Business Leader Analysis on Jeff Weiner – Linkedin Ceo

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Business Leader Analysis on Jeff Weiner – LinkedIn CEO

Maria Novoa

April 13, 2017

Dr. Mantha Mehallis

Florida Atlantic University

Introduction

        Can anyone be a leader? It is an interesting question to answer when thinking about what leadership qualities and styles one must have to be a good leader. Years ago, leaders were believed to be born with the traits which enabled them to influence people to accomplish tasks (Northhouse, 2014). Today, it is believed that leadership is a process in which a leader develops qualities that inspire, coach, motivate and mentor others with the purpose of achieving common goals. By influencing and motivating followers, leaders have the power and capability of transforming lives.

For this assignment, picking a leader was a hard process, however it was pleasing. During my selection, I started off by selecting the top CEO’s per Forbes 2015. However, most of the choices were already taken. Consequently, for his strong leadership style, vision, values and compassion, I have chosen to write about Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn Corporation who happens to be on the cover of Forbes and has lead LinkedIn to success.

Weiner Background

Weiner was born in New York, NY. He attended and graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 with a Bachelor of Science in Economics. (celebfamily.com, n.d.). Just 2 years after graduating college, in 1994, Weiner joined Warner Bros and later became vice president in which he was the head of the online divisions developed the company’s initial business plan. (knowledge.edu, 2013). In 1999, just 5 years later he became COO of Warner as employees got stock options through the site he created.  

Warner was bought by AOL and Weiner left to join Yahoo as a top executive on 2001 where he held various leadership roles including serving as an Executive Vice President of Network Division of Yahoo! Inc., where he managed the company’s consumer web product portfolio, including Yahoo!'s Front Page, Mail, Search and Media products. Also, served as the Senior Vice President of Search and Marketplace of Yahoo! Inc. Then, he served as Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Yahoo! Inc., where he was responsible for overseeing the development and adjustment of overall corporate and individual business unit strategy as well as mergers and oversaw acquisitions which included Flickr. (businessinsider.com, 2012)

While at Yahoo, Weiner co-founded Windsor Digital and served as its Managing Director.  He also was hired by Accell and Greylock as an executive-in-residence where he advised the leadership teams of its consumer technology portfolio companies and worked closely with the partners to evaluate new investment opportunities. Weiner then left Yahoo in 2008 and signed as interim president in 2009 for LinkedIn Corporation, months later he became the new CEO. While in LinkedIn, he got the company focused on selling high-end recruiting tools as well as advertising and subscriptions. (businessinsider.com, 2012)

Weiner’s Position and Leadership

After many years of experience in various companies, Weiner had created a vision and mission for LinkedIn which he states as being “to connect the world’s professionals, to make them more productive and successful”. (recode.com, 2014). Under Weiner’s leadership LinkedIn is currently the world’s largest professional social network on the internet and is growing at a fast pace with more than 467 million registered users worldwide and available in more than 24 languages. Their staff has grown from 800 to 12,100 both part-time and full-time. They have offices all over the United States including Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, New York, Omaha, San Francisco, Sunnyvale and Washington D.C. They also have 24 international offices around Asia, Europe and South America. LinkedIn’s main revenue distribution comes from 17% in premium subscriptions, 18% marketing solutions and 65% talent solutions (linkedin.com, n.d.).

Due to its rapid growth since 2003, LinkedIn and Weiner have faced a number of challenges including a stagnating revenue model which includes the 3 different mediums: Premium Subscriptions, Talent Solutions and Marketing Solutions. They had to compensate for the stagnating revenue by increasing their emphasis on Marketing solutions which was not producing as much. Another challenge was its competition. These were seen at its stock share price fall by 9.3%. (motleyfool.com). In 2016, again – LinkedIn’s stock fell by more than 43% in a single day. A few months after this in March 2016, Weiner gave away his 14 million dollar bonus to his employees (recode.net). It was said that Weiner did this to keep employees happy and thought that giving up on his own stock money to give to them. This action speaks more about him than anything and shows his true leadership style in caring for his followers.