EJ: Leadership is a difficult quality to quantify. How should a CEO be judged?
MM: Each group of stakeholders will have its own view on this: The board of directors will look at the soundness of company strategy, investors at financial returns, employees at company culture and their own career paths, regulators at ethics and compliance, communities at philanthropy and citizenship. Leadership is working with all these groups and more to develop positive outcomes for everyone. And of course, I have to judge my performance against my own standards, because I am never satisfied.
EJ: What is the most important challenge you face today?
MM: Creating an engaged work force. We have many challenges at Pitney Bowes, but nothing so daunting that a turned-on work force of 35,000 people can’t overcome them.Their efforts, their creativity, their passion for success is a power that is truly awesome when unleashed.It’s how we got to be number one in our industry in the first place, and it’s how we are moving into new market spaces with a high confidence for success. But you have to work hard to keep your employees engaged.We poll our global employee base every year, and we get 80% participation, so we know what is on their minds and how we need to keep changing.
EJ: You have been president and CEO of Pitney Bowes for almost a year. Company-wide, what is the biggest change you have executed in the last 12 months and how has it impacted your corporate culture?
MM: I’ve asked the organization to focus relentlessly on five priorities: Increase customer value, improve operational efficiency, solidify our core mailing business, focus on growth areas and build a more engaged culture. What is interesting about this list is that it contains no financial metrics.If we can deliver on these priorities, the financial returns will take care of themselves.I am drilling into our business operations with my senior leadership team to make sure we have plans, projects and teams in place to uncover opportunities in each of these five priority areas, and it’s truly exciting to see how they have responded.In addition, we have made some changes to the structure of the organization, bringing all of our mailstream hardware under a single leader for North and South America, and having our fast-growing software and marketing services organizations report directly to me.
EJ: The pressures on CEOs have increased dramatically. How has this influenced your style of leadership?
MM: I’m not a patient person by nature. If I like something, I always like it better if it goes faster. The people who work for me will tell you that in that respect I haven’t changed much since becoming CEO. What has changed, however, is that I now allocate a greater share of my time to communicating—employee town halls, media interviews, industry speeches and conferences and other venues. The CEO is the face of the company, and no one can substitute for the CEO in many settings.
EJ: In an era based on transparency, disclosure and pay for performance, what is Pitney Bowes doing to ensure greater accountability?
MM: Fortunately, Pitney Bowes has always been ahead of the curve in this area. Because we handle so much of other people’s money—more than $12 billion a year in postage—our success as a company has always been based on our transparency, trustworthiness and accountability. We are always looking to improve, however, and so we have taken certain steps such as modifying our business segment reporting in order to give investors an even clearer road map by which to judge our progress. And we will continue to look for ways in which we can do better in these matters.
EJ: How do you see Pitney Bowes evolving during your tenure?
MM: In a world of multiple and complementary communications channels, Pitney Bowes will evolve to provide the unique products and services our customers need to make the connections that matter. Historically we have been a hardware company—postage meters and large machines to create bills and statements for the biggest mailers. While we honor that tradition and will continue to lead the world in this area, we will also become more of a software and services company. Even today, we can help companies set their direct marketing strategies, and then develop the campaigns to support those strategies through the mail and on the Web. We’re also moving deeply into the realm of location intelligence, where we can help companies can take advantage of specific geographic information in order to make better business decisions. We must evolve as the world of marketing and communications breaks into more narrowly defined fragments.
President and CEO: Murray D. Martin
Age: 60
Company Headquarters: Stamford, Connecticut
Business segments: The company operates within two industry segments: Mailstream Solutions and Mailstream Services
Revenues/Income: Revenue increased 7% in 2007 to $6.1 billion.
Most important challenge as CEO: Creating an engaged workforce
