Word: sidney
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...When Sidney Verba ’53 started out as director of Harvard University Library (HUL) more than 20 years ago, the school’s collections were organized in a card catalog in the basement of Widener. Now, as Verba prepares to retire, a search for books in any of the 90 University libraries is a click away via the online HOLLIS catalog...
...Parsons. A whole new breed of fashion influencers are formed at hard-core business schools like Harvard, HEC, ESSEC and Bocconi where the syllabus doesn't include patternmaking but rather an altogether different kind of intangible skill set, namely the ability to manage intensely creative talent. Dior president Sidney Toledano, a graduate of the top French engineering school ECP, compares the structure of his company and his role within it to a nuclear power plant: the brand is the sun, the source of raw energy, the designer supplies the radium to set off fusion, and those highly skilled managers...
Indeed, part of the job of managing such big, creative personalities, ultimately, is listening and staying in the background. Or, as Chloé president Ralph Toledano (no blood relation to Sidney, although they grew up together in Casablanca) puts it, you become master and servant to the design talent. "I spend my life listening to people to see what I can do to help without expecting any kind of return," he says. But Chloé's Toledano also makes sure nobody ever loses sight of the pecking order. "There are some moments you say yes and some moments you say no. There...
Today marriages of business and talent tend to be arranged and can be brokered in a boardroom and followed by a blind date. Sidney Toledano first scouted out Galliano in a rundown studio in a rough part of Paris. Toledano was so impressed, he requested an invitation to sit in the back row, unobserved, at Galliano's next show. It was arranged that Toledano would first meet Dior menswear designer Hedi Slimane in a café (they talked for four hours...
Interviewed separately, both Sidney and Ralph Toledano cite the warmth needed to be empathetic and the cool calculation needed to take risks as an essential combination. "You need good nerves," says Sidney. "We're developing the business in the Middle East because the potential is so high, but if you open the newspaper...