Andrea Jung, 60, was CEO of Avon products from 1999-2012. She is presently CEO of Grameen America, a micro-finance nonprofit founded by Nobel Peace Price recipient Muhammad Yunus. It provides loans, education, and credit to U.S. women who live in poverty. All loans must be used to build small businesses.
Jung’s five ways to reinvent yourself this New Year
✓ Fire yourself the last day of the year and start the first day of the new year as if a search firm put you there as a turn-around leader.
✓ Better yet, fire yourself every Friday and turn things around every Monday.
✓ Communicate, communicate, communicate frequently and face to face, not in an e-mail.
✓ Talent is the No. 1 priority. Always be looking for new hires with talent. Promote talented workers inside the company.
✓ The economy is good. Start fixing the roof when the sun is shining.
About Jung
• Born in Toronto. Skipped the first grade and began college at 16. Magna cum laude Princeton (literature '79).
• Named one of Forbes magazine's 100 Most powerful women in 2004. In 2009, Forbes ranked her the 25th most powerful woman
.• Abandoned dream of being a journalist when turned down for an internship at The Boston Globe.
• Plays piano, loves opera, but says she can't sing a note
• Fluent in Mandarin. Father was a Hong Kong-born architect, mother a Shanghai-born pianist and chemical engineer.
• Ex-husband Michael Gould was the CEO of Bloomingdale'sfor 23 years. Younger brother Mark Jung, was the founder and former CEO of IGN Entertainment and the networks of Snowball.com.
Del Jones edited Advice from the Top: 1001 Bits of Business Wisdom from the Great Leaders of the Recent Past. The book focuses on the leadership advice of Fortune 500 CEO's such as Fred Smith of FedEx, but also offers advice from athletes, coaches, entertainers such as Howie Mandel and artists like Wynton Marsalis.
Jones' father, grandfather and the late Sen. John McCain are among those who knew the ballad The Cremation of Sam McGee by heart. It’s the best winter poem ever written and can be read here. Del wrote the historical novel, The Cremation of Sam McGee built upon the poetry of Robert W. Service. The novel is set in the 1898 heyday of yellow journalism and travels from Cuba to the Yukon. The narrator is a fabricating newspaper reporter working for William Randolph Hearst during the Spanish-American War and Klondike Gold Rush.The first chapter is here.
Go here for Del’s short take on on fake news and yellow journalism. He’s available to speak on the topic. Contact him through his website.
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