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Joannou’s Going Away Gift
By Mark Evans | November 22, 2007
It must be nice to be a senior telecom executive who moves on to pursue other interests. Dion Joannou, the who used to head up Nortel Networks’ North American sales, before leaving for “personal reasons” a couple of months ago. From a SEC filing, he will be getting a$780,000 U.S. severance package and other benefits paid over the next 18 months.
Question: How do I get one of those sweet jobs?
Topics: Executive Suite |
November 27th, 2007 at 7:22 am
It’s not a specific Nortel issue but it explains why management in a lot of large firms find it increasingly difficult to make significant change. Cynicism is the order of the day because these guys have lost moral authority. We’re told we all must make sacrifices and accept tougher conditions (we’ve just lost our defined benefit pension scheme in the uk) but then news like this gives a glimpse of the caviar these guys are enjoying…..
November 27th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Pretty pathetic. I wonder when the serfs will revolt?
November 29th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Based on the large severance package, it appears to me that Joannou’s departure wasn’t his decision alone, but was an agreement between the company and himself to allow for a graceful exit of one of the last high-level executives not hired by Zafirovski.
IOW, he was asked to leave.
November 30th, 2007 at 11:40 am
A quick back of the envelope calculation shows that it is approximately 18 months of salary.
Up until recently, a regular employee (non VP) would get 3 months notice, plus one month minimum, plus 1 week per year of service. The VP ranks would get 1 month per year of service (I am not sure on this last figure; someone please correct if needed). Hence it would appear that Mr. Joannou got the regular severance for involuntary separation, as provided by policy. The size of the payout reflects the size of the salary of a President for North America.
So, although it appears large (and i am not shedding tears on this), it is just policy application.
If you guys want to see large, wait until Mr Z goes. His contract will likely specify some much more outlandish payment than for a regular employee.