Mike Zafirovski to Qwest?

By Mark Evans | Published: June 12, 2007

With the departure of Qwest CEO Dick Notebaert, the speculation about his replacement has already started. According to the Rocky Mountain News – citing the Wall Street Journal – one of the candidates could be Mike Zafirovski. If Mike Z. ships off to Denver, that would be shocking given he’s only been around for less than two years and he’s just starting to make his mark on Nortel. Then again, the world works in mysterious ways so maybe where’s smoke, there’s fire.

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  • Norteller

    Remember Qwest’s old tagline “Powered by Nortel Networks”? Give us the 38 mil back Motorola or Qwest please. I would love it if he takes Hackney with him.

  • Paul Stevens

    These kinds of announcements always generate lots of very wild speculation so it’s way to soon to speculate on what might happen. I will comment that Mike Z and his GE co-horts would be much better suited to the operatonal challenges of an operator than to the strategic challenges of Nortel.

  • Darwin

    The average tenure of a CEO is 2.5 years? or something like that. it might be time…

    It’d be a shame, though. Much has been accomplished operationally over the past two years. As has been noted elsewhere, we are still looking for a meaningful plan to grow the top line.

    I’d like to see Z see his plan through. NT and Z both deserve that

  • Casual Observer

    Wow. I don’t think it will happen because Mike Z’s bonus and incentive clauses really don’t kick in until 2008. Of course, I think he’s lining up the company to be run by John Roese at some point anyway so it wouldn’t be surprising if this was accelerated. Mike Z has never been a strategy guy which is why guys like Roese and Reidel will need to lead Nortel forward at some point anyway.

  • Another observer

    Maybe he’s figured out running an equipment vending company with lots of products and several lines of business in many vertical markets isn’t exactly the same as running the lighting business at GE or a cell phone business at Motorola. The first rule of leadership for many of these CEOs is to leave before the investors, employees and outsiders figure out how unqualified they were for the job in the first place. Regardless of what happens, Mike Z isn’t the answer beyond the streamlining and cost cutting measures. At some point, Nortel needs a growth story and a growth CEO and Mike Z isn’t the person to lead the growth story.

  • Turning Leaf

    I totally agree with the previous comments about the need for someone new. There hasn’t been any real strategic vision or plans for the future communicated by the company. So, we have reduced costs, and no one is very sure how to start making money again.
    It is probably time to put the for-sale sign on the lawn, regardless of who is in charge.

  • Another observer

    Mark did you miss this ? Zafirovski looks like he’s turned into a lobbyist in patent reform.

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070612.wibworld12/BNStory/Business/columnists

  • Apple

    http://www.allaboutnortel.com/page/4/
    MOTOROLA HAS BEEN DOMINATING THE HEADLINES with last week’s contentious showdown between Carl Icahn and Chief Executive Ed Zander. But one of the more intriguing characters missing from that drama was Nortel Networks Chief Executive Mike Zafirovski, who was one of the key players in helping Motorola fix its storied mobile phone business earlier this decade.”
    It’s an interesting proposition given Zander was selected to be Motorola’s CEO over Zafirovski – a development that eventually propelled Mike Z. into the arms of Nortel.
    Update: Someone sent me a copy of the story. Here’s an excerpt:
    Motorola could probably use Zafirovski about now. A General Electric alumnus, he was hired by former Motorola CEO Chris Galvin and teamed with then-Chief Technology Officer Ralph Pini to lead a rebound in phones that eventually spawned the RAZR. But before the fruits of their labor were evident in 2003, the board forced Galvin out and passed over

    =================
    MOT needs Mike,
    Quest needs Mike
    so many choices….
    and don’t forget His wife needs Mike too, doesn’t she?

  • http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance Technologist

    I wonder how much Mike Z. really had to do with the “rebound in phones that eventually spawned the RAZR” ?

    Look at the story behind the creation of the RAZR as told in the Fortune article (see http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/31/magazines/fortune/razr_greatteams_fortune/index.htm):

    “In reality, the RAZR – a play on a code name the geeks themselves dreamed up – was hatched in colorless cubicles in exurban Libertyville, an hour’s drive north of Chicago. It was a skunkworks project whose tight-knit team repeatedly flouted Motorola’s own rules for developing new products.

    They kept the project top-secret, even from their colleagues. They used materials and techniques Motorola had never tried before. After contentious internal battles, they threw out accepted models of what a mobile telephone should look and feel like. In short, the team that created the RAZR broke the mold, and in the process rejuvenated the company.”

    This doesn’t sound like a “lean six-sigma” type project that Mike Z would be involved in. Motorola is lucky that the RAZR development team didn’t get laid off before they could finish their project.

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