May 10, 2010 at 9:37 a.m.
Filed under:
Chicago executives,
Recalls,
Telecommunications
Mary Dillon (second from right), the chief marketing officer for McDonald’s, with winners of a McDonald’s “global spokesman contest” in 2007.
Tribune staff report | U.S. Cellular Corp. named McDonald’s Corp.
marketing chief Mary N. Dillon as president and chief executive officer
of the Chicago-based wireless carrier. Dillon starts at U.S. Cellular
on June 1, and will replace retiring president and CEO John E. Rooney.
She will also join U.S. Cellular’s board.
Dillon, 48, was most recently global chief marketing officer at
Oakbrook-based McDonald’s. Before that, Dillon was president of the
Quaker foods division of PepsiCo Corp. Dillon is on the board of Target
Corp.
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May 7, 2010 at 2:50 p.m.
Filed under:
Chicago executives,
Food,
Stock activity
Dow Jones Newswires | Sara Lee Chief Executive Brenda Barnes on
Friday bought 18,500 shares of her food maker’s stock, a day after the
shares fell 4 percent on the company’s earnings results.
It marked her second-largest open-market buy since she became CEO in
February 2005, according to InsiderScore.com data. Friday’s transaction
was valued at $249,900, or $13.51 a share, according to a regulatory
filing.
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May 7, 2010 at 2:17 p.m.
Filed under:
Chicago executives
Tribune staff report | Illinois Tool Works Inc. said its board of
directors elected David Parry a vice chairman of ITW. In his new role,
he will continue to oversee the company’s polymers and fluids segment
with additional responsibility over the test & measurement
businesses.
Parry, 56, joined ITW in 1994 as general manager of
ITW Devcon following a 17-year career with a U.K. chemical company.
After several roles, including group president of performance polymers,
he was named executive vice president in 2006 with responsibility for
the global polymers & fluids businesses. He holds a series of
advanced degrees in chemistry from Manchester University.
May 5, 2010 at 5:04 p.m.
Filed under:
Chicago executives,
Construction
Associated Press | Heavy equipment maker Caterpillar is planning a
number of management changes to follow Doug Oberhelman’s promotion to
CEO in July and replace several retiring executives.
The Peoria-based company said Wednesday it will reduce the number of
group presidents from six to five after Oberhelman becomes chief
executive and reorganize the duties of several vice presidents.
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May 5, 2010 at 4:33 p.m.
Filed under:
Chicago executives,
Litigation
By Ameet Sachdev | A
private equity firm that controls Addison Professional Search has sued
the founder of the Chicago staffing company, alleging he looted the
company and engaged in other malfeasance.
Joel Katz, of Chicago, is accused of using company funds to pay for
travel, rental cars and cell phones for himself and his wife, according
to the suit filed Tuesday in Cook County Circuit Court. The complaint
also said that Katz stole company funds to pay a $441,000 personal tax
liability.
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May 5, 2010 at 11:00 a.m.
Filed under:
Chicago executives,
Conventions,
Tourism
By Kathy Bergen | Juan Ochoa, chief executive of the agency that runs McCormick Place,
Wednesday announced his resignation, which was widely anticipated. He
said in a statement he intends to work on immigration reform.
Ochoa’s exit as CEO of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority,
or McPier, comes as the General Assembly is preparing to restructure
operations at McCormick Place later this week.
The legislature’s chief adviser on the McCormick Place overhaul is
recommending installation of a state-appointed trustee for an 18-month
transition period. If the General Assembly goes along, this would have
meant Ochoa’s exit.
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Dow Jones Newswires-Wall Street Journal | Patrik Edsparr has left Citadel Investment Group, making him the Chicago hedge-fund firm’s latest top executive to depart.
Citadel spokeswoman Katie Spring said Edsparr was “let go” from the
firm within the last two weeks. Messages left for Edsparr and his
assistant at Citadel’s London office Tuesday weren’t immediately
returned. He didn’t respond to an email seeking comment. Edsparr had
told associates in London in recent days that he was leaving, says a
person close to the matter.
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May 4, 2010 at 5:50 a.m.
