Brett Blundy goes overweight on underwear and buys other half of Bras N Things; His other investments include stakes in homewares chain Adairs, jewellery retailer Diva and tourism venture BridegClimb

Andrew Heathcote Rich Lists editor

Brett Blundy goes overweight on underwear and buys other half of Bras N Things

Published 06 November 2013 10:24, Updated 07 November 2013 07:53

Brett Blundy is back in full control of the Bras N Things chain. Singapore resident and Rich 200 list member Brett Blundy has bought back the other half of women’s underwear chain Bras N Things after selling it to private equity investors in 2008. The purchase price is undisclosed, but last year’s annual report shows the business had revenue of $153 million in 2012 and net assets of $127 million. An IPO of Bras N Things was planned in 2011 but never eventuated. It had been expected to raise about $400 million. Read more of this post

Alan Mulally Explains How He Turned Around Ford: “What can we do to help you out?”

Alan Mulally Explains How He Turned Around Ford

MAX NISEN NOV. 6, 2013, 6:33 PM 2,197 3

The turnaround at Ford under Alan Mulally has been nothing short of spectacular. It’s gone from posting record multibillion-dollar losses in 2006 when he took over, to five consecutive years of annual profits. It’s been so impressive that he’s a leading candidate to take over at Microsoft after current CEO Steve Ballmer leaves. In a recent interview with McKinsey Quarterly, Mulally pointed out a few unique elements of his leadership and management style that have helped change Ford’s culture. It’s a hint at what he could bring to the table if he goes to Microsoft. Read more of this post

The Rise And Fall Of The Largest Corporation In History

The Rise And Fall Of The Largest Corporation In History

BRYAN TAYLOR, GLOBAL FINANCIAL DATA NOV. 6, 2013, 1:48 PM 26,738 19

The Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC), or the United East India Company, was not only the first multinational corporation to exist, but also probably the largest corporation in size in history. The company existed for almost 200 years from its founding in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly over Dutch operations in Asia until its demise in 1796.  During those two centuries, the VOC sent almost a million people to Asia, more than the rest of Europe combined.  Read more of this post

Beer Gives Model for Legal Canada Marijuana, Sleeman Says

Beer Gives Model for Legal Canada Marijuana, Sleeman Says

Canada could use the beer industry as a model if it ever decides to legalize and tax marijuana, according to the founder of the nation’s third-largest brewer. John Sleeman of Sleeman Breweries Ltd. said rules imposed after Prohibition transformed a crime-ridden industry into one that pays high taxes, helps battle social problems such as drunk driving and accounts for almost 1 percentage point of gross domestic product. While not advocating the move, he said in an interview in the Bloomberg News Ottawa bureau that the model could be applied to pot. Read more of this post

How to Become the CEO of Your Career; “Instead of thinking about being a champion of a career, I’d think about just being a champion of your life.”

How to Become the CEO of Your Career

Nov 04, 2013 Executive Education Human Resources North America

Women who seek leadership roles in business often face the prospect, whether real or perceived, of having to choose between nurturing their careers or building a robust family and personal life. The publication in March of Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead, by Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, inspired a renewed debate about feminism. It suggested in a strong, if controversial, fashion that women can have it all. Read more of this post

Billionaire’s Gallery Serves as Haven for Dissident Chinese Art

Billionaire’s Gallery Serves as Haven for Dissident Chinese Art

Judith Neilson weaves through the lunchtime crowd at the White Rabbit Gallery in Sydney and pauses before what appears to be a large pile of building rubble spread across the floor.

“Watch closely,” she instructs. 

The mound of dirt, concrete and wood gently rises and falls — as if breathing. Created in 2009 by Shanghai-born Xu Zhen, “Calm” aims to convey that people in the Middle East have been buried under stereotypes as well as debris from bombings, Bloomberg Markets will report in its Billionaires Issue in December. Read more of this post

New York exhibit explores first global market: textiles

New York exhibit explores first global market: textiles

1:24pm EST

By Ellen Freilich

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Four centuries of textiles from Asia, Europe and the Americas are the focus of a new exhibition that explores the world’s first truly global market – textiles. “Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500-1800,” which runs through January 5 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, features 134 works, including wall hangings, bed covers, tapestries, church vestments, pieces of seating furniture, costumes, paintings and drawings. Read more of this post

