Collection Of Interviews Brings Inspiration To Readers

Westchester County Business Journal - April 19, 2004

What is the secret to being a successful business leader?

There is no single, quick answer, Eric Yaverbaum of Larchmont, president and co-founding partner of Jericho Communications Inc., will tell you.

His recently released "Leadership Secrets of the World's Most Successful CEOs" is a collection of interviews he did with no fewer than 100 corporate presidents, chief executive officers, chief operating officers and other top executives of Staples, Radio Shack, 7-Eleven, Xerox, Hewlett-Packard, and other major companies.

"There's no one way to be successful in business," said Yaverbaum, who also wrote "Public Relations for Dummies," and "I'll Get Back to You," and is a frequent guest on the lecture circuit. "Each executive has his or her own way of leading."

He got the idea for the book after having dinner with several CEOs - including Richard Grasso, then the head of the New York Stock Exchange - about two months following the horrific terrorist attacks of 9/11. "We were talking about Sept. 11, and how Dick (Grasso) and the others had to make instant decisions and quickly act after the planes hit," he recalled.

Yaverbaum realized that each CEO had his or her own way of dealing with the crisis, and a book about individual strategies of leadership "had to be written," he said.

Elizabeth Elting, 38, who founded Manhattan-based TransPerfect Translations - a foreign-language translation service - 12 years ago, said she keeps Yaverbaum's book on her night table and reads, or rereads, a chapter each night.

It's not because she's one of the CEO's whom Yaverbaum profiled. "I love reading books on how people have become successful," she told the Business Journal. "You can learn that there are many keys to great leadership."

One key she cited in the book was: "Let your clients and employees know you care about them. Ask them how to make the company better. Measure people's performance, and manage and lead them based on those numbers."

—David J. Glenn

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With revenue of over $250 million, TransPerfect is the largest privately held language services provider in the world. From offices in 66 cities on 5 continents, TransPerfect offers a full range of services in over 100 languages to multinationals worldwide. With a global network of over 4,000 linguists and subject-area specialists, TransPerfect is the largest translation company to be fully ISO 9001:2008 and EN 15038:2006 certified. TransPerfect is headquartered in New York and has regional headquarters in London and Hong Kong. For more information, please visit our website at www.transperfect.com.