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IndyCar
PRUETT: IndyCar Needs More Than Just A CEO
If IndyCar wants to succeed, it needs to stop looking for a messiah to save the series.
If the Hulman George family and its board of directors want the IndyCar Series to succeed as a business, it will stop looking for a magical CEO to solve all of open-wheel's problems. (Photo: LAT)
If we’re ever going to see an end to the spin-the-wheel-of-IndyCar-CEOs game that keeps taking place at 16th & Georgetown, the owners of the IZOD IndyCar Series and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway will need to make a fundamental change in how the business portion of their series is structured.
To be honest, the Hulman & Company board of directors--that group of Hulman George family members and its shadowy appointees--has only been following the script that was used by CART and Champ Car since the Indy Racing League held its first race in 1996, but with a high-profile job opening to fill, it’s time to step into the 21st century and modernize its practices.
I can’t make it any more plain than to say that like quests to find Bigfoot and the Holy Grail, the board needs to call off the hunt for a magic CEO. If open-wheel racing has proven anything over the past few decades, it’s that placing too much power, work and expectations on the shoulders of one leader is a fine recipe for failure.
We can debate the merits of a dozen different CEO candidates to take over from Bernard, and there are a few—very few—I see as being a proper fit for the position, but the more I think about it, the more I believe that the name and pedigree of IndyCar’s next CEO just isn’t all that important.
The borderline obsessive-compulsive fascination with trying to find an all-seeing, all-doing, cure-all CEO needs to come to an end immediately, and that’s especially true if we’re going to break the three-year employment tenure most open-wheel leaders have experienced.
To stave off the firing of the next IndyCar CEO in 2015…and another one in 2018…and so on, the board must cast a wider net to reel in a wide array of executives to create a flat organizational chart of capable VPs beneath that CEO.
Although some have spent the past week pondering who should be hired to run the series, I’m positive that this line of thinking--one that focuses on a single transformative person, rather than staffing an entire management team, needs to be mothballed like a fleet of old Dallaras.
It reminds me a bit of how racecar design has evolved. Adrian Newey, with the help of some trusty assistants, was able to pen some of the world's fastest Formula One cars in the 1980s with a singular vision. His ideas, his blueprints.
Today, he's the equivalent of Red Bull's design CEO with a dozen or more design department heads and a massive staff concentrating on the final product beneath him. He'd be laughed out of F1 if he tried to bring back that 1980s design structure to lead Sebastian Vettel to the title, so why aren't we laughing (or crying) just as hard at IndyCar's outdated business practices?
I’m more concerned about finding the five managers IndyCar's next CEO will need to effectively lead. The most common practice is to hire a CEO and let them bring in their own management team, but I'd rather hear the board has shifted the emphasis to finding a group of take-no-prisoners VPs as IndyCar's core before finding the best CEO to lead that group.
I’m not saying who Hulman & Co. chooses to hire as IndyCar CEO doesn’t matter, but that person needs to be more of a true executive officer—someone to shape the business into a powerhouse of efficiency and accomplishments--than an open-wheel messiah.
Unless you’re a fictional character like “Rambo” or “John McLane” in “Diehard,” the hero-who-saves-the-day routine just doesn’t work, yet, for whatever reason, CART, Champ Car and now the IndyCar Series continues to believe a character of mythical proportions is required to run a rather niche sports entertainment property.
Using what Bernard just experienced during his abbreviated time with the series, he was tasked with CEO-level items like leading the organization as a whole, setting policy and creating a roadmap for where the series needed to go from when he took office in 2010 through at least 2015.
If that’s where the list stopped, Bernard would probably still be showing up for work on Mondays, but unfortunately, IndyCar’s arcane and outdated org chart is still geared towards getting its CEO fired.
Sadly, Bernard was also the head of almost every other department—some by choice, and some by default.
He was the VP of Business Development, globetrotting to build relationships and make deals on a weekly basis. He was the VP of Marketing and Promotions, hatching ornate plans to get the series recognized and to grow its fan base. To his detriment and ultimate demise, was also the VP of Competition Affairs, working directly with the paddock on parts costs and numerous other concerns.
Bernard was often the VP of Consumer Affairs, seeking and taking direct feedback from fans and business partners, and was the VP of Broadcast Development, working with NBC SN to expand from the just-show-the-race package in 2010 to a full pre-race show in 2011, and this year, that pre-race show plus the excellent IndyCar 36 features that were added to the slate.
He also played a part-time role as VP of Digital Interactive, pushing the online presence, experience and creative content found throughout IndyCar.com.