Jimmy Carter works for global end to blindness caused by houseflies

Jimmy Carter works for global end to blindness caused by houseflies

Tue, Nov 5 2013

By Ransdell Pierson

(Reuters) – As Jimmy Carter approaches 90, he is reaching for victory in a 15-year war against an infection spread by houseflies that blinds millions in developing countries and posed a threat to his own family and neighbors as a child on a Georgia farm. “Our goal is to eliminate blinding trachoma from the face of the earth by 2020,” the former U.S. president said during a visit on Tuesday to the New York headquarters of Pfizer Inc, which donates the antibiotic Zithromax used to treat the disease. Trachoma, the world’s leading cause of preventable blindness, affects more than 20 million people worldwide, of whom about 2.2 million are visually impaired and 1.2 million are blind, according to the World Health Organization. The disease is caused when houseflies, attracted to the moist eye, spread Chlamydia bacteria. It is spread further through contact with eye discharges on towels, fingers or other infected surfaces. Read more of this post

Founders need a bit of grit for the fight; Resilience in an entrepreneur is more important than brilliance

November 5, 2013 5:08 pm

Founders need a bit of grit for the fight

By Luke Johnson

Resilience in an entrepreneur is more important than brilliance

On certain days business can feel like a war of attrition. Meetings, calls and emails bring an endless stream of difficulties: customers going broke and not paying their bills, rivals poaching staff, property disputes, suppliers demanding price increases, employee grievances, frauds, accidents, collapsing deals and so forth. It could be argued that struggle is at the heart of enterprise: in a free market, competitors battle it out to seize share from others. Management talk is full of phrases such as “aggressive expansion”. In among that melée a leader is tasked with generating a profit. Why on earth would such an activity not be constant combat? Any entrepreneur should be good at coping with the stress that inevitably arises from such conflict and striving. But how does one put the various challenges into proportion? Which are trivial and which are a crisis? In the 1960s, two psychiatrists invented a table called the Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory, which rated 43 events as factors in causing illness, going from 100 points for the death of a spouse to 11 for a parking ticket. It includes obvious tragedies and problems such as divorce, jail and personal injury. So I have devised a special stress rating for business owners and bosses – the Johnson-FT Entrepreneur Life Stress Inventory. Read more of this post

Control Is for Beginners

Control Is for Beginners

by Deborah Mills-Scofield  |   9:00 AM November 5, 2013

My daughter’s voice teacher recently told another student to stop practicing.  ”What?!” I almost yelled.  ”What happened to the theory of 10,000 hours of practice for mastery?”  But she explained that, at times, over-practicing can stifle music, just like over-training can stifle athletes and over-engineering can create products too complex to use.  There is a time to stop rehearsing, stop waiting for perfection, stop waiting for control and just go for it.

We need to balance grabbing opportunities as they present themselves — even if we’re not ready and have to ramp up as best and as fast we can — and practicing a lot so that when the opportunity appears, we’re prepared.   At Bell Labs, we were all about practicing; we called it experimenting.  We experimented, learned, applied, and iterated until it was flawless; AT&T wouldn’t release anything into the market until it was absolutely perfect.  When I was designing the system for which I received a patent, I wanted to get prototypes in front of potential customers for feedback before we got too far down the road. How naïve of me! Of course we couldn’t show customers something that wasn’t perfect — it would affect their expectations and maybe (horreur!) negatively impact the brand.  Needless to say, by the time the system was perfect enough to get into the market, we had lost most of our competitive advantage. Read more of this post

Thinking in New Boxes: A New Paradigm for Business Creativity

Thinking in New Boxes: A New Paradigm for Business Creativity Hardcover

by Luc de Brabandere  (Author) , Alan Iny  (Author)

