Steve Case: Will he leave next?
A will he-won't he Wall Street Journal story (subscription required) on angry staffers wanting Steve Case to follow Geral Levin's departure.
AOL Time Warner Chairman Steve Case likes to say he spends most of his time thinking about business issues with at least a five to 10-year time horizon. The big question at AOL, however, is whether Mr. Case will still be at the company in 10 months, let alone a decade.
...Having the chairman pursue a "strategic thinker" role while the CEO runs the company isn't the usual corporate structure in U.S. companies. But it's not unheard of. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, associate dean of the Yale School of Management, estimates it occurs in 10% to 15% of companies, including Microsoft Corp. since Chairman Bill Gates ceded operational control to Steve Ballmer.
But Mr. Sonnenfeld says AOL may find it harder to make the arrangement work well than other companies. He says it works better where the chairman and CEO have worked together for a long time -- which isn't the case at AOL -- and where there is a clear demarcation in the roles of the top two executives. While Mr. Parsons is supposedly in charge of operations, he leaves most of the operational details to his two operating lieutenants, Jeff Bewkes and Don Logan, and his role appears to overlap a bit with that of Mr. Case.