• Business Week, Friday, September 4, 2009 10:34 AM

Dean Foust has an interesting piece on companies that recruiters steer away from when they're looking for executive talent. Surprisingly, Coca-Cola is one of them. It appears that its executives' career development may be victims of the success of its brands.

Foust tells the tale of telegenic Jack Stahl, who rose to president at Coke and had a reputation for financial savvy and operational discipline before he was tapped to be CEO at Revlon. Stahl failed at the cosmetics firm, particularly with the launch of the Vital Radiance line, because "he didn't know what he didn't know," according to consultant Suzanne Grayson. "He brought in statisticians instead of marketers, and the decisions they made were atrocious."

Faust concludes that the culture of Coca-Cola may be the culprit: "Headhunters say that the attributes that make it such a great company -- an iconic brand and an unmatched global distribution system -- also make it too easy for young managers to rise without having to develop the entrepreneurial skills necessary to compete in other arenas," he writes.

AT&T, General Mills, Occidental, British Airways, Goodyear, Motorola and Sears also take their lumps.

Read the whole story at Business Week »