October 11, 2005: Headlines: COS - Ethiopia: Business: Globe and Mail: Ethiopia RPCV Scott Hand is chairman and chief executive officer of Inco Ltd.
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October 11, 2005: Headlines: COS - Ethiopia: Business: Globe and Mail: Ethiopia RPCV Scott Hand is chairman and chief executive officer of Inco Ltd.
Ethiopia RPCV Scott Hand is chairman and chief executive officer of Inco Ltd.
His best-known success to date came in June of 2002, a little more than a year after he was promoted to CEO. He was able to cut a deal with Newfoundland & Labrador which enabled Inco at last to begin mining the massive Voisey's Bay nickel deposit it had bought in 1996 for $4-billion.
Ethiopia RPCV Scott Hand is chairman and chief executive officer of Inco Ltd.
The Hand that forged the big deal
By JOHN PARTRIDGE
Tuesday, October 11, 2005 Posted at 9:36 PM EDT
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
Toronto — Scott Hand had to miss the Paul McCartney concert in Toronto on Monday night. But the pop music fan was writing a score of his own.
Mr. Hand, 63, chairman and chief executive officer of Inco Ltd., was preparing to unveil what he hopes will turn out to be the biggest hit of his executive career: a $12.5-billion merger with rival miner Falconbridge Ltd., a deal that, if consummated, will create the world's largest nickel producer.
The proposed Falconbridge deal is the latest in a series of transactions negotiated over the years by Mr. Hand, an American expatriate and lawyer by training, who joined Inco in 1973.
His best-known success to date came in June of 2002, a little more than a year after he was promoted to CEO. He was able to cut a deal with Newfoundland & Labrador which enabled Inco at last to begin mining the massive Voisey's Bay nickel deposit it had bought in 1996 for $4-billion.
At the time, former Inco chairman and CEO Mike Sopko, attributed the victory to his successor's patience and persistence as a negotiator. “Scott is a deal maker,” Mr. Sopko said. “He hung in there for a long time to develop a measure of trust with Newfoundland's government, and he got the deal done.”
Admirers say Mr. Hand also has a good grasp of the big picture. “He's highly intelligent, he's very deliberate, he thinks things through — carefully,” one source close to Inco said yesterday. “He has a high-order strategic sense and a very good sense of . . . Inco in the world scene.”
Mr. Hand appears to come by his business skills naturally. His father was a senior executive with Arrow Shirts, and his brother headed Chicago-based apparel giant Hartmax Corp. for a number of years.
However, Mr. Hand did not take a direct route into the corporate world. After graduating from university, he spent two years with the U.S. Peace Corps in Ethiopia. He returned and went to law school and then, in 1969, joined a Wall Street law firm. He signed on with Inco in New York four years later.
Mr. Hand no doubt has the sharp elbows and ruthlessness any executive requires to make it to the top of a major corporation, but he keeps it well hidden when on public view.
“He's not an aggressive personality on the surface,” said the source close to the company. “On the other hand . . . he can be extremely focused on what he thinks he needs to accomplish. He's determined, he's disciplined and he's a broader thinker than the caricature of a CEO would lead you to believe.”
Broad-thinking enough, in fact, to have agreed last year to change jobs for a day with outspoken Canadian environmentalist — and Inco foe — Monte Hummel, president emeritus of the World Wildlife Fund of Canada. The project was organized by Corporate Knights magazine.
Asked yesterday whether Inco's CEO is the kind of person he would be comfortable with at the helm of the world's largest nickel producer, Mr. Hummel said: “I don't want this to sound like, oh, we're just cut from the same [cloth] and we all believe in the same things. But as far as is this the kind of person who would be approachable and give you a fair hearing on environmental concerns for a large company? Absolutely.”
As for Mr. Hand, he said yesterday the only change he expects in his job if and when he becomes CEO of a combined Inco and Falconbridge is that it will be “a lot more fun.” He also said he plans to stay in the job until he turns 65, at the very least. “Inco's board . . . said to me, ‘Scott, if you're going to do this, you better see it through and make it a great success.' And I will.”
Meanwhile, the self-confessed “history nut,” also dropped a hint that he is anxious to carve a place in it for himself.
He is currently reading Washington's Crossing, a Pulitzer-prize winning study of George Washington's celebrated crossing of the Delaware River. There is a family connection. One of the regiments that helped Washington to victory at the battles of Trenton and Princeton was Hand's Rifles, which, said Inco's CEO with “great pride,” was raised by some of his forebears.
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Story Source: Globe and Mail
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