When BIC, manufacturer of disposable ballpoint pens, wanted to grow, it looked for an idea beyond introducing new sizes and ink colors. Someone suggested lighters.
LIGHTERS?
With an idea that seemed crazy at first, that bright executive, instead of seeing BIC as a pen company—a business in the PEN “box”—figured out that there was growth to be found in theDISPOSABLE “box.” And he was right. Now there are disposable BIC lighters, razors, even phones. The company opened its door to a host of opportunities.
IT INVENTED A NEW BOX.
Your business can, too. And simply thinking “out of the box” is not the answer. True ingenuity needs structure, hard analysis, and bold brainstorming. It needs to start
THINKING IN NEW BOXES
—a revolutionary process for sustainable creativity from two strategic innovation experts from The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
To make sense of the world, we all rely on assumptions, on models—on what Luc de Brabandere and Alan Iny call “boxes.” If we are unaware of our boxes, they can blind us to risks and opportunities.
This innovative book challenges everything you thought you knew about business creativity by breaking creativity down into five steps:
• Doubt everything. Challenge your current perspectives.
• Probe the possible. Explore options around you.
• Diverge. Generate many new and exciting ideas, even if they seem absurd.
• Converge. Evaluate and select the ideas that will drive breakthrough results.
• Reevaluate. Relentlessly. No idea is a good idea forever. And did we mention Reevaluate? Relentlessly.
Creativity is paramount if you are to thrive in a time of accelerating change. Replete with practical and potent creativity tools, and featuring fascinating case studies from BIC to Ford to Trader Joe’s,Thinking in New Boxes will help you and your company overcome missed opportunities and stay ahead of the curve.
This book isn’t a simpleminded checklist. This is Thinking in New Boxes.
And it will be fun. (We promise.) Read more of this post

Feng Shui woes in Taiwan’s elite families? It’s been a rough year for The Palace Mansion (帝寶), with four of its residents — including the Wei families, which are currently embroiled in the tainted oil scandal — receiving heaps of negative press

Recent troubles prompt Feng Shui concerns at The Palace Mansion

By Queena Yen ,The China Post
November 6, 2013, 12:07 am TWN

TAIPEI, Taiwan — It’s been a rough year for The Palace Mansion (帝寶), with four of its residents — including the Wei families, which are currently embroiled in the tainted oil scandal — receiving heaps of negative press, causing some to wonder whether the issues might be related to feng shui (風水). The Palace Mansion is located at an intersection of Ren-Ai Road (仁愛路) and Jian-Guo South Road (建國南路) in Taipei. According to Feng Shui master Tsai Shang-ji (蔡上機), the Jian-Guo viaduct next to the building actually cuts the building in half. Therefore, it might be bringing some unexpected problems and bad luck to the residents. Recent examples of bad luck include the Wei families, who are involved in the tainted oil scandal; Lian Huei-shin (連惠心), who endorsed a weight-loss product now suspected to contain forbidden drugs; Dee Hsu (徐熙娣), whose husband was accused of insider trading; and Lee Jen-ni (李珍妮), who is facing issues over an illegitimate child. According to Tsai Shang-ji, the Palace Mansion itself was originally thought to be in a good Feng Shui location, since Ren-Ai Road is wide enough to bring good luck to the residents. Also, because water is related to good fortune in Feng Shui, the pond on the safety island on Ren-ai road is believed to bring the residents great fortune. The Feng Shui at this location brings benefits to enterprises and companies. However, the year 2013 is related to water in the study of Feng Shui. An old Chinese saying says that “water can not only move a boat but also sink a boat.” The result could be that too much water energy is located at The Palace Mansion this year, creating hard times for the residents.

Bloomberg, Champion of the Poor

November 5, 2013

Bloomberg, Champion of the Poor

By MICHAEL B. KATZ

DURING New York City’s mayoral race, criticism of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg for neglecting the poor ignored his bold and unprecedented antipoverty measures. He may not have eliminated inequality or reversed the impact of the Great Recession — over the last two years, the poverty rate has crept up to 21.2 percent from 20.1 percent — but failure to acknowledge what he did in fact accomplish is not only unfair but also shortsighted. Usually depicted as a champion of the rich, Mr. Bloomberg mounted an antipoverty program at a moment when poverty as an issue was off the national radar and even politically toxic. Read more of this post

Inside Leonard Asper’s private struggle to save one of Canada’s most influential companies

Crisis Lines, Part 1: Inside Leonard Asper’s private struggle to save one of Canada’s most influential companies

Theresa Tedesco | 05/11/13 | Last Updated: 05/11/13 5:38 PM ET
I don’t know whether our escape comes from Egypt, Australia, Mexico, Europe or the corner of Jarvis and Bloor

An exclusive look at Leonard Asper’s losing battle to keep control of the Canwest family dynasty as revealed in his extensive business journals. This is the first in a three-part series.

