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Team Joining New the As a former executive with companies such as Quaker Oats, Sara Lee, and AutoZone, Steve Odland has had plenty of experience adapting to new corporate cultures. Since March 2005, when he became the CEO of Office Depot, he has quickly acclimated to another, bringing a fresh viewpoint to a company looking for a new direction. That new direction has come quickly for the company, which is based in Delray Office Depot's Steve Odland personifies the company's slogan, "taking care of business," as he works to transform the company from the outside in. by Tricia Bisoux Beach, Florida, and has 47,000 employees working in 23 countries worldwide. In the last nine months, Odland has cut costs drastically at the office supply giant, closing 27 stores and halting the U.S. operations of its Viking Office Products brand, which the company acquired in 1998. He reassigned the company's chief financial officer, Charles F. Brown, as president of international operations. Odland then hired Patricia McKay as the first female CFO in Office Depot's history. He has piloted a new store design and plans to further develop Office Depot's global presence, providing the sup- plies to fuel burgeoning enterprise in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Coming into a company from the outside can be one of a new CEO's biggest chal- lenges, says Odland. "You know you need to make a transformation, to change the organization's performance," he says. "At the same time, you don't want to foul up everything that's great about the company." It's a balancing act that requires trying to reshape a culture while simultaneously trying to fit into it, he explains. Odland received his BBA from the University of Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business in Indiana and his MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management in Evanston, Illinois. Since graduating from business school and rising through the corporate ranks, Odland has become one of business's most vocal CEOs. As a member of the advisory council for The Business Roundtable's Institute for Corporate Ethics, Odland is especially passionate about developing a core ethical infrastructure in business while keeping intact the sense of risk, reward, competition, and innovation that makes business great. He also is a prominent advocate of the Roundtable's S.E.E. Change Initiative, designed to encourage companies to embrace sustainable business practices. At the core of S.E.E. Change, which stands for "Society, the Environment, and the Economy," is a belief that sustainable growth and environ- mental awareness are good not just for the world, but for a company's financial health. "We believe in 'doing well by doing good' and are committed to environmental stewardship and conservation of natural resources," Odland says in an official state- ment. "Our commitment to S.E.E. Change is consistent with our environmental strate- gy, which is values-based and market-driven, and can be summed up in three words: responsible, transparent, and accountable." Odland knows he has expectations to live up to and obligations to fulfill—just as business students do as they face their futures, he says. CEOs and business students alike must be poised for rapid change, prepared to innovate, and passionate about the advancement of business. Moreover, at a time when some people have lost their trust in business, both CEOs and business school graduates must actively advocate for the positive impact business has on the global economy. 18 BizEd JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2006