Upstanding. Frank A. Calderoni
culture as an asset to drive and accelerate a required reformulation of IBM's business strategy. Instead, the business changed the culture, and this negatively affected the business.
Of course, IBM wasn't alone during this time—many other stalwarts of American business conducted layoffs, cut benefits, and restructured their operations. According to The Economist, in the decade after 1987, approximately 3.5 million American workers lost their jobs due to downsizing.4 The focus of many companies moved from people to the bottom line, and the focus remained there for the better part of two decades as the dominant mindset of corporations.
Make no mistake about it—growing sales and profits was always an important part of the IBM mindset, but historically, this growth was considered to be a natural result of following the three Basic Beliefs. If you respect employees, provide the best customer service, and demand excellence, IBM would grow—and grow and grow.
At IBM, I started out in finance, and I was fortunate to be invited to join a special management development program for individuals with strong leadership potential. A key part of the course was a talent assessment to determine early in our careers if we had the attributes that would be required to lead IBM into the future. As you can imagine, the pressure to excel in the assessment was intense. We were tasked with working through complex business cases—problem solving, developing strategies, working as part of a team, presenting, and writing. Through it all, seven or eight assessors closely watched everything we did that week; how we managed ourselves determined our career progression. As an introvert, it was a hugely stressful pressure-cooker experience that pushed me to be more extroverted. While it felt way outside my usual comfort zone, it also thoroughly engaged my competitive instinct—I could win at this!—and it was formative to shaping my leadership drive.
The course and assessment were rigorous, but they were also helpful and revealing. When we received our results, we learned exactly what we did well, what areas we should work on to improve, and we had a much better idea of our potential as future leaders at IBM. Excellence was expected and the bar was set high. I eventually worked my way up to Vice President, Finance and Operations for Global Small Business, making me the senior financial and operations executive for a $3 billion international brand and customer organization. And it was at IBM that I learned firsthand the value of how to work with cultural differences.
I was born in America, but I'm a child of immigrants. My father immigrated to the United States from Italy when he was just five years old and settled in a small, rural town in New York State with his mother, father, and brother. Like many immigrants at the time, they went through Ellis Island. My father went to college, but he left before he received his degree—he needed to work to provide for our growing family. He had a strong work ethic and worked long hours as a tradesman to give us a good life. My mother didn't go to college—she stayed home to take care of me and my two brothers, Bob and Rick, and later developed a career as a computer technician after we left home. We lived comfortable lives—we weren't affluent by any means, but we didn't lack for anything.
I think my father always regretted not getting his degree, so he impressed on my brothers and me from an early age that we would definitely be going to college. I started working when I was 12, delivering newspapers, and my brothers started working at a young age too. The expectation our father set for us was that the money we made would be put into savings for college. The main focus, however, was on studying and doing well in school.
When I was in high school, everyone was talking about going to college, but I didn't fully understand what college was all about. My parents didn't have experience with the college and career landscape to help fill in the gaps, so my brothers and I had to learn as we went through the process ourselves. We had to figure out what schools were available to us, how to apply, and what professions to pursue. I decided to talk with my high school guidance counselor about it.
The guidance counselor asked me a few questions and then he handed me a list of colleges. “Go look at these,” he said. “You may want to think about going to them.” I didn't realize it at the time, but that counselor set the path to my future.
Fordham was one of the schools on the list. I liked that the school was in New York City, and it had a strong reputation, especially for business careers. Going to school in New York City was an eye-opening experience for me. I was somewhat sheltered growing up in a small, rural town with my family, but at Fordham, I started getting more engaged in the community around me.
I wanted to try different kinds of jobs, so I worked for a hospital (a short-lived tour as an operating room technician) and a radio station while I was in college. The station broadcast throughout the Tri-state area—New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut—with a variety of music and news programming to reach multiple niche audiences. I was initially interested in majoring in journalism or the arts at Fordham, so I decided to become a business reporter at the radio station to explore both professions. I was exposed to the corporate world, and this was my first experience on how companies reported earnings.
While I was at the radio station as a news reporter, I had the opportunity to interview some significant people at the time, including President Jimmy Carter, Vice President Walter Mondale, New York City Mayor Ed Koch, and other political and business leaders. I would be standing in the press scrum trying to get in and hold up my microphone along with all the big networks: ABC, CBS, and so on—which were big moments for me as a small-town kid. I was learning firsthand about politics and business, and it opened up a whole new world to me. Those experiences were as valuable as the formal education I was getting in college. As much as I loved the creativity of working at the radio station and doing some filmmaking on the side, my rational side said I needed to go into business so I could get a good job out of college. So, I decided to major in accounting and finance.
As I neared graduation, I started knocking on doors in New York City, dropping off copies of my resume at companies I was interested in. The very first job offer I got was a full-time finance position from CBS at $12,500 a year, and I still have that first offer letter to this day. Although I was excited to receive the offer, I decided to wait and see if IBM would make me an offer following my summer internships. Luckily, the company made me a full-time job offer.
My education continued as I moved up the ranks at IBM. I started in an entry-level job, but I had the good fortune to socialize with different levels of people in the company and met several executives whom I personally aspired to be like, and who became mentors. I was really interested in leadership early in my career. There was something about helping people develop their skills and advance in their own careers that spoke to me. Within just a few years, I was promoted to manager and led a team of eight people.
When I joined the finance leadership team for IBM's EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) division, I spent most of my time in Europe. After that, I was tasked with overseeing finance for the San Jose–based storage business and I moved to California. The division invested heavily in Asia operations so I spent a lot of time traveling in China, Singapore, Thailand, and other Asian countries as we expanded disk drive manufacturing throughout Asia.
I learned professionally and personally by traveling extensively at a time when U.S. businesses were just entering previously inaccessible markets. I have vivid memories of walking on the Great Wall of China, boarding a Russian Navy ship in St. Petersburg, and bartering in Indian markets. I had many interactions with customers and other IBMers around the world, and they were often very open to showing me around and sharing different parts of their cultures—what was most important to them. Through these experiences I learned that cultural understanding is essential for doing business.
Although most of my fellow business students at Fordham had a goal of working for one of the large, public accounting firms upon graduation, I ended up accepting a position at IBM because the company really cared about its people. They focused on ensuring we connected as coworkers. They had a number of clubs, sports teams, family outings, and as someone starting a career, this was a wonderful way to learn more about colleagues by sharing hobbies and building relationships. We felt like a family; we felt like we belonged, and that has resonated with me ever since. I built many long-standing