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When Carly S. Fiorina, Hewlett-Packard’s former chief executive, gave a commencement speech at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, she commiserated a bit with the graduating students who were starting to look for jobs. “I’ve been working on my resume,” she said. “I’ve been lining up my references. I bought a new interview suit.”
Fiorina, who was forced to resign in February in one of the most widely chronicled dismissals in corporate history, is eager to get back to work. But what are her chances of landing another job running a Fortune 500 company?
She can certainly take heart from the examples of others. Consider Donald Trump, who has weathered crushing debts and bankruptcy to become perhaps the nation’s best-known businessman. Or Steve Jobs, who was booted from Apple Computer as its fortunes flagged, went off to found the successful computer animation studio Pixar and then was invited back to Apple, where he is leading its renaissance.
Even being convicted of a crime need not be a career-stopper. Martha Stewart, most famously, seems to have survived time in prison for having lied to government investigators looking into a stock trade. She returned to her company last March as shareholders applauded.
Executives can and do beat the odds. Some succeed by dint of their optimism, experts say, others by the skills that took them to the top in the first place. A few use connections made over the years. Often, they attain their goals simply because they refuse to give up.
When Millard S. Drexler, then 58, was unceremoniously ousted from Gap Inc. in 2002, he could have just retired a wealthy man. Instead, he turned down the severance package because it came with a clause that would have forbidden him to work at another retailer. “I wanted to get right back into the game,” he said in a telephone interview.
Less than a year after Drexler left Gap, the private equity firm Texas Pacific Group hired him to revive J.Crew, the clothing retailer. It was an opportunity for Drexler to rebound without having to start a company from scratch. “My skill is in taking an asset and expanding it in terms of its value,” he said.
James G. Coulter, a founding partner of Texas Pacific, said Drexler’s problem at Gap was that it had outgrown his hands-on approach to management. “That style did not work in a chain with thousands of stores,” he said. “But it is perfect for us. J.Crew has about 160 stores.” Early signs suggest that Drexler hasn’t lost his touch: J.Crew’s same-store sales rose 16 per cent last year.
Executives who rebound well are generally pragmatists, said Gerald R. Roche, the senior chairman of Heidrick & Struggles, an executive search firm. Who finds new jobs fastest? “People who are realistic and whose egos are not out of sight,” he said.
Who has the hardest time recovering? People who take it personally when they are fired, said Graef Crystal, a compensation consultant. “They are afraid people will see them as damaged goods, regardless of the merits,” he said.
Few have done better at that than Martha Stewart. When she was indicted last June, she used her website to tell her side of the story and to elicit support. And in the months before she began her five-month prison term last October, she met Mark Burnett, the producer of The Apprentice. By September, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia had struck a deal for a similar series, with her as the star. The television show will make its debut this fall.
Still, even the most proactive executives can be stymied by a criminal record related to their work, said Bruce C. Greenwald, a professor at the Columbia Business School. Business leaders with enough assets, of course, can just walk away from their old world, as the former Drexel Burnham Lambert financier Michael R. Milken did after he pleaded guilty in 1990 to six felony counts.
Some business leaders, of course, do more than just recover from failure. They learn from it, too. One who has learned plenty is Isaac Mizrahi, the fashion designer. After gaining attention as the subject of a 1995 documentary Unzipped, he built a couture business that was hailed by critics and retailers and was financed by Chanel.
Sales, however, never matched the buzz, and by 1998, Chanel withdrew its support and he closed his business. He says he was hardly defeated by the turn in his fortune. “I didn’t feel like a flop,” he said. “Entrepreneurship is not at the core of what I do. What I do is art.”
Mizrahi continued to design clothes for friends and celebrities. In 2000, he and Gardini, a lawyer by training, produced an off-Broadway one-man show called Les Mizrahi, starring him. That same year, Target approached him about designing a low-cost line of clothing that by several accounts is now flourishing.
Mizrahi’s experience affirms one theory of business comebacks. Says Greenwald of Columbia, “Your first chance can be luck, but your second chance has to be based on some personal talent. All the guys who do second acts have talent. If they don’t have it, they never come back.”
So as Carly Fiorina lines up her references, she might remind them to emphasise her decisiveness, doggedness and exceptional public relation skills. A little luck wouldn’t hurt her comeback chances, either.
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