The Cloud's CEO quit to save planet
Published: 01 May 2007 13:34 BST
George Polk resigned as chief executive of The Cloud earlier this year amid rumblings of discontent at the Wi-Fi network provider. In a message sent personally to ZDNet UK's news editor, Richard Thurston, on Friday, Polk explained his motivation.
On leaving the company:
"As you probably know from my career, I am a serial entrepreneur, and my goal from day one is always to get the business to the point that it supports a really good management team going forward, at which point I step back and let them get on with it.
"As the business grew almost 300 percent last year, and the pressures of managing that growth across now five countries grew, it was evident that we would be well served by bringing in a new CEO.
"Hence I started a search in the fall, found and hired Steve [Nicholson, the new chief executive,] in January, and stepped back to a board role in March.
"I still have an office in the company, but I have chosen for the last month to stay out of the building to give Steve a chance to take over control. He and I continue to work on initiatives and projects for the business."
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On the management shake-up and redundancies:
"Since joining, Steve has made (with my support and the support of the board) some personnel changes, which is inevitable, as he forms his own team and puts his stamp on the business.
"When you grow as fast as we have been, the sad truth is that some people grow with the business and some people can't quite make the shift.
"While we encourage people to do as much as their abilities allow, in some cases, it is difficult for people to adjust to a new set of constraints. Steve also likes to run a tight ship."
On his future plans:
"One of the reasons for this is that my passion divides between building businesses and doing non-profit things to make the world a better place.
"As to what I'm up to now, if you go to www.adatewiththeplanet.org, you will see that I am now throwing most of my energy into tackling global warming.
"This has long been a passion of mine, and [I] am pleased to have the time to get involved with some major global philanthropists to push forward a global agenda."
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