Diverse Backgrounds of Successful CEOs

Think of CEOs who have made strong rates of return for investors and built durable businesses. What strategies do you associate with their success?

Investor and author William Thorndike studied eight CEOs who outperformed the market and their peers. The group included big names, like Warren Buffet and Katharine Graham, but also other leaders who are virtually unknown today. One example is Henry Singleton, an MIT-educated electrical engineer who led Teledyne Technologies from 1960 to 1986.

Thorndike noticed that these eight iconoclastic leaders all took a similar approach to capital allocation. They focused on investing their companies’ profits to repurchase their own stock when prices were optimal. But they generally avoided very large acquisitions, accruing debt, and paying dividends.

In this episode, you’ll learn how effective capital allocation strategies, like the ones used by these leaders, can generate wealth for shareholders.

Thorndike is the author of The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success.

Key episode topics include: strategy, strategic planning, entrepreneurship, operations and supply chain management, leadership, capital allocation, debt, dividends, stock buybacks, acquisitions.

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