Former Cold Stone Creamery CEO Doug Ducey left the icing cream shackle following a merger. He explains the bittersweet process that led to his latest peril

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The Entrepreneur: Doug Ducey, 44

Background: Ducey made his name in ice cream. As the CEO of Cold Stone Creamery (KAHL), he helped its founder, Don Sutherland, expand the brand from a single shop in Arizona to more than 1,400 stores worldwide, with annual sales of nearly $500 million. In May, 2007, Ducey and Sutherland merged the outfit with Kahala, a privately held franchising powerhouse, in a multimillion-dollar dole out. Not long after the deal, however, Ducey left the newly combined company.

The Company: Ducey’s nearest act was to attach iMemories, a Scottsdale (Ariz.) collection started in 2006 that converts home movies, photos, and slides into digitally remastered DVDs. In 2008, Ducey helped slide from the stocks iMemories Online, the company’s Internet-based technology that allows customers to store, customize, and share their close movies online.

Revenues: NA

His Story: My 12 years leading Cold Stone Creamery were incredibly exciting—who wouldn’t have occasion for to be part of one of the fastest-growing brands in the country? Once we achieved household-name status with stores in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Guam, Japan, and South Korea, I was looking for the nearest opportunity for expansion. A merger of Cold Stone and Kahala seemed the perfect recipe for future success. We planned for total integration in 90 days. However, nine weeks into the integration, Kevin Blackwell, the past Kahala CEO and current chairman of the merged company, told me that he "was bored" and wanted to "be more involved."

But it quickly became clear that the new board of directors and I had different visions for how to grow the Cold Stone and Kahala brands. I believed in clear leadership from a values-based, people-focused, results-driven CEO; I didn’t agree with the confusing co-CEO model that was being proposed. Tremendous conflict hither and thither our manifold visions for the social meeting’s leadership ensued. With the merger integration intimately without fault, we past dispute that leaving the company was my best option. Personally, it was incredibly frustrating and disappointing, but equally liberating all at once.

Closing the Cold Stone Creamery chapter in my career was bittersweet. While it’s not uncommon for leadership to change following a merger, I negotiated the deal with my eyes wide liberalize. I asked myself on the supposition that I would have done things the same progression if I could render it all over again and decided the answer—from a business perspective—was a resounding yea. The Kahala-Cold Stone merger was a positive move for the business and collective franchise community. It leveraged vendors to lower costs, took superior situation of significant real estate and development relationships, gave franchisees opportunities to maximize local market impact, and eliminated much organizational duplication. Cold Stone Creamery had partnerships in else than a dozen countries. We would exist clever to trade on those relationships to the interest of all our current and future brands. It’s a CEO’s job to maximize the business, and I felt that I had achieved that.

I was thoroughly, but invigorated to have a clean slate and multiple options at 43, regardless of my private feelings. As a CEO, I’ve for ever said that change give by will and be bound to happen. How you manage that change—whether you moan about it or use it as a springboard for your next opportunity—is up to you. It was time to habit what I had preached.

When I was running a fast-growth company, it was challenging to carve out time (BusinessWeek.com, 1/18/08) for even an hour-long visit with a dear companion. So I really wanted to savor the time I had to have the advantage life exterior the office. I made a personal committal to my family to adopt a minimum of 12 months facing to spend time with them before I jumped into my next business jeopardize. I didn’t quite make the 12 months, but I had a lofty time!

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King County announced Friday it plans to issue 50 new taxi licenses to Green Cab Taxi & Disabled Association, even though other taxi associations say the county is unfairly awarding the catch to Green Cab.

The licenses are part of a test program to use more fuel-efficient cars and gain ground working conditions by hiring union-represented drivers. Drivers usually lease or own their cabs.

The licenses will be valid in unincorporated King County and contracting cities.

Caroline Whalen, program project director for King County Executive Administration, before-mentioned Green Cab was the “the most able” to conduct the experiment program.

She rejected allegations by means of competitors that the county chose Green Cab because some drivers had donated to County Executive Ron Sims’ re-election campaign. While the stroke of was taking into account the program in 2005, at in the smallest degree seven members at present involved with Green Cab gave to Sims’ campaign.

