Business stories and our weekend program "12 On The Money" are my focus here at News 12 Connecticut, and I have to say I truly enjoy it. Why? Largely because I find it inspirational. You're right, bad climate to make that claim, "Isn't the business world filled with crooks?" you ask. Well why wouldn't that be your response considering the headlines. Yes, but there are the "bad guys" in any field and as Art Cashin head of floor trading operations for UBS on the New York Stock Exchange loves to say, "When the tide goes out you see who's swimming naked." (I love that quote! What a picture it paints!) But by and large there are so many hardworking, highly intelligent, innovative people who make up the business comunity in this country and so many of them I get the opportunity to interview for "Money." I got to thinking this morning, "What makes a winning CEO?" Are they smarter, more thorough, charismatic, energetic, luckier, and shrewder than the rest of us? I can't answer that specifically, but, to work off a phrase from former Supreme Court Associate Justice Potter Stewart when writing an opinion in a pornography case, "hard core pornography," he wrote, is hard to define but "I know it when I see it." There is something about a winning CEO. I got the opportunity to interview one such individual yesterday, David Carson former CEO of what is now People's United Financial. David is a charming man with a twinkle in his eye, always sporting his signature bow tie, soft spoken, almost unassuming and incredibly successful. He quickly climbed the corporate ladder at The Hartford in his thirties, and eventually was asked to run People's when it was just a small savings bank. He and his team took it public (during the horrendous markets of the late 80's and early 90"s) and grew it to one of the biggest banks in Connecticut, and now New England. He is extremely smart, as the book says, "marinates in numbers" and knows every aspect of the business he runs, inside and out. But when I asked him why he thinks he is successful he said, "I always was me, never pretending to be anyone els,e and I always remembered that the money in that bank was not mine. I was providing a service for those who trusted me." Hear that Bernie Madoff? But what most impressed me about David Carson was revealed in a story told by a former board member at People's when interviewing Carson for the CEO position. Carson told the board, "My family, God and my church come first, then the bank." The board member said he was stunned but at the same time so impressed he knew he had his man. There you have it; you can't really define it but that board member knew it when he saw it and it paid off handsomely for Peoples.
If you'd like to see my interview with David Carson it will air in its entirety this weekend on "12 On The Money"