On a cold Winnipeg morning in December 2009, Leonard Asper, the youthful scion of a family media empire stood at the grave of the patriarch for the first time since his father died suddenly six years earlier. It had been two months since the Asper family’s control of Canwest Global Communications Corp. had been stripped away after the once-mighty media conglomerate sought court protection from its creditors. “After having trouble finding him, I stood and cried, said I was sorry, left a loonie there and pledged to build another mighty oak from that acorn,” Leonard wrote in his business journal later that day. “Then I cried for 30 seconds more in my car, stopped and moved on. I had never visited the cemetery prior to that.” Read more of this post

Being ethical in business is not as simple as ‘doing the right thing’; The man who tells us how honest he is rarely deserves our trust

November 5, 2013 4:48 pm

Being ethical in business is not as simple as ‘doing the right thing’

By John Kay

The man who tells us how honest he is rarely deserves our trust

Honesty is the best policy, but he who is governed by that maxim is not an honest man.” Richard Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, was a 19th-century theologian, but his observation is very relevant to a modern debate about the nature of business ethics. The Co-operative Bank has just announced arestructuring that wipes out the value of existing equity. Over many years, the message of the bank’s advertising has been its aspiration to higher standards of ethical conduct than its competitors. The devil’s advocates might seize on the bank’s financial problems as evidence that honesty does not pay, but that is not what happened here: the Co-op Bank failed for the usual reasons banks and businesses fail – bad lending on commercial property and the misguided acquisition of another business by a management whose ambitions exceeded its capabilities. Read more of this post

A revolution on the chessboard: An entrepreneur is determined to make chess the next super sport

November 5, 2013 5:32 pm

A revolution on the chessboard

By James Crabtree in Mumbai

An entrepreneur is determined to make chess the next super sport, writes James Crabtree

Can chess be transformed into a money-spinning global spectator sport? It is a question that will be much on Andrew Paulson’s mind, as he settles down to watch the opening ceremony of the game’s latest world championship match in Chennai, southern India, this Thursday. An imposing, shaven-headed American media entrepreneur with an intellectual air, Mr Paulson last year paid Fide, the world chess federation, $500,000 for exclusive global rights to commercialise the sport over the next decade. Read more of this post

Amazon Spokesperson Goes Ballistic After Author Of Book About Amazon Uses One Wrong Word: Tenacious Vs Resourceful

Amazon Spokesperson Goes Ballistic After Author Of Book About Amazon Uses One Wrong Word

JAY YAROW NOV. 5, 2013, 12:43 PM 5,101 12

Bloomberg Businessweek reporter Brad Stone has a new book on Amazon called, The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon. Amazon is not a fan of the book.  Bezos’ wife trashed the book with a 1-star review on Amazon. Then, Amazon also attacked the book, saying in a statement, “He had every opportunity to thoroughly fact check and bring a more balanced viewpoint to his narrative, but he was very secretive about the book and simply chose not to.” Amazon is normally a very quiet company. It’s rare that it makes any comment, so these aggressive comments about the book are surprising.  Stone responded to Amazon’s attacks with a gracious post at Bloomberg Businessweek saying of Bezos’ and his wife’s complaints, “If they point to errors, I’ll gladly correct them.” He also wrote, “Bezos said that he married MacKenzie after searching for someone tenacious enough to break him out of a Third World prison. By that standard, I got off easy.” This sentence has sent Amazon into another tizzy, it seems. Craig Berman, a spokesman at Amazon, sent out this statement in response to Stone: In the rebuttal Mr. Stone published in Bloomberg Businessweek today, he writes: “Bezos said that he married MacKenzie after searching for someone tenacious enough to break him out of a Third World prison. By that standard, I got off easy.” Entertaining, and inaccurate.

Mr. Bezos says “resourceful” – not “tenacious.” Mr. Stone knows that. He also knows that the correct word doesn’t work quite as well for his purpose. “Resourceful” and “tenacious” mean different things. They also have subtle connotations. You might or might not like a tenacious person. It’s easy to imagine someone tenacious that you find a little exhausting and unpleasant. On the other hand, resourceful is hard to dislike. But no matter how well the word choice works for his purpose, it is not Mr. Stone’s choice to make. By beginning with “Bezos said,” he obligates himself to get it right. It is ironic that he has done this in a rebuttal to a one-star review that comments on the combination of inaccuracy and slanted characterization in his book. We don’t know what the back story to all of this is, but clearly Stone’s book touched a nerve.

