. Like openly talking about how much they hate it here miserable. No one cares anymore. Most are stuck because the job market is cr-ppy. If it turns around this place will lose thousands overnight.

So sick of this guy's poor English and reading from the screen. Like who's letting him speak? Does he actually contribute to problem-solving and decision making or is he just a puppet with terrible english?
This is the guy in charge of US FED/SLED from local law enforcement to our military war fighters.

ML made an external and internal song and dance about stopping doing short term activity at the expense of our long term longevity

From my experience absolutely nothing has changed though

The business has been so starved of investment over a long period of time that the only way for leadership to make a quarterly number and not get fired is by doing these short term activities which just compound the problems but let's them survive another quarter

That obviously flows down

So far apart from sapience and 10 days remote flexibility -- which in this day and age is still well below minimum expectations anywhere else - everything ML said was just empty words with no follow through. Emailing everyone telling them to work harder even though the issue is clearly under resourcing and under investment made that very clear

I think of that Harvard Business Review article from like a dozen years back - "Stop Trying to Delight Customers." It was seminal and is still memorable all these years later. The crux of the article is that "delight" is temporary, unsustainable, doesn't guarantee loyalty, and is less effective than focusing on reducing overall customer effort. Delighting customers with surprise and exceeding expectations is often fleeting, as novelty wears off, but a consistently positive but effort-free experience is what truly builds loyalty. Instead of trying to delight, we should focus on making interactions smooth and problem resolution effortless.

So hearing Kyle talk today about "delight" and every time Dan mentions it, seems to me like a throwback to the early oughts.