Word: krackowizer
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Most successful European executives stay with one company (or at most two) throughout their careers. Not Jürgen Krackow, he is a German who looks like British Actor Trevor Howard, acts like an American job-hopper and talks like the multinational executive that he hopes to become. Now 49, Krackow has rotated among high positions in banking, construction and machine-tool production. Now he has taken over as chairman of the executive board of the fabled and recently troubled Krupp steelmaking and heavy machinery concern. Krackow replaces Güinter Vogelsang, who rescued the Ruhr giant from the brink...
...himself was knocked from the pinnacle in 1967 after the company plunged into a financial crisis, but he retains considerable clout as chairman of the supervisory board and head of the Krupp Foundation, which holds all the firm's shares and supports scientific and cultural projects. Even so, Krackow, who gets along well with Beitz, can be expected to assert himself as boss and insist that the company will undertake only financially sound ventures...
...former panzer officer with a doctorate in law, Krackow has worked for the Commerzbank, one of Germany's Big Three, and for British Investment Banker Siegmund Warburg. After shifting into industry, he became a successful doctor of ailing companies. Vogelsang recruited him four years ago to take charge of Krupp's weakest branch, its money-losing shipbuilding subsidiary, A.G. Weser. Under Krackow's management, the number of man-hours needed to produce a supertanker was cut by one-third, and Weser swung round from a loss of $8.5 million in 1968 to a profit of $4.7 million...
...Krackow believes strongly in corporate teamwork, which is an old idea in the U.S. but a relatively new concept in traditionally hierarchical German business. Though he works 12-to-14-hour days, he does not raise an eyebrow when lieutenants leave the office at 5 p.m. There are only two things that he will not tolerate: disloyalty and mediocrity. "A corporation is less likely to be ruined by a wrong decision than by creeping mediocrity," he says...
...will need all his talents at Krupp. Undercapitalized and overly dependent on steel, the big concern earned only $452,000 last year on sales of $1.8 billion (German operations only). Krackow hopes to do better by making the company multinational. Says he: "I can conceive of opportunities for American partners to collaborate with Krupp in Europe in certain areas, using American know-how. Conversely, I can think of areas in America that could well be enriched with Krupp ideas." The Weser subsidiary, for instance, has been developing ice-breaking bulk carriers and tankers, and Krackow hopes to enter into joint...
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