The Price of the High Level Executive?

SO this morning the industry is buzzing about News Corps loss of Peter Chernin. It is always interesting when one executive becomes the front person and "glue" to a company. Steve Jobs at Apple...he's ill, he steps down, the market goes crazy...Peter Chernin leaving News Corp...the market goes crazy... is a company's fate held in the hands of one executive.

My initial thought is no...in Apple's case, (and I am a true Applephile), Job's is a genius leader who changed the face of consumer electronics...but he did that by allowing his people to create, innovate and develop...Steve didn't sit down one day and draw a purple iMac on a pad of paper, show it to his lieutenants and say...go build that, it'll change consumer computing as we know it!

In News Corps case though I think it's a bit different. Chernin has been Rupert Murdoch's right hand person for years and years. He, (it could be said), really runs the company...from a day to day presence and he knows the business like no other exec. As for Rupert, it is frightening to see who he replaces Chernin with. It's a hard position to fill, as Chernin really was a "hands on" exec, and grew many of the Fox businesses. If James Murdoch steps in, (he's in #1 position at the moment), he's certainly an accomplished and smart exec, but is it fair to expect him to understand the US market, TV network business (very different to UK satellite), the US movie studio business, FIM online businesses, cable network business and Fox's right wing news services?

So how much impact does one exec have on a company... well in Fox's case, I think it's seriously a lot and the market's not going to react well to Chernin going.

Read Ross Levinsohn's blog post on Chernin going for an insite into working with this media giant.

Thoughts?