Leadership
Nurturing Top Talent: New York Daily News’ Guy ‘Doc’ Holliday
BY T.J. DEGROAT / © 2006 DiversityInc
When someone who
grew up on military bases
and became a captain
during the six years
following graduation
from West Point talks
about leadership, it’s wise
to be quiet and listen.
Guy “Doc” Holliday,
who earned a bachelor’s
degree in organizational Guy Holliday
leadership and general
Company: New York Daily News
engineering, says it’s vital No. of Employees: 1,700
to be a resource manager, 2005 Circulation: 781,335
making sure people have
the tools they need, giving credit
when it’s deserved and allowing
people to do their jobs.
Perhaps the most important
thing is to surround oneself with
great people because they “won’t let
you fail,” he says.
“That’s leadership 101.”
That’s part of why
Holliday has made it
to the top of the newspaper industry, now
as the New York Daily
News’ senior vice
president and general
manager, advertising,
despite a nontraditional
path.
Holliday’s first job
out of the Army was in
operation engineering
at Kimberly-Clark. He also worked
in operations at Lukens Steel.
Holliday, 42, joined The New
York Times Co.—one of
DiversityInc’s 25 Noteworthy
Companies in 2005— in 1996
in plant operations. His most
recent position was vice president
of advertising sales.
With guidance from New York
Times leaders, including Marc Kramer,
now Daily News CEO, Holliday
made the jump from production
to advertising in 2003. “That gets
back to my principles,” he says.
“If you surround yourself with the
best, they will help you succeed.”
Helping others is the sign of a
true leader, Holliday says. “Leaders
are more concerned about others
than themselves. When something
bad happens and you’re more worried about your boss or others than
about your career, you know you’re
a leader,” he says. “[Leaders] won’t
kill for a person like they will in the
Army but will get darn close.”
Global-Sales Success Traits: Directness, Humility
BY PETER ORTIZ / © 2006 DiversityInc
Anuradha T. Jayanti laughs as she
recalls a former mentor who supervised her 20 years ago in a Salomon
Brothers investment-banking training
program and believed she wouldn’t
survive in the industry.
Jayanti admits that being perceived as soft-spoken may have been
interpreted as the antithesis of
someone expected to excel in a
high-pressure sales career. Her obvious drive quickly erased those
impressions. Describing herself as
“outspoken” and “very direct,”
Jayanti also views humility as a personal characteristic that is integral
to her corporate experience.
Thriving is the way most would
describe Jayanti’s career at Citigroup,
where she has been managing director for the Global Leveraged Foreign
Exchange. To survive in her
world, you learn to be aggressive when it counts. Although
she describes her upbringing as
“fairly westernized,” Jayanti
also derives strength from her
Indian heritage and traits, such
as humility and pragmatism.
Jayanti recalls one encounter
in 2001 with a customer in
Anuradha T. Jayanti Asia who was unhappy because
no senior leaders had addressed
Company: Citigroup
No. of Employees: 300,000 worldwide their concerns in person.
2005 Sales: $120 billion Jayanti apologized and con-
2005 Top
50 Rank: 3 vinced the customer to give
Citigroup another chance.
Conveying humility helped turn an
irate customer around. It also
showed her that succeeding doesn’t
mean adopting a one-size-fits-all
aggressive style. DI
Exchange Sales
since 2001 and
in 2004 was
appointed to the
head of North
American Foreign
Exchange. She
holds both positions with a team
across London,
New York and
Singapore.
“Never for a
minute did I
think I wasn’t
going to survive,”
Jayanti says. “Tenacity is a trait of
mine, which is why I’m in sales.”
Jayanti manages a team responsible for tens of billions of dollars
that turn over daily on the Foreign