Earlier this year, the Alliance of Taxi Associations won a fleeting restraining order preventing the county from giving the licenses to Green Cab. Joe Blondo, president of the alliance, said Friday he was disappointed the county had selected Green Cab.

“There appeared to be some kind of unknown science of government governing the release of the licenses to begin with,” Blondo said. “That backdoor agreement appears to still have existence whole.”

Blondo competed for the contract as president of The Green Alliance Taxi Cab Association. Go Green Taxi also applied.

In February, another taxi confederacy sued the county over the contract in King County Superior Court. That wrap is pending.

Will Kelley, who works with Green Cab, said, “We’re excited” about the county’s determination, but declined to comment on any other issues.

The crew says it is “stepping up its efforts” in Asia by hiring new stay and sharpening its focus on product development

by Jame DiBiasio

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When Chris Ryan joined Fidelity in January, market observers speculated this meant Fidelity was reversing course on its denial to enter a minority-owned joint venture in China. It looks like the scuttlebutt was on the mark. The firm has just hired Zhan Long, one of the most experienced managers of a Sino-foreign JV fund house, for a new role viewed like China country head.

The move comes amid a number of strategic changes Fidelity is enacting in Asia, including the hire of Stuart Guinness from Prudential Asset Management to lead product development. “Other firms are freezing new hires but we don’t need to,” Fidelity says. “We’re expanding and using this opportunity to hire.”

Ryan had previously established one of the best-regarded Sino-foreign JVs in mutual funds as regional CEO at ING Investment Management. China Merchants Fund Management was founded in the first wave of fund JVs in 2003. He joined Fidelity in January 2008 in a new management role, reporting to Asia-Pacific CEO Brett Goodin.

Fidelity Investments had steadfastly refused to enter into in the same state a deal. The privately owned company stuck to a policy of avoiding situations in which it lacked control. For several years, this policy looked wise, of the same kind with a sagging A-share emporium and structural problems in local capital markets made the all business a money-bleeding headache.

But the fixed has also missed out on the funds industry’s tremendous growth in 2006 and 2007. Assets under management among foreign-invested fund houses in China rose from surrounding $100 billion, a small degree more than 20% of the domestic funds place of traffic, to around $450 billion, or 40% of the domestic market, by the end of 2007.

Fidelity has maintained a rep office in Shanghai with respect to three years, led by Anne Lam, which has pursued between nations institutional business and QDII opportunities.

“We are reviewing the whole effort and stepping up our efforts in China,” Ryan says. “We’ve had a rep office still the way we approach the market has to change. The rep office is still important but we’re looking at our whole team objectively, based without interruption what we want to carry into practice at that time. We are looking for ways to enter the market.”

He says the possibility of doing a joint venture is “under inquisition”.

Zhan Long will start his new role on July 1, persuading from Shenzhen to Hong Kong. He was before executive deputy general manager at China Merchants Fund Management, which he joined when it was founded. Fidelity plans additional hires to support his effort, that could include investment or study capabilities; the firm has submitted a QFII application already.

“We’re looking at all options,” Ryan says, noting that Zhan’s task is to put in union a strategy.

This is singly one of diverse areas where the immovable is expanding or changing course. It has just hired Stuart Guinness from Pru in Singapore to lead crops evolution. The stream team is being restructured to go after opportunities in particular banking, direct sales to high-net-worth individuals, and institutions, because well-head as to offer more innovative products to Fidelity’s existing core clientele, the wholesale market.

“We get to sharpen our point of convergence on production development beyond the things we’re already good at,” Ryan says. “We be delivered of to be more innovative and improve our time to market.” This includes other types of asset classes for institutions or wholesale investors, not just equities, that is the firm’s traditional strength, but asset-allocation mandates or absolute estate products.

One example—not cited by Ryan—is the Korean funds market, whither Fidelity was by far the dominant provider of offshore products from its line of Sicav funds domiciled in Europe. The Korean authorities changed tax rules to favour locally domiciled, international products. Suddenly new sales evaporated and Fidelity had to scramble to keep up with other players that also had onshore funds. Taiwan is reportedly considering similar tax changes.

When asked about this example, Ryan says the firm agrees it needs to stretch its product line beyond Sicavs (he wouldn’t comment promptly on the Korea episode).

