When old is new

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An old song the Beatles sang over 50 years ago: “You say goodbye and I say hello, hello, hello.” Ticino executive Sergio Ermotti (62) is now hailed in the same position after saying goodbye as CEO of Switzerland’s big bank UBS in 2020. Such returnees are called boomerang bosses.

Probably the most famous example is the American Steve Jobs (1955-2011): after leaving the tech company Apple in 1985 due to internal power struggles, he returned in 1997 and made the crisis operation the most valuable company in the world.

60 former bosses at 1500 US companies

Boomerang bosses are not that rare: a study by Rüdiger Fahlenbrach, 49, an economics professor at the Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, shows that over a 16-year period, nearly 60 former bosses returned to the 1,500 largest US companies.

Switzerland also had boomerang patrons before Ermotti: Swiss Tourism Director Jürg Schmid (60) returned to his job in 2010 after a detour to SBB; Willy Michel (75), founder of Ypsomed, returned five years later as CEO of the diabetes company in 2011.

Anton Afentranger (67) returned to the executive chair of Implenia from 2011 to 2018, after previously heading the construction group from 2009 to 2010. And Markus Naegeli (56) has been CEO of Canon Switzerland since 2018, a position he held from 2007 to 2015.

A new broom sweeps cleans…

Throw it to come back on its own – that’s how the boomerang works. In this respect, the term boomerang boss is often inappropriate because company executives often left voluntarily and were not fired. Otherwise, they would have left scorched earth there to impede the return.

Rather, it’s the emotional bonds that bring a boss back to his former position – whether because he started the company like Willy Michel or because he left behind a good job like Markus Naegeli. An old adage has stood the test of time in many companies: “New brooms sweep well, but old ones know corners.”

Source :Blick