Personal background of Gary C. Kelly, CEO of Southwest Airlines - Essay Sample

Garry Kelly, the chief executive officer of the Southwest Airlines, has been working for the company since the year 1986. He serves different ranks before he could be promoted to the CEOs position in the year 2004. He has been named the best CEO of the year, judging from the way he handled the business at Southwest Airline during the global recession in the year 2008 ("Gary C. Kelly", 2017). When many companies were dropping their employees due to lack of capital, Garry did not fire anyone. Instead, he designed a way of increasing customer and reduced the cost of flight.

Garry went the University of Texas at Austin where he received his Bachelors of Business administration in Accounting. Garry Kelly was born in the year 1955, at St Antonio Texas. He is married to Carol, and they are blessed with two daughters; Elizabeth and Caroline. Garry is 62 years old and has served the Southwest Airline since the year 198. He joined the company as the system controller, then he was promoted over the years to the VP finance in the year 1989 where he served for two years. He received a series of promotion to the CFO, EVP, to the vice chairman in the year 204, the same year he becomes the CEO, replacing his predecessor James Parker.

Garry has received numerous awards and recognitions, the most recent being the Junior Achievement Dallas Business Hall of Fame Laureate, CEO Magazine's CEO of the Year, the best CEOs in America by Institutional Investor magazine three times ("Gary C. Kelly", 2017); and Gary was selected as Dallas Business Journal's chief executive officer of the year for 2011, to mentioned but a few.

This profile relates to the prototype give in the book. It highlights the achievements of the CEO and the various works he has done over the years. Also, the CEO was promoted from private workers, and from a ton of the departments that the book highlights are the most common, the finance department.

Describe prevailing patterns, pressure, strengths, and criticism of the contemporary U.S managers and management

There are various issues associated with the administration of the U.S business. Among the burden faced by managers, is the need to make their business operations at an international level. To achieve this, managers must be must be easy to form the alliance with other companies and at the same time ensure that they have long range planning. Planning is a sure method which managers use in creating the future strategies vision and missions for the large enterprises. Another important role of a manager is to control and direct the resources towards the achievement of the business objectives. If the need arises, they have the mandate to change the operations of a business or just the goals of a company. However, the decisions that manager make in the organization, in most cases are determined by external forces in the global market and availability of resources owned by the business. The sources of strengths for managers in huge business is the reputation which most forms enjoy. Stiff completion in the market contributes to managers adapting to changes in their companies.

Critic on the managers side always come from the shareholders, as they expect more from the organizations. Also, most of the managers suffer criticism whenever they fail to form mergers, acquisitions, and equity buyout which is becoming more common for large groups. Lastly, there are several critics related to the amount of money that managers receive as payment, citing that they get more than what they deserve.

The U.S managerial pay has been substantially higher than in other countries. How can this be explained? Discuss the following opinion: in the continuing, probably everlasting debate about managerial compensation, most CEOs seem to believe that they are worth every dollar they get. By contrast, many investors think the executive pay is unfair, has little relationship to performance, and is out of control.

According to fortune, an average CEO in Germany was making $ 5.9 million in the year 2013, while the CEO in the U.S was making $12.3 million the same year ("Why do American CEOs make twice as much as German CEOs?", 2017). In other countries, the CEOs payment is lower than that of the U.S, yet they claim to have earned every penny they get. The difference in amount between the CEOs in the U.S and that of other countries can be explained using the fact that the executive pay for chief executive is intimately tied to their companys share price through stock option compensation and other forms of equity pay (Edfelt, 2010). This means that the payment is considered and estimated concerning the companys investment. The higher the rate of share compensation, the greater their amount of money that CEOs receive.

Investors believe that the payments given to CEOs as compensation is extreme and it contributes little to performances. On the one hand, the CEOs think that they deserve every coin they make. The managers have a right to state that each coin earned is worth it given the fact that they manage a series of actions and directs resources that are worth more than what they make (Edfelt, 2010). On the one hand, creating strategies and arranging all the available resources in business to end with profit is not an easy thing. Therefore, they should be entitled to their payment. Also, the U.S economy, mostly, is stable and most of the businesses there make a fortune in their operations.

On the other hand, the inventors believe that this money does not account to control and management. It is absurd for investors to expect that the people they entrust with their money should not get a good portion of it once it has multiplied. In other words, I believe that even though the pay is abnormally high, what these CEOs do to the companies they manage is worth it.

View of an Ideal Company Board of Directors

An ideal board of directors should be composed qualified individuals; people with visions, desire to grow, ability to adapt to changes, caring, and team member who can be able to mobilize workers in the right direction. The composition should be made of a small group of the visionary leader, all of them must have financial literacy to be able to guide the companys resources. The limited number of board member ensures that fewer resources are consumed by the firm in the form of payment, and fewer idlers are employment in the top ranks of a company.

Regarding vetting process and payment, an ideal board member should be analyzed using their experience and their entrepreneurial ideas. The payment should be related to the firms achievement and profitability. Instead of having the fixed payment, the directors should be a pay that is linked to the amount of profit they bring to the business.

An investigation on board of directors in the Alaska Air Group Inc.

The Alaska Airline Inc. has nine board members all aged between the age of 56 and 75 years. The chairman and chief executive officer of the company are called Bradley Tilden, and his age is 56 years (Alaska Airlines, 2017). In the remaining group of members, the youngest member is aged at 63 years.

If I were hired by this company as a private as an independent external advisor to the business, I would introduce some younger people on the board, and get rid of the like of R. Langland, who is age 75 years of age ("Alaska Air Group Inc Board of Directors", 2017). The reason for introducing younger people as the board member is that they are more likely to introduce changes in the companys operations. Old is always associated with maintaining the status quo of a company, even when there are no benefits. The company needs to reach the heights of becoming the beat in the American market.

References

Alaska Air Group Inc Board of Directors. (2017). Quicktake.morningstar.com. Retrieved 11 September 2017, from http://quicktake.morningstar.com/advisor/stock/insiders/board-of-directors?country=USA&t=ALK

Alaska Airlines, I. (2017). Alaska Airlines, Inc.: Board of Directors - Bloomberg. Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 11 September 2017, from https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/board.asp?privcapId=1236048

Edfelt, R. (2010). Global comparative management. Los Angeles: SAGE.

Gary C. Kelly. (2017). Southwest Airlines Newsroom. Retrieved 11 September 2017, from https://www.swamedia.com/channels/Officer-Biographies/pages/gary_kelly

Why do American CEOs make twice as much as German CEOs?. (2017). Fortune.com. Retrieved 11 September 2017, from http://fortune.com/2014/11/04/why-do-american-ceos-make-twice-as-much-as-german-ceos/