Microsoft has to start up again, says chief Steve Ballmer; admits that ‘unless you’re constantly inventing something new, you’re old and tired’

Microsoft has to start up again, says chief Steve Ballmer

Chief executive of Microsoft admits that ‘unless you’re constantly inventing something new, you’re old and tired’

Referring to the success of Microsoft against rival Apple’s iPhone in Italy, Mr Ballmer quipped: ‘I don’t know how long it’s going to last’ Photo: EPA

4:44PM GMT 05 Nov 2013

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer believes the computer giant has to reinvent itself to avoid being “old and tired” as his company struggles to keep up in the mobile devices sector. “We’re finding ourselves having to start up again,” Mr Ballmer said at a conference in Rome, where he announced Italy had become the first country in which Microsoft phones were outselling iPhones. “Unless you’re constantly inventing something new, you’re old and tired. Today we’re having to remake ourselves,” Mr Ballmer told his audience. Read more of this post

Rise in Pets as Therapy for Mental Conditions

Rise in Pets as Therapy for Mental Conditions

Animals Help People With Autism, PTSD, Other Conditions Function Day-to-Day

Nov. 4, 2013 7:05 p.m. ET

Animals increasingly are being used to assist patients with mental disorders, as evidence grows that they can help people with autism, PTSD and other conditions function in their everyday lives. The assistants are usually dogs but sometimes can include miniature horses, chinchillas or other animals. Some are highly trained psychiatric-service animals that, for example, might help autism patients improve their social skills and interactions. Others are household pets called emotional-support animals, or ESAs, a fast-growing type, partly because they require no special training, just a doctor’s note saying the pet helps the patient. Some owners of emotional-support animals say having the pets allows them to reduce how much medication they take. But ESAs also have spurred controversy, in part because some airlines and restaurants that typically bar pets will permit entrance to emotional-support animals, a development that is seen to encourage abuse. Read more of this post

Wanda Group buys Picasso’s ‘Two Children’ masterpiece for US$28.16m; It is the first time that a Chinese enterprise purchased a Picasso painting in the West

Wanda Group buys Picasso’s ‘Two Children’ masterpiece for US$28.16m

By Wang Jie | November 5, 2013, Tuesday |  ONLINE EDITION

Picture shows Picasso’s painting “Two Children,” which depicts the famed artist’s three-year-old son and one-year-old daughter. China’s biggest real estate developer, Wanda Group, bought the painting for US$28.16 million at a Sotheby’s auction in New York yesterday. WANDA Group, one of China’s biggest real estate developers, bought one of Picasso’s paintings for US$28.16 million at a Sotheby’s auction in New York yesterday. It is the first time that a Chinese enterprise purchased a Picasso painting in the West. Read more of this post

Extinct ‘Godzilla’ Platypus Found in Australia

Extinct ‘Godzilla’ Platypus Found in Australia

‘Bang out of the blue drops this monster. Platypus Godzilla.’

By Agence France-Presse on 11:33 am November 5, 2013.
An artist’s impression released by Peter Schouten of a newly discovered species of an extinct platypus, Obdurodon tharalkooschild, discovered in Queensland and a photo (inset) released by Rebecca Pian showing the tooth of the platypus. (AFP Photo/Peter Schouten/ Rebecca Pian)

Sydney. A giant extinct species of the platypus with powerful teeth has been discovered in Australia, with a scientist on Tuesday describing the duck-billed water animal as a Godzilla-like monster. The new species, named Obdurodon tharalkooschild, was identified by a single but highly distinctive tooth found in Riversleigh in the northeastern Australian state of Queensland — a World Heritage site rich in fossil deposits. Read more of this post

Bezos’ Amazon: Mercenary or missionary, or both? One great paradox in the tale of retail powerhouse Amazon is that its founder remains an earnest missionary about the things he hopes his ruthless business practices will enable him to accomplish

Bezos’ Amazon: Mercenary or missionary, or both?

