Some have expressed interest in why it makes sense for the most senior executive responsible for People Matters to report to the CEO. The primary constraint to growth in a high-tech business always ends up being related to people. Companies who have been even moderately successful eventually get good at what they do and at creating demand for what they do. Most, however, never become wildly successful because they fail to ever figure out how to systematically find, attract, hire, nurture, develop, deploy, promote and retain the human resources needed to fuel long-term growth and performance.
As an enlightened CEO in this regard, one of my immutable tenets is that at the top table of a successful services business, along with executives who have extraordinary competence and capacity in strategy, operations, finance, and demand creation, there needs to be, on equal footing, someone with extraordinary competence in people. Leading and managing in this way, and from this perspective, has been a pillar of my strength and success so I don't intend to change my approach any time soon.
Any other line of command tends to diminish, even trivialize or commoditize, the most important competence of all!
