CA's COO Jeff Clarke Discusses Essential Elements for Leading Transformational Change

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Feb. 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Jeff Clarke, chief operating officer at CA , today delivered a keynote address on executing a company transformation at the Seventh Annual MIT Sloan Leadership Conference, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In his keynote, entitled "Leading Through Times of Change," Clarke drew upon his experience with the ongoing transformation of CA and shared approaches leaders can take to build confidence among employees, customers, suppliers and shareholders during times of change.

"The challenge for leaders today is not only to build strategic and operational plans that will achieve their transformational goals," Clarke said, "but also to engage and rally employees to implement cultural change."

Clarke outlined five key elements essential for achieving transformational change:

1. Communicate. Communication throughout a company's transformation is vitally important in helping employees, customers, suppliers and shareholders understand the new corporate vision. You cannot communicate enough. 2. Achieve early wins. Notch some victories that reinforce goals and build confidence in your approach. For CA, hiring a new management team and defining a corporate growth strategy very early in the CA transformation were critical early components that instilled confidence in the new company direction. 3. Lead by example. The CA management team implemented a strong business ethics and compliance program and established a new corporate vision and core values based on integrity and ethical behavior. 4. Make decisions based on data and economic returns. CA changed to a data-driven company -- where decisions are made not by instinct or rote, but based on hard customer, market and financial data. 5. Measure. Define metrics and rigorously follow them. Metrics -- and the ability to track them -- are fundamental to building a performance-driven company.

Clarke concluded, "Strong leadership can reshape a company and give its employees an increasing sense of confidence in the future. But the true test of leadership will be the company's ability to execute."

As CA's COO, Jeff Clarke is responsible for sales, services, business development, partnerships, alliances, finance and information technology. Previously, Clarke was executive vice president, global operations for Hewlett-Packard Company (HP) where he was responsible for the largest global supply chain and procurement operations in the technology industry. As executive vice president, merger integration, Clarke played a key role in integrating the operations, financials and cultures of HP and Compaq Computer Corporation following the $19 billion merger of the two companies. He is widely credited with leading the team which identified and captured more than $3.5 billion in savings.

The annual MIT Sloan Leadership Conference is a day-long symposium that brings students together with professionals, industry leaders, academics, and experts in leadership training to explore the latest in leadership theory and practice.

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CA , one of the world's largest information technology (IT) management software companies, unifies and simplifies the management of enterprise-wide IT. Founded in 1976, CA is headquartered in Islandia, N.Y., and serves customers in more than 140 countries. For more information, please visit http://ca.com/.

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