I’m not claiming Bernard held all of these positions alone or did all of the work himself—not by a longshot. The IndyCar Series has many excellent people on staff and I’d like to see a fair portion of them continue under the next administration.
But Bernard, like too many CEOs before him, was expected to be all things to all people and the ultimate multi-takser, which doesn’t work unless you’re the owner of a local car wash or record store.
To be honest, the Hulman & Company board of directors--that group of Hulman George family members and its shadowy appointees--has only been following the script that was used by CART and Champ Car since the Indy Racing League held its first race in 1996, but with a high-profile job opening to fill, it’s time to step into the 21st century and modernize its practices.
I can’t make it any more plain than to say that like quests to find Bigfoot and the Holy Grail, the board needs to call off the hunt for a magic CEO. If open-wheel racing has proven anything over the past few decades, it’s that placing too much power, work and expectations on the shoulders of one leader is a fine recipe for failure.
We can debate the merits of a dozen different CEO candidates to take over from Bernard, and there are a few—very few—I see as being a proper fit for the position, but the more I think about it, the more I believe that the name and pedigree of IndyCar’s next CEO just isn’t all that important.
The borderline obsessive-compulsive fascination with trying to find an all-seeing, all-doing, cure-all CEO needs to come to an end immediately, and that’s especially true if we’re going to break the three-year employment tenure most open-wheel leaders have experienced.
To stave off the firing of the next IndyCar CEO in 2015…and another one in 2018…and so on, the board must cast a wider net to reel in a wide array of executives to create a flat organizational chart of capable VPs beneath that CEO.
Although some have spent the past week pondering who should be hired to run the series, I’m positive that this line of thinking--one that focuses on a single transformative person, rather than staffing an entire management team, needs to be mothballed like a fleet of old Dallaras.
It reminds me a bit of how racecar design has evolved. Adrian Newey, with the help of some trusty assistants, was able to pen some of the world's fastest Formula One cars in the 1980s with a singular vision. His ideas, his blueprints.
Today, he's the equivalent of Red Bull's design CEO with a dozen or more design department heads and a massive staff concentrating on the final product beneath him. He'd be laughed out of F1 if he tried to bring back that 1980s design structure to lead Sebastian Vettel to the title, so why aren't we laughing (or crying) just as hard at IndyCar's outdated business practices?
I’m more concerned about finding the five managers IndyCar's next CEO will need to effectively lead. The most common practice is to hire a CEO and let them bring in their own management team, but I'd rather hear the board has shifted the emphasis to finding a group of take-no-prisoners VPs as IndyCar's core before finding the best CEO to lead that group.
I’m not saying who Hulman & Co. chooses to hire as IndyCar CEO doesn’t matter, but that person needs to be more of a true executive officer—someone to shape the business into a powerhouse of efficiency and accomplishments--than an open-wheel messiah.
Unless you’re a fictional character like “Rambo” or “John McLane” in “Diehard,” the hero-who-saves-the-day routine just doesn’t work, yet, for whatever reason, CART, Champ Car and now the IndyCar Series continues to believe a character of mythical proportions is required to run a rather niche sports entertainment property.
Using what Bernard just experienced during his abbreviated time with the series, he was tasked with CEO-level items like leading the organization as a whole, setting policy and creating a roadmap for where the series needed to go from when he took office in 2010 through at least 2015.
If that’s where the list stopped, Bernard would probably still be showing up for work on Mondays, but unfortunately, IndyCar’s arcane and outdated org chart is still geared towards getting its CEO fired.
Sadly, Bernard was also the head of almost every other department—some by choice, and some by default.
He was the VP of Business Development, globetrotting to build relationships and make deals on a weekly basis. He was the VP of Marketing and Promotions, hatching ornate plans to get the series recognized and to grow its fan base. To his detriment and ultimate demise, was also the VP of Competition Affairs, working directly with the paddock on parts costs and numerous other concerns.
Bernard was often the VP of Consumer Affairs, seeking and taking direct feedback from fans and business partners, and was the VP of Broadcast Development, working with NBC SN to expand from the just-show-the-race package in 2010 to a full pre-race show in 2011, and this year, that pre-race show plus the excellent IndyCar 36 features that were added to the slate.
He also played a part-time role as VP of Digital Interactive, pushing the online presence, experience and creative content found throughout IndyCar.com.
I’m not claiming Bernard held all of these positions alone or did all of the work himself—not by a longshot. The IndyCar Series has many excellent people on staff and I’d like to see a fair portion of them continue under the next administration.
But Bernard, like too many CEOs before him, was expected to be all things to all people and the ultimate multi-takser, which doesn’t work unless you’re the owner of a local car wash or record store.
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