Who is doug ivester

Ivester had enlisted Ware, a senior vice president, to head his diversity council after the company was socked with a race-discrimination lawsuit last spring. Then Ivester shuffled management last fall--and in the process moved Ware into a position in which he would be reporting to Daft, another senior vice president, instead of directly to Ivester. The change outraged Ware, who announced his intention to retire, and caused some board members to question Ivester's judgment.

While those problems were grabbing headlines, Ivester's emphasis on substance over style caused Coke's marketing to suffer. One recently departed Coke marketer recalled feeling pressured to document how much revenue the company could expect from every dollar he spent on marketing, which, he said, "made you concentrate on the sure-thing single instead of the home run. The biggest news Coke made on the marketing front was its decision in November to raise prices on its concentrate. That move illuminates what may have been Ivester's biggest blind spot as Coke's CEO: The job is not just the running of a company but the leadership of a kind of principality, in which big, powerful bottling companies are substantial fiefdoms.

It wasn't a good idea to alienate Coke's 11 big anchor bottlers around the world, especially given the incestuous nature of the business. Take, for example, the largest one, Coca-Cola Enterprises, the cornerstone of the anchor bottling system created by Goizueta, Ivester, and Keough. It also, as it happens, is run by Summerfield Johnston Jr. On its board is Howard Buffett, son of Warren Buffett.

The troubles in Belgium began the decline; an ill-considered comment Ivester made about developing vending machines that could automatically raise prices in hot weather further angered bottling executives, who are the ones actually in the vending-machine business. Finally, significantly raising the price bottlers had to pay Coke for concentrate seemed an unconscionable affront--and whacked their stock some more.

Some had the view that he was raping the bottlers. But Ivester continued trying to go it alone. At one point Don Keough sent him a six-page letter with constructive suggestions on how he could improve his situation. What did Ivester do? He sent Keough a one-line response, thanking him for his input.

Ivester was never one to show signs of weakness. And he has adopted an almost breezy attitude since turning in his resignation. He has told Coke system executives that he is unembarrassed and essentially well-off. He's made a lot of money. As of last February, he owned 5. Ivester's leadership in difficult times. What happened? Goizueta was planning on living a long life, stepping back into the role of chairman, and letting Ivester run the company with his discreet guidance. It probably would have worked.

Ivester was indeed a brilliant No. But in retrospect, maybe we should have seen this coming. Back in October , Ivester, then newly named president and COO, took center stage at a big industry trade show and delivered a speech that was unforgettable for its surliness.

In his formative years, New Holland was the whole world, even though Gainesville was two short miles away. Physically you could walk there, but as a little kid, it was still a long way. I told somebody the distance between New Holland and Gainesville back then was like the distance between Atlanta and Paris today.

Roosevelt that put thousands to work on projects focusing on environmental conservation. Buck returned from war and married Ada Mae Pass on Christmas Eve in , remaining with her until his death in Interested in a career in the technical arts, Buck went to carpentry school, plumbing school, electrician school, masonry school, and upholstery school.

He could do virtually anything. He did it all, he was a builder. Ivester worked at a young age too, starting a grass cutting service when he was 8. When asked what he wanted to do when he graduated, he said he wanted to go to the University of Georgia. Every time he came in I would try to take his groceries out to see his car. Carter, can I ask you a question? I asked what do you do to afford a car like this because it was a very aspirational car. But I found out.

The classwork made sense to him — it was about money, a commodity he understood from an early age. In the late s, the accounting department was led by Dr. Percy Yeargan, and among the many accolades he accumulated during a distinguished career including teaching at three colleges and being married to the same woman for 70 years , he was also the man responsible for getting Doug Ivester his first professional job.

I said I need a job. He wanted to know my name, I was probably the top accounting student so he knew of my name but I never met him and never took one of his classes. I told him I wanted to go to Atlanta to work for one of the Big 8.

Keep your promises, when you say you're going to do something, do it. Be polite. Deal with people honestly. Help others. Ivester is proud of the fact that he was the first member of his family to go to college. To be mentioned in the same list with so many genuine heroes of mine is unbelievable. Our dreams come true, usually, because somebody, somewhere, helped us along the way.

I hope as a Horatio Alger member I can help inspire someone so his or her dreams will always be greater than the memories. Member Video. All Rights Reserved. Skip to content. Member Profile. Read More. Member Video Back. After Goizueta's death, the history of the company began to be rewritten, with Ivester taking greater credit for revamping the company's bottler system and dragging the company out of the technological dark ages. By letting that story stand, Ivester gave great offense to one very powerful constituent, Donald R.

Keough, who'd been Goizueta's president and COO. The real mystery to the story is this: Why would Ivester want to run the risk of offending. As times got tougher, the gregarious Keough by default became the unofficial father confessor to the disaffected throughout the Coca-Cola system--customers, bottlers, employees.

The story has some eerie echoes of the messy leadership transition Coke went through a generation ago. Paul Austin's choice for a successor and pick from a slate of candidates a dark horse, Cuban chemical engineer Roberto C. Goizueta, to lead the company. Ivester, like Goizueta, was in many ways an unlikely choice. He had emerged from a corporate backwater. Like Goizueta, he was painfully reserved. His rags-to-riches story was different from Goizueta's but no less extraordinary. Ivester grew up the only child of factory workers in a conservative Southern Baptist household in tiny New Holland, Ga.

He was evangelical in his approach to his work--some would say rigid. If you can create high discipline, in effect you've created security and safety It's follow-up. It's returning phone calls. It's adhering to the control system. We operate with a rigid control system.

It is an enabler, not a restricter. Ivester had a system for everything. He'd schedule meetings with top aides at day intervals, 12 months out. His far-flung group presidents knew to leave him voice mail almost nightly. Whenever anybody got a communique from Ivester, they knew to respond by the date in a corner of the memo or they'd hear from him.

Analytical and data-driven, Ivester spent heavily on technology for the quick and efficient delivery of vast amounts of information. His goal was to make Coke the ultimate Learning Organization, and he made his case convincingly.

He took pride in being a substance-over-style guy--but that translated into taking no heed of image and perception issues, which are merely all-important to a company like Coke. He took pride in managing for the long haul--but that made him unyielding in the face of immediate circumstances.