Announced this morning.
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CEO outsources strategy (key component of any CEO position) to the newly created role of chief strategy officer who then turns around and hires McKinsey to do his strategy for him. You can’t make this $&@% up.
My first day at Teradata, was bizarre. And it only got weirder over the next four years I was employed there.
I spent that day in new-hire orientation, like any workplace. But instead of a lunch break, we were ushered into the assembly hall for a special CEO All-Hands.
It was the unveiling of OR's new book-- "how to uplevel yourself". He ranted. He raved. He climbed on top of a table to speak. He hollered inspirational business gibberish. He opined that we could conquer the world if we put our minds together. He strongly recommended all employees to purchase a copy of his book. Everyone clapped at seemingly scripted intervals. Cheered at the proper scripted moments. I felt like I was standing in a playwright's version of the Nuremberg Rally, only nobody gave me a copy of the screenplay. It was like the Twilight Zone.
In the end, the book flopped and OR got the boot shortly after.... At least OR was positive though. All the CEO's since then have been in the business of amputating small pieces of TD, one bleeding slice at a time and telling us "the strategy is succeeding" as they lay everybody off.
@6ezb+1pRqmipA I rememeber it also. Still have the texts I sent to my boss and a few other people. Went on and on about how he "connected with his husband". I have been on countless all hands / executive introduction meetings in my career, and have never heard anyone go into detail on how they "connect with their wife." He didn't come to Teradata to change the strategy. He came to Teradata to change the culture.
@6ezb+1pRqmipA I remember it well. He spent the first 10 mins rambling on about how gei he was and how his Chinese husband were buying some baby from China and how being gei is what defined him.
It was after this I knew he was not going to be anything special and was just another ELT brought on so that Teradata could shout from the rooftops about how great at DEI they were trying to be. He certainly wasn't brought into the company for any business skills as he hasn't shown any during his time. Unfortunately we all pay for these mistakes and he gets to ride off to another role where he'll commit the same mistakes.
I'll never forget that first out of touch speech from NC where he claimed the biggest problem with TD was insufficient DEI worship, followed by SM and KCC gushing over him like a couple of teenage groupies. Wouldn't believe it if I hadn't of witnesses it first hand.
NC and rest of ELT are here to loot the company. All amateurs elevated to posh roles undeservingly. They make mistakes after mistakes, destroying the company culture, brand, and infrastructures with impunity. They are grifters and shameless while learning on the job if we call it that. Good riddance when each one of them are gone.
KCC, JW, HA, ... needs to go next. Corp America is on to the whole charade that has cost it $$$, time, and people.
Some of your posts are so great I wish I knew who wrote them!
NC is just a terrible human being. Totally self centred on himself and had no idea about the data warehouse industry. If I was him I would hand back his pay check because he knows he didn't earn it.
SB the incredible CTO who once believed that never cloud infrastructure will enable to manage enterprise class workloads
Woohoo! Let’s bake a cake and throw a party. NC is a useless as a windshield wiper on a goat’s a-s.
The so called "Strategy document" that NC produced was a PP slide with some 25+ strategic objectives / pillars !!
Anybody who knows the spelling of STRATEGY should also know that a strategy that outlines 25+ pillars is no strategy but a rag tag assembly of non-quantifiable aimless list of to-do list.
NC was taken basing on his s-xual orientation to fill that DEI reservation on the C-level team.
To test TD's strategy, just ask each C-level member to define TD's strategy on the next townhall meeting and if more than 50% of the definitions align, I will take back whatever I said above.
An observation. Virtue signaling and morality posturing aside, NC was a bad strategist. First thing he did was hire McKinsey. If he's hiring McKinsey to do the work, what do we need him for? He appeared to be a very highly compensated project manager.
Then we get to the strategy itself. I left Teradata (voluntarily) a few years back, but I recall roughly 30 parallel "work streams" associated with the strategy initiative. Thats absurd. No organization can focus on more than a few broad initiatives at the same time. But 30? It was bound to collapse under its own weight, and according to my few remaining contacts inside TD, thats exactly what happened. Anyone with even a fleeting knowledge of strategy would know it would never work. At the end, it was just a jobs program for McKinsey.
Unemployed? These jokers always land better as they “golden parachute” out. It’s just to bad the people who do the actual work don’t have the same opportunities.
Hallelujah he was the worst strategist ever. Good riddance and enjoy being unemployed
NC leaving is a good news/bad news... clearly many considered him a failure and saw very little added value... the bad news is that, indirectly, it sends yet another signal things are getting worse since the company cannot even pretend any longer they need a "strategist"... like they pretended a few years ago when they hired him.
NC spent tens of millions with his McK friends. Consumed tens of thousands of hours of Human Resources (TDC employees time) with inane reporting, with zero results. He became our moral thought police, and did untold damage to morale. And it has taken another inept leader SM years to come the realization that NC was useless. Shame on SM and KCC for making us a laughing stock in the market.
When do they actually "depart" the company? NC is still showing up on the TDC website.
Whatever the date, some will say "can't happen fast enough"
Without NC, who will be the company's moral compass from now on?
Yes! NC was a complete failure from day 1. There will be a lot of staff cheering him out the door happy to see the back of him.
Both were contractors ... not sure the Board would even make the call to get rid of them. Might be simply not renewing a contract or terminating it. Either way, the company will be better off without these two.
So when SB and NC were still around it was because the board is incompetent. And when they finally exit, it's because the board is incompetent. Got it.
Well, SB has been gone for a while. NC is no loss.
I doubt the BoD was involved. They are clueless.
More like rats fleeing the sinking ship.
For all the derision thrown at these two on this forum, I expected cheering and applause. Is this a sign the BoD might have actually woken up?
Did they announce who will provide the virtue-signaling lectures on the all-hands going forward?
Great for them. I am sure their RSU are fully vested. Walking out with a bag full of cash.