7: Shareholder Value

My most remarkable client experience occurred in September 1986 when I was visiting a mining company in one of the Soviet republics. As part of perestroika, President Gorbachev had transferred mineral rights to the constituent republics of the USSR. I had negotiated an agreement to provide various marketing and management advisory services to help these enterprises break their link with Moscow’s central planners and begin operating on a commercial basis. At the time the mining complex directly employed more than 10,000 people and was the effective breadwinner for an entire city of 300,000 inhabitants.

On the third day of my visit, the general director, who happened to be a member of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, took me aside and said,