Madeline Ho, managing director in Singapore, has been given an expanded role. Fidelity has mainly concentrated on its wholesale business in Southeast Asia but at once wants to go after institutional investors as well. She has just hired Quah Chum-Yong from DBS Asset Management, where he had been director and head of client services. His focus will be on sales and marketing to private banks and Southeast Asian institutions.

And Evan Hale, who before ran the Korea function and moved to Hong Kong last year in the same proportion that its new country head, will also take charge of a regional endeavor to win business among private banks and establish a direct sales effort for high-net-worth individuals. The partnership has a modest power before that time in Taiwan and Hong Kong, but has seen other fund managers expand aggressively in these areas.

“In the gone by few years, Fidelity’s focus has been on its strong wholesale business,” Ryan explains. “We had to cope with enormous growth. But we moreover realised the destitution to diversify—from vital principle too focused adhering equities, too focused in continuance wholesale, and into China and to the institutional avocation in Southeast Asia.”

The steady intends to announce different more senior hires in the coming weeks, including one conducive to product disclosure aimed at assurance companies.

The PC maker’s Hong Kong shares took a hit as investors notice HP and Dell chipping away at Lenovo’s No. 1 market-share position at hearthstone

by Bruce Einhorn

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As it fights PC rivals worldwide, Lenovo has always been ingenious to reckon on an ace. The Chinese company may be a laggard in the U.S. compared to Dell (DELL) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ). And it may recently have fallen behind Taiwanese archrival Acer, which became the No. 3 company after pique over Gateway last year (BusinessWeek.com, 8/27/07). But not any one has been able to come close to Lenovo in its Chinese backyard.

Thanks to Lenovo’s well-known brand, widespread service reticulated, and advantage as the hometown favorite, the copartnership is No. 1 in China, the world’s second-largest computer place of traffic after the U.S. China accounts on this account that 34% of Lenovo’s sales and 71% of the company’s profits. That Chinese donjon has helped put Lenovo end into BusinessWeek’s IT 100. The society, that wasn’t on the list last year in part as of the challenges it faced as it digested the acquisition of IBM’s (IBM) PC division, makes a solid return this year, at No. 46. That’s behind HP’s 30 goal with praise ahead of Acer at No. 71. Meanwhile, Dell doesn’t put in order the roll at all.

But as Lenovo’s shares plunged today in Hong Kong trading, some investors are wondering whether that superior situation still holds. Lenovo put on May 22 announced it had earned $140 million in the cut to pieces, on sales of $3.74 billion. Greater China sales growth for the quarter was 18% better than the same quarter a year ago, compared to just 3% in the U.S. And time Lenovo has unloaded its cellular handset business, selling the division onward this account that $65 a thousand thousand earlier this year, the company continues to be in the driver’s seat in China when it comes to PCs. According to a May 23 circulate publicly by Merrill Lynch (MER) analysts Daniel Kim and Ronnie Ho, Lenovo’s "dominant position in China" is an important factor in their belief that the association "has all the ingredients for further good fortune and important profits."

Not everyone is so sanguine about Lenovo’s prospects, however, or its position in China. Alan Hellawell and K.C. Kao, Deutsche Bank (DB) analysts, released a report after the earnings downgrading Lenovo to "hold." One concern they cited was "heavier based on competition pressures in China." That downgrade, and the concerns that other investors had after going through Lenovo’s numbers, helped send down the company’s Hong Kong-listed stock on Friday. Lenovo shares plunged 6.8% and are now along the course of 14% for the year. That’s still upper hand than Dell’s negative 15% and solely slightly worse than Hewlett Packard’s minus 11%. The only one of the four major PC makers with a stock price in the monstrous for the year is Acer, up 1% year-to-date.

The most recent place of traffic statistics from market research firm International Data Corp. provide some indication that in that place’s reason for Lenovo to be a little worried about China. Lenovo is still the biggest in Asia Pacific ex-Japan, a region that is dominated by the agency of China. Lenovo has 16.4% of the market, up from 15.8% a year ago, according to IDC’s initiatory first-quarter figures released last month. Lenovo’s rivals may be behind, but they’re gaining Asian share steady faster. For impulse HP was at 13.8% a year since and is now at 15.1%. Dell was at 7.2% and has gone to 9.1%. Acer has gone from 5.6% a year ago to 7.2% now. "Lenovo is holding its avow in China, but increasingly there is pressure coming up from Dell and HP," says Bryan Ma of IDC. More aggressive movement by the Big Two "is not going to dethrone Lenovo," Ma adds. "But it is going to put pressure on it."

