Deutsche Bank's New CEO Was There

Deutsche Bank.

A well-known problem in corporate governance is that public-company chief executive officers tend to be the sort of people who become public-company chief executive officers, if you know what I mean. They are ambitious, driven, hard-charging people; they demand a lot of their subordinates; they never want to hear that anything is impossible; they are strategic thinkers who are always looking ahead to think how they can expand their business. That is often what you want in your CEO. But not always! Sometimes you want someone to lead a dignified retreat. Not every company should grow indefinitely; sometimes what is best for shareholders is to harvest the profitable businesses, prune back the unprofitable ones, and not waste any money pursuing ambitious new projects with uncertain prospects. Sometimes you want a CEO who, when his subordinates say "this is impossible," says "oh well never mind then." This is not exactly a hard quality to find -- ahem, here I am -- but it does seem to be a hard quality to find in a CEO.