Chip Bayers, Special for USA TODAY9:31 p.m. EST November 4, 2013

One great paradox in the tale of retail powerhouse Amazon is that its founder remains an earnest missionary about the things he hopes his ruthless business practices will enable him to accomplish.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

New book ‘The Everything Store’ chronicles the rise of Amazon.com

Lofty principles are a core driver for many of tech’s most successful companies

‘Be a missionary, not a mercenary’ is one mantra

NEW YORK — No industry indulges its earnest side more than the tech sector. From Apple’s “A Computer for the Rest of Us” to Google’s “Don’t Be Evil, the message from tech companies is that the higher purpose of their cause must come before the quest for wealth. Read more of this post

How to Turn Around Nearly Anything

How to Turn Around Nearly Anything

by Rosabeth Moss Kanter  |   8:00 AM November 5, 2013

The Boston Red Sox 2013 World Series championship will long be remembered as proof that you can turn around nearly anything. The team ended last season at the bottom of the standings (Las Vegas odds were 28 to 1 that they’d make it to the World Series), but rallied this year. With renewed solidarity and determination, the beard-wearing Sox went on to win the division, the playoffs, and the big prize. Their game is baseball, my game is change. I’ve been involved with turnarounds for years, including observing and writing about the Red Sox 2004 World Series win that reversed many decades of being almost-rans. In turbulent times, turnarounds are increasingly a fact of life. Some companies need to be rescued from the brink of extinction (BlackBerry), but that’s not the only kind of turnaround. Others need a course correction while still  profitable (Microsoft), or a momentum shift because of disruptive new technologies (newspaper companies). Red Sox owner John Henry recently purchased one of those newspapers needing a momentum shift, the Boston Globe. For the Globe and its counterparts, the competition is not one rival or game at a time, like baseball; it is multiple digital media offerings and others-to-be-named-later. Henry, like any leader seeking strategic change, can benefit from these turnaround lessons. Read more of this post

Pritzker Billionaire Brothers Turn From Family Feuding to Deals

Pritzker Billionaire Brothers Turn From Family Feuding to Deals

Anthony and Jay Robert Pritzker, brothers and heirs to the Hyatt Hotels Corp. and Marmon Holdings Inc. manufacturing fortune, settle in for salads and sandwiches at their 40th-floor office in Chicago’s West Loop. A decade ago, the duo joined family members who allied against their sister, Penny, who’s U.S. President Barack Obama’s commerce secretary, and two cousins. The legal battle broke up the family empire and distributed at least $1.35 billion to each of 11 cousins. Now, the brothers say they are putting the discord behind them, Bloomberg Markets magazine will report in its December Billionaires Issue. They are primed to talk about investing their inheritance in companies that include a distributor of janitorial products and a maker of circumcision devices — much like the grab bag their father and uncles assembled. Read more of this post

Cohen’s Dream of Soros Status Dies as SAC Pleads Guilty; Cohen will still be worth around $7.2 billion after paying his fine

Cohen’s Dream of Soros Status Dies as SAC Pleads Guilty

In the hedge fund record books, there will always be doubts about how Steven A. Cohen outperformed rivals for more than 20 years.

Cohen, the billionaire founder of SAC Capital Advisors LP, is arguably the best stock trader of all time, a renowned “tape reader” with an uncanny ability to predict where prices are headed. The Stamford, Connecticut-based firm’s investment returns for clients averaged 25 percent over the past two decades, and Cohen never posted a losing year in the portfolio he personally oversees. Read more of this post

Rupert Murdoch is right: companies should look to their own people instead of passing the buck to ‘ignorant consultants’

Leo D’Angelo Fisher Columnist

Rupert Murdoch is right: companies should look to their own people instead of passing the buck to ‘ignorant consultants’

Published 04 November 2013 12:02, Updated 04 November 2013 14:46

Rupert Murdoch has made an important point about the disproportionate role of management consultants in today’s corporate sector. Photo: Bloomberg

In just one tweet – 140 characters – Rupert Murdoch has defined a corporate sickness that threatens to suck business dry of innovation, vision, purpose and, critically, employee pride, motivation and engagement. That tweet, posted by Murdoch over the weekend, stated: “Newscorp sad case of damage by ignorant consultants. Fast being repaired by infusion of experienced managers.” This can only be interpreted as a very public swipe at Kim Williams, the former chief executive of News Corp Australia who was forced out by Murdoch in August. (Never mind that in News Corp’s ASX announcement Murdoch paid tribute to Williams for “his nearly two decades of service … but more importantly, for his loyalty and friendship to me and my family all of these years”. Such is the way of mealy-mouthed ASX announcements.) Read more of this post