Filed under:
Chicago executives,
Economy
From Bloomberg News | The chief executives of Caterpillar, JPMorgan Chase and ADM were among 13 that dined with President Barack Obama last night ahead of his speech to the Business Council about job creation and the economy later today.
Get the full story: businessweek.com
May 3, 2010 at 2:34 p.m.
Filed under:
Airlines,
Chicago executives,
M&A
Continental Airlines CEO Jeffery Smisek, left, and United Airlines CEO Glenn Tilton. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
By Wailin Wong | Gossip, a birthday phone call and a renewed relationship with an old flame: The story of how United Airlines and Continental Airlines got together is a romance for the ages. And like any good tale, this one has a cast-off lover, in the form of US Airways.
“What happened here is very simple,” Continental President and Chief Executive Jeff Smisek told analysts and reporters on a Monday conference call. “I found out through the news media that Glenn [Tilton, CEO of United] was looking at a potential other combination. I recognized that United is the best possible partner for Continental…I didn’t want him to marry the ugly girl. I wanted him to marry the pretty one, and I’m much prettier.”
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May 3, 2010 at 11:40 a.m.
Filed under:
Banking,
Chicago executives
From Crain’s Chicago Business | North Texas investment bank Allegiance Capital has opened an office in Willis Tower in Chicago with two bankers. Allegiance has a total employee headcount of 42 at its
seven offices in Chicago, Dallas, Minneapolis, Seattle, New York,
Shanghai and Madrid.
Get the full story: chicagobusiness.com.
May 3, 2010 at 4:13 a.m.
Filed under:
Chicago executives,
Retail
Dow Jones Newswire-Wall Street Journal | More than two years after
Sears Holdings Corp. named him interim chief executive, W. Bruce
Johnson still occupies that role, the longest current temporary tenure
for the head of a publicly traded U.S. company.
Sears, at its annual meeting Tuesday, is putting Johnson up for a
board seat and has bumped up his base salary to $1 million from
$850,000. But 27 months after the board ousted CEO Aylwin Lewis, the
retailer still hasn’t announced plans to name Johnson as its
permanent chief, raising concerns among some investors.
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April 30, 2010 at 4:06 p.m.
Filed under:
Chicago executives,
Retail
By Sandra M. Jones | Hewlett-Packard Co. said it hired Sears’ top marketing executive Richard
Gerstein as senior vice president of strategy and worldwide marketing
for the computer company’s personal systems group.
Gerstein resigned
from Sears Holdings Corp., where he was senior vice president of
marketing, earlier this week, the Tribune reported. Gerstein’s last day
at the Hoffman Estates-based retailer is May 7. He starts at Palo Alto,
Calif.-based HP in mid-May.
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April 30, 2010 at 1:56 p.m.
Filed under:
Chicago executives
From Bloomberg News | An executive at the Chicago Board Options
Exchange said the exchange plans to fight a proposal by U.S. regulators
to place a 30-cent cap on fees for equity derivatives trade.
Get the full story: sfgate.com
April 29, 2010 at 4:04 p.m.
Filed under:
Advertising/Marketing,
Chicago executives,
Retail
By Sandra M. Jones | Sears Holdings Corp. is in search of a marketing chief, again.
The company’s senior vice president of marketing Richard Gerstein resigned this week, the Tribune has learned. Gerstein is the second top marketing officer to leave the operator of Sears and Kmart stores since investor Edward Lampert took control of the company five years ago.
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Union members sit in the audience listening as union reps and contractors testify in front of the Joint Committee on the Metropolitan Pier & Exposition Authority in early April of 2010. (Nancy Stone/ Chicago Tribune)
By Kathy Bergen | At a revamped McCormick Place, trade shows and their exhibitors could be
guaranteed a basic set of rights and show-floor work rules aimed at
cutting their costs, and the contractors and union workers who want the
right to work the shows would have to accept those terms.
At least that’s the legal concept behind the recommendations expected to
be issued this week or next by the state legislative committee studying
how to make Chicago’s convention business more competitive with
lower-cost rivals, according to a source close to the deliberations.
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