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Harold "Hal" Sydney Geneen (January 22, 1910—November 21, 1997), was an American businessman most famous for serving as president of the ITT Corporation. Geneen was born in Bournemouth, Hampshire, England and emigrated to the U.S. as an infant with his parents. He studied accounting at New York University.
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Career
Between 1956–1959 he was Senior Vice President of Raytheon, developing his management structure, allowing large degree of freedom for divisions maintaining high degree of financial and other accountability.
During 1959–1972 he was the president and CEO of International Telephone and Telegraph Corp. (ITT). He grew the company from a medium-sized business with $760 million sales in 1961 into multinational conglomerate with $17 billion sales in 1970. He extended its interests from manufacturing of telegraph equipment into insurance, hotels, real estate management and other areas. Under Geneen's management, ITT became the archetypal modern multinational conglomerate. ITT grew primarily through a series of approximately 350 acquisitions and mergers in 80 countries. Some of the largest of these were Hartford Fire Insurance Company (1970) and Sheraton Hotels.
ITT had many overseas interests. In particular ITT had some $200,000,000-worth of investments in Chile. Under Geneen's leadership, ITT funneled $700,000 to Allende's opponent, Jorge Alessandri. When Allende won the presidential election, ITT gave the CIA $1,000,000 to defeat Allende, thus playing a major role in financing of the Chilean coup.
In 1972 Geneen was forced to resign as CEO and president of ITT, staying on the Board of Directors until 1977. His successors, starting with Rand Araskog, steadily sold off parts of the business.
Quotes
- The worst disease which can afflict executives in their work is not, as popularly supposed, alcoholism; it's egotism.
- You can't run a business or anything else on a theory.
- Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions.
- The only unforgivable sin in business is to run out of cash.
- In business, words are words; explanations are explanations, promises are promises, but only performance is reality.
- In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: Cash and Experience. Take the experience first. The cash will come later.
- Better a good decision quickly than the best decision too late.
Books
Harold Geneen wrote and co-authored several books:
- Geneen, Harold; Brent Bowers (1999). Synergy and Other Lies: Downsizing, Bureaucracy, and Corporate Culture Debunked. New York: St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 0-312-20080-3.
- Geneen, Harold; Brent Bowers (1997). The Synergy Myth and Other Ailments Of Business Today. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-14724-4.
- Geneen, Harold; Alvin Moscow (1986). Alta Dirección: Las Normas Básicas Para Triunfar en los Negocios. Barcelona: Ediciones Grijalbo. 84-253-1871-8.
- Geneen, Harold; Alvin Moscow (1984). Managing. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-17496-9.
