Word: ibm
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...IBM's executives hardly recognized him when he got back. Tom Watson Jr. had grown up in the Army. His first job was as assistant to Charles Kirk, IBM's vice president in charge of sales. "He had a large desk," says Tom Watson Jr., "and I simply had a chair pulled up at the edge of the desk, alongside him, and saw 90% of what he did." When Kirk was away, Tom Watson Jr. had to make the decisions. He made them so well that when Kirk died suddenly in the summer of 1947, Tom Jr. took...
Three years later, his father called him into his 17th floor office at IBM's Manhattan World Headquarters, told him that he was IBM's new president. Says Tom: "It was the most moving experience of my life. I was completely disarmed...
Today, after three years as president, there is little doubt who is running the company, though his father is still active in IBM and outside as well,* likes to be informed of everything, and takes part in most high policy decisions. Tom Watson Jr. makes no bones about the fact that his father was able to put him in the president's chair largely because of his position in the company and the fact that the Watson family holds 6% of IBM's 4,098,471 shares. But Tom Watson Jr. is proving that the choice...
Phones & Time Clocks. Tall and rangy (6 ft. 3 in., 190 Ibs.), prematurely grey at 41, Tom Watson Jr. is much like his father at IBM. He does not smoke, except for a few weeks at Christmastime, never drinks. He used to do both, but when he took over the president's chair, he gave them up in deference to his father. He usually wears the traditional IBM uniform -dark suit, quiet tie, white shirt with stiff, detachable paper collar-punches a time clock along with the lowliest employee. But he is a more relaxed executive than his father...
...measuring his success, IBM's new president must stack himself up against his father's impressive record. Since 1929, IBM sales have jumped an average of 14% each year. On his personal score card, Tom Watson Jr. has done even better, with an average gain of 19% for his three years. It is estimated that IBM's gross this year will hit $500 million, and profits will climb to $56 million...