“Horace Smith and D. B. Wesson did it when they engraved their initials onto a pistol in 1852. Henry Ford did it, as did Mary Kay Ash, Michael Bloomberg, Donald Trump and Michael Dell. Company founders have long believed that placing their name on their company signals their willingness to stake their personal reputation and stand behind their products. Thatís fine when things are going well and the company and the CEO whose name it bears are held in high regard. But what if the CEO falls from grace? What happens to a company if the CEO’s name is in effect its brand ó and then that name is tarnished?”

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 1st, 2004 at 2:43 pm and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.