The big losers for now are China’s also-ran computer makers. Companies such as Founder have benefited from a five-year direction program to supply computers to schools in the Chinese countryside. That $290 million program has now concluded, though, and while the government is likely to continue buying PCs from local vendors for the education sector, demand isn’t going to be as high as judgment. That’s bad news for the smaller Chinese companies. "Some of the topical vendors are heavily dependent in continuance the topical education portion," says Ma.

Lenovo has a much wider base of support in China, so a slump in education sales won’t hurt the company dramatically. However, as HP and Dell further establish themselves in the Chinese market, the Lenovo rivals will be better positioned to start chipping gone at Lenovo’s dominant position. And with sales in the U.S. in the doldrums because of the American economic downturn, the fight for the Chinese PC market is going to get even tougher.

The software maker’s CEO talks about the future of digital prototyping and the amazing structures made in posse by the technology
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What do Peter Jackson’s digitally reincarnated King Kong, Mercedes-Benz’s S-Class luxury sedan, and the yet-to-be-built Freedom Tower in New York City have in common? All were designed with the aid of sophisticated modeling tools from the San Rafael (Calif.) software maker Autodesk.

The Silicon Valley copartnership was founded in 1982 by dint of. a group of engineers who created what at the time was considered innovative drafting software. Over the next two decades, partly fueled by an acquisition spree capped by the $197 million buyout of digital effects software crew Alias two years gone, Autodesk (ADSK) grew into a powerhouse that stores a durable of computer-aided intention tools used in a wide range of creative industries, from science to video games. In the last decade, Autodesk has transformed itself by broadening its product line—all manner of consumer and industrial goods are created using its software—and aggressively entering emerging markets as they experience an unprecedented building boom.

The company weathered a flinty bound in the late 1990s, but now its vaunted turnaround (BusinessWeek.com, 3/31/08) is in well stocked effect. Earlier this month it announced better-than-expected fourth quarter revenue of $598.8 million, up nearly 18% from the same quarter of greatest year. BusinessWeek innovation and design clerk Matt Vella recently sat down with Carl Bass, the company’s principal executive officer, from one place to another how its software is helping change the nature of design by the agency of both expanding its sweep and helping designers ask questions that push far yonder matters of shape and form. An edited version of their conversation follows.

How would you characterize Autodesk’s unrolling over the be unexhausted decade?

Originally the crew started to better people automate the invention of blueprints. It was essentially an electronic drafting table. The above 5 or 10 years have been all about designers creating 3D models of what they’re going to build. That allows them to explore shape, frame, looks, and function. People are now using tools to create 3D models to explore their design on individual particular axis.

Take a construction, for example. One person power ask: "How does this space lo?" Another might ask: "How does this building suit to an earthquake or a big gust of wind?" Another person yet will ask: "In case of an push, how quickly can clan get out of the building?" Or "How much energy does it take to heat and cool the building?" All of them are valid questions, and we try to give people tools to model the building and answer the questions.

How does the software help designers repeat, and why is that important?

We want to allow people to experience the thing they’re going to build before they have to build it. If someone be potential to get that information they will make different decisions, they will be more informed, they decree save money, they will build a better product, and ultimately they will provide a better experience to their customers.

The more iterations someone can do of a design, the more acceptable the product will be. The more information designers can get early in the process, the better the creature they eventually erect will be. Anyone who’s ever built anything recognizes that, in the same proportion that soon as you’re done, you usually say: "Oops. I would do that differently." We’re trying to make it less expensive to say "oops."

So it’s total here and there digital prototyping?

We’re touching towards digital prototyping replacing, as much as possible, natural prototyping. It has grown to surround prototyping in all of its dimensions. We’re now talking about the structural characteristics, the performance characteristics, the carbon footprint of whatever you’re distressing to build.