Conference tnpubs::tnpubs_vod

16.0. "Barry Rand & Xerox" by TNPUBS::FORTEN (I have enough bridges!) Fri Apr 10 1992 16:13

USA TODAY March 25, 1992
 Cover Story- "Xerox's Rand is closer to corner office."

 A Look at Barry Rand

 Born: Nov. 5, 1944, Washington
 Education: B.A. in marketing, American University; MBA and master's
            in management sciences, Stanford University.
 Typical Workday: 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.
 Professional pet peeve: Business associates who say they'll get
            something accomplished and don't.
 On employees: "My style has always been to have people around who
            challenge.  I don't want to surround myself with people
            who think and perceive the world the same way I do, 
            because I have weakness.
 Epitaph: He stayed in the fight all the way. He kept pushing for
          social change. He made his contribution in his way, and 
          he did it throughout the whole visit here.
 Family: Wife, Donna; married for two years. Stepson, Christopher, 8;
         daughter, Allison, 1.
 Hobby: Travel. The more exotic the locale, the better.

 "Adventurous Executive battles workplace bias, craves competition"
  By Blair S. Walker  USA TODAY.

       Arlington, VA.  Xerox Executive Vice President Barry Rand has been
  known to unwind by going for a little spin. Through the wilds of Thailand.
  On an elephant's back.
       Rand is not your run-of-the-mill manager. And within corporate USA,
  he's among the rarest of rare birds: A black executive with a chance to
  run a Fortune 500 company.
       Recently promoted from president of U.S. marketing to executive vice
  president for operations, Rand is now a notch beneath Chairman and CEO 
  Paul Allaire.  Xerox has no president or chief operating officer.  Those
  duties are handled by Rand and three other executives.
       Rand doesn't mince words on the subject of race relations in U.S.
  corporations.  He says that until minority and female executives are 
  commonplace, his unusual position makes him something of a standard bearer
  at home as well as abroad.
       You would like to think that racism gets old, but it doesn't" Rand
  says. "It consistently resurfaces."
       Sometimes it's subtle, such as rationales offered to explain why 
  Xerox shouldn't hire and promote minorities and females. Or it can be the
  in-your-face variety:One supervisor's biased work evaluations almost 
  persuaded Rand to leave Xerox at one point.  Then there are intemperate
  remarks from Asia, where Xerox's biggest competitiors reside.  When not
  disparaging U.S. workers in general, some Japanese officals have made it
  clear the hold blacks and Hispanics in particularly low esteem.
       It would give me a tremendous delight to beat them, as we are doing
  now, with a hetrogeneous workforce, vs. their homogeneous workforce," Rand
  says while seated inside a Xerox office building here.
       Rand is 6-foot-3 and trim, as one might expect of a 47-year-old who
  bangs bodies with teenagers on the basketball court.  Now, my game has
  changed,"he says with a laugh.  "They have to give me 10 fouls, and my jump
  shot is a tiptoe shot.  I still have strong moves.  They're just not fast."
       Sipping incessantly on orange soda and ice, Rand wears a tailor-made
  gray suit that's suspiciously crisp for 7 p.m.  A corporate jet waits at
  National Airport to whisk Rand through a gathering fog and back to Xerox's
  Stamford, Conn., corporate headquarters.
       Rand moved to Stamford from Xerox's Rochester, N.Y., marketing and
  operations command post last month under a reorganization that followed
  former chairman David Kearn's confirmation as deputy secretary of education.
       Xerox, with 100,000 employees scattered around the globe, had revenue
  of nearly $18 billion last year.  It's and empire that may be Rand's one
  day.  Maybe.
       "I wouldn't have promoted him to his current position if I didn't think
  he had the capability to go further," saya Allaire, who's a relatively youth-
  ful 53.  "But he will clearly have competition."
       Rand has his sights set high.  He says his career wouldn't be a failure
  if he doesn't wind up running the show.  But he adds that becoming CEO, at
  Xerox or elsewhere, "would be the expression of a longtime goal."
       With the brass ring so close, will Rand extend his reach?  He responds
  cautiously, having seen a Xerox curse zap executives who openly lobby for
  the top job.  They come to be perceived as "too political or seen as too
  manipulative" and invariably fail, he observes.
       If Rand fails to reach the highest perch, it won't be because he shrank
  from the competition: He thrives on it.  An airline cleaning crew once had to
  work around him and his card-playing partners because he was struggling to 
  win a game long after others disembarked.  "Losing," Rand notes, "is a anathe-
  ma to my well-being."  "He hated to lose," says his mother, Helen Rand. "He
  really didn't like it. He would almost have a fit."
       Rand's fighting spirit helped him land his first job at Xerox.  In 1968,
  the ambitious 24-year-old crashed a private recruiting session in a Washington
  hotel suite and boldly proclaimed, "Everyone needs good salespeople.  There-
  fore, you need me."
       It didn't matter that Xerox was looking for chemists or that Rand had
  little sales experience and had already been rejected twice.  He caught on
  as a sales trainee and excelled in successive sales and marketing positions.
  But as his professional life took off, his personal life went into the 
  dumper.  Married shortly after joining Xerox, Rand's marriage gradually fell
  apart.  He bluntly blames his lack of maturity then for the breakup, not his
  job.  Fourteen-hour days were the norm.
       But Rand also found time for fun.  An explorer, Rand indulged himself on
  weekends and during vacations, visiting exotic destinations such as South
  America, Fiji, Tahiti, and Thailand, where he had his elephant ride.
       As he recounts story after story, Rand sips his ever-present soft drink.
  There's a polite formality about him, an almost palpable arm's length barrier.
  It gradually comes down a tad, allowing a passionate and funny man to emerge.
       As an only child, Rand always strove to meet his middle-class parents'
  lofty expectations.  He was perennially class president in high school as
  well as captain of the baseball, basketball and football teams.
       College was a different story.  Rand never quite got insync at Rutgers
  University, which he attended directly after high school.  His grades were
  average, and the one-time football standout found himself riding the pine.
       After two years that were "the most frustrating of my life," Rand left
  Rutgers and returned to Washington to enroll at American University.  The
  Rutgers experience taught him how to handle failure.  It also stoked his
  competitive fires.  he went on to take a marketing degree from American.
       These days, his competitive urges are largely channeled toward Canada,
  Mexico, South America, China and Hong Kong, over which he is directly re-
  sponsible for operations, Rand oversaw 35,000 employees and ran a subsidiary
  with annual revenue of $6 billion.
       Now, his responsibilities are burgeoning across the board. Remarried in
  1990, Addison Barry Rand is now the father of 1-year-old Allison Barrie Rand,
  a moniker he laughingly says was an unadulterated display of ego, "I decided
  boy or girl, this is going to be a junior." Rand is also father to an 8-year-
  old stepson, Christopher.
       Not surprisingly, Rand's sojourns to Fiji, Thailand and the like have
  tapered off.  A trip from the executive vice president suite to the CEO's
  office would undoubtedly fill that void quite nicely.
       Recalls his mother. "I know when he first started at Xerox, he said, 'I
  have my goals set out, and one day I'm going to be president,' and I just
  laughed at him."
       Regardless of where his career leads, Rand says he'll continue to push
  for diversifying the workplace and speak out on the subject.  "You consistent-
  ly have people who will say you can't afford to emphasize minority and female
  participation," he says. "So you have to take a deep breath and pick up the
  flagpole and carry it some more."