Mike S. Zafirovski | |
---|---|
Zafirovski at a conference in Las Vegas | |
Born | |
Nationality | Macedonian American |
Education | Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics from Edinboro University Honorary Doctorate in Public Service from Edinboro University |
Mike Svetozar Zafirovski [1] (born November 14, 1953 [2] ) is a Macedonian American [3] [4] business executive.
Zafirovski was born in Skopje, in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (the present-day capital of Macedonia). He immigrated to United States in 1969, arriving in Cleveland, Ohio with his family, $1500 among them and speaking no English. [5] [6] Two years later, he entered Edinboro University on a swimming scholarship. In 2004, he received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor. [7]
Zafirovski spent 24 years with General Electric, starting in 1975, where he went through GE's Jack Welch-style leadership training programs and served in various management positions. Between 1996 and 1999, he was head of the European division of GE Lighting, during which time the division posted record profits. He was then promoted to his last position at GE, as president and CEO of GE Lighting from July 1999 to May 2000.[ citation needed ]
Afterwards, he joined Motorola, serving as Executive Vice President and President of the Personal Communications Sector from June 2000 until July 2002. In 2002, he was passed over for the promotion to Chief Operating Officer for Edward Breen, but Breen quit later that year and Zafirovski was given the title in July 2002. His success in the PCS division among other achievements at Motorola, seemed to make him a perfect candidate for the CEO position but the title went to Edward Zander on January 5, 2004. Zafirovski resigned on January 12, 2005. [8] He was a consultant to and a director of Motorola from then until May 2005.[ citation needed ]
When Zafirovski was chosen to head up Nortel Networks in early October, Motorola filed a suit against him, alleging that his new position would break the terms of the non-disclosure agreement he had signed. As part of that agreement, he had received a payoff from Motorola. The payoff had a clawback element should Zafirovski return to work within a defined period he would agree to refund a percentage of the payoff. The problem was he did not want to refund any of the money. As a consequence Nortel agreed to pay $11.5 million on his behalf. [9] Zafirovski became the President and Chief Executive Officer of Nortel Networks, replacing Bill Owens as of November 15, 2005. [2]
Zafirovski announced he was stepping down as CEO of Nortel on August 10, 2009, following the sale of the company's CDMA and LTE businesses to Ericsson as part of a bankruptcy restructuring process. [10] [11] During Zafirovski's entire career at Nortel his email and company profile were compromised by hackers, most likely working for the Chinese Government. [12]
He was elected to the Board of Directors at Boeing on October 25, 2004. [13]
In July 2007 President George W. Bush appointed Zafirovski to the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee. [14] [15]
In August 2009, Mike Zafirovski sought a $12 million payout from Nortel. At the same time, employees who had worked for years with the company lost their jobs with no compensation at all. [16]
Nortel Networks Corporation (Nortel), formerly Northern Telecom Limited, was a Canadian multinational telecommunications and data networking equipment manufacturer headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It was founded in Montreal, Quebec in 1895 as the Northern Electric and Manufacturing Company. Until an antitrust settlement in 1949, Northern Electric was owned mostly by Bell Canada and the Western Electric Company of the Bell System, producing large volumes of telecommunications equipment based on licensed Western Electric designs.
John Andrew Roth is a Canadian retired business executive. He was the chief executive officer and chairman of Nortel Networks between 1997 and 2001. While he was called "the most successful businessman in modern Canadian history" by Time magazine and named Canada's CEO of the Year by a Bay Street panel in the fall of 2000, by the ignominious end of his career it became clear that his mismanagement destroyed the company.
Gordon M. Bethune is a retired US airline executive. He was the CEO of Continental Airlines from 1994 until his retirement at the end of 2004. He formerly served on the boards of Honeywell and Prudential Financial. Bethune was known for ensuring that he received some time as a pilot when taking delivery of a new Continental Airlines Boeing 767 from Boeing and repositioning it from Seattle to Houston.
Jeffrey Robert Immelt is an American manufacturing executive working as a venture partner at New Enterprise Associates. He previously was the CEO of General Electric from 2001 to 2017, and the CEO of GE's Medical Systems division from 1997 to 2000. Immelt's tenure saw GE's largest divestments in the company's history, as the company sold almost two-thirds of its subsidiaries and assets.
Edward J. Zander is an American business executive. He was CEO and Chairman of the Board of Motorola from January 2004 until January 2008, remaining as chairman until May 2008. His work in the technology sector included management positions at Data General and Apollo Computer before joining Sun Microsystems in 1987, where he was later promoted to Chief Operating Officer and President.
William Arthur Owens is a retired admiral of the United States Navy and who served as the third vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1994 to 1996. Since leaving the military in 1996, he served as an executive or as a member of the board of directors of various companies, including Nortel Networks Corporation.
Alan Roger Mulally is an American aerospace engineer and manufacturing executive. He served as the CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes from 1998 to 2006, and later as president and chief executive officer of the Ford Motor Company from 2006 to 2014.
Robert "Skipp" Orr was the President of Boeing Japan from 2002 to 2007, and the one-time Vice President of Motorola's European Affairs Division. At Motorola he also served as Vice President and Director of Government Relations, and also Government Relations Director for Nippon Motorola in Tokyo. In November 2006, Boeing announced that Orr was retiring as President effective March 2007.
Edward "Ed" Liddy is an American businessman who was chairman of the Allstate Corporation from 1999 to 2008.
Maggie Wilderotter is an American businessperson who is the chairwoman of DocuSign, where she was also interim CEO from April to October 2022, and the former chief executive officer of Frontier Communications from November 2004 to April 2015, then executive chairman of the company until April 2016.
Gregory Q. Brown is an American businessman. He has been chairman and chief executive officer of Motorola Solutions since 2008.
Glenn Carlyle Nye III is an American politician who was the U.S. representative for Virginia's 2nd congressional district from 2009 to 2011. He is a member of the Democratic Party. He was defeated in his attempt to attain re-election on November 2, 2010. The district included all of Virginia Beach and the Eastern Shore, as well as parts of Norfolk and Hampton.
Lauren Flaherty was the chief marketing officer and executive vice president of CA Technologies, an enterprise software firm.
Walter James "Jim" McNerney Jr. is a business executive who was President and CEO of The Boeing Company from June 2005 to July 2015. McNerney was also Chairman from June 2005 until March 1, 2016. McNerney oversaw development of the Boeing 737 MAX.
Richard William Costolo is an American businessman. He was the CEO of Twitter, Inc. from 2010 to 2015; he also served as the COO before becoming CEO.
Gary B. Smith is a British-American executive, currently serving as the Chief Executive Officer of Ciena, an American telecommunications networking multinational.
Timeline of major events for Nortel.
Susan Niczowski is a Canadian entrepreneur of Macedonian descent as well as founder and president of the company "The Summer Fresh Salads Inc." at Woodbridge, Ontario.
Laurette T. Koellner is an American business executive, the former president of Boeing International.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)