(February 3) “They are an odd couple, with little in common besides their large dowries,” Carol Hymowitz writes in today’s Wall Street Journal.
“Time Warner’s Gerald Levin, a lawyer by training, stuck to one company for 28 years, steadfastly climbing the rungs and mastering corporate politics. AOL’s Steve Case quit two corporate jobs he found boring by the time he was 27 and launched his own company in a fledgling industry. Eight years ago, when Mr. Levin was involved in a boardroom coup that led to him becoming CEO of media giant Time Warner, Mr. Case was taking a still shaky AOL public.
“But now the two executives are gambling that despite their distinct business upbringings and 20-year age gap, they can sit at one board table as equals and together span the worlds of TV, print and the Web. The conventional wisdom these days is that sharing control is a doomed way to run a company. But in an era that glorifies the all-powerful corporate chief, AOL Time Warner just might become a new management model: the chairman who thinks big sharing power with the CEO who mobilizes action.
“How smoothly Mr. Case and Mr. Levin work together will also affect managers down the ranks. A flexible and frank relationship at the top could ease tensions below where managers from AOL and Time Warner must get to know each other, exchanging information and in some cases combining functions. Turf wars are likely, with some managers already acknowledging that they are anxious about who will run what and how their jobs will shake out.”