OFF the CUFF

  • Cathie Black: Resilience and How I Reinvented Myself

    By CNBC | Off the Cuff – Wed, Jun 26, 2013 5:28 AM EDT

    She's been called the first lady of American magazines - she spent more than 40 years in the world of publishing. But Cathie Black became the subject of front page news herself in 2011, during her disastrous, and very brief, appointment as New York City’s Schools Chancellor.

    “I thought that the opportunity to make a difference for the 1.1 million children in New York City public schools was just incredibly energizing, incredibly motivating. And I wanted really to do it. What I didn't realize and I don't think the mayor realized it either, was that I was coming up against…was a very strong union in New York.”

    It wasn’t just the unions which fought her appointment, she said. “When I became chancellor of New York City schools, I had absolutely no idea what it would be like to be hounded by every possible critic imaginable. I mean, there were three television trucks in front of my building, reporters chasing me down the street…I mean, I was eviscerated in the press day after day after

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  • Meredith Whitney: I Have Doubts All the Time

    By CNBC | Off the Cuff – Sun, Jun 23, 2013 4:28 PM EDT

    Meredith Whitney is the lightning-rod banking analyst who once shocked Wall Street and prompted a $40 billion sell-off. It's hard to believe she has ever been “intimidated ” by anything. But she was, she confessed, when she was first starting in the business.

    Whitney rocked the financial world when, in 2007 at the age of 38, she predicted the mortgage bond bust. The Wall Street analyst wrote the most bearish of bearish reports on Citigroup and issued a timely - and what turned out to be prescient - outlook that the bank would be hard hit by the sub-prime mortgage meltdown.
    The call shattered investor confidence in the bank and in the entire industry.

    “I didn't think that people would care as much as they did. And I didn't think it would be the call that tripped the wires of the financial market,” she said. “I was hardly the toast of the town when I made the Citi call.”

    It was the call that put her on the map and forced Citi’s CEO Chuck Prince out of his job.

    “The day that it was

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  • She’s big, she’s loud and she’s messy and Wendy Williams wouldn’t have it any other way.

    The host of The Wendy Williams Show which launched in 2009, has a larger than life personality with great timing. After Oprah Winfrey announced that after 25 years on the air, she was going to end her daily show, many are now convinced Williams is the new queen of daytime TV.

    Williams, who spent 23 years as a radio D.J. was one of the nation’s top shock jocks who gained fame and millions of followers with her in-your-face questions and on-air spats with celebrities. The one that gained notoriety attention (good and bad) was her 2003 on-air explosive argument with Whitney Houston over the singer’s rumored drug use. It was a riveting and sadly prophetic interview.
    Nine years later Houston died of accidental drowning, but the toxicology report showed cocaine and other substances were found in her system. The news hit Williams hard, she broke down crying on her national TV show and made an emotional

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  • Dwight Gooden: Cheating Death and Learning to Live Again

    By CNBC | Off the Cuff – Mon, Jun 17, 2013 7:33 AM EDT

    Dwight Gooden admits he should be dead, but he says he’s not, because he’s here for a purpose.

    At 19 years old, the youngest starting pitcher in Major League Baseball’s history, he went on to win three World Series rings, was named Rookie of the year and received the Cy Young Award. He was one of the most feared pitchers in all of baseball. But he was most afraid of himself.

    “I snorted some cocaine, and it was love at first sniff,” he writes in his new book, "Doc: A Memoir." It was a long love affair that started in 1985 costing him his career, his family, his fortune, his name and almost his life.

    In 1986 the night the Mets won the World Series, he says he was so coked out on drugs and booze that he missed the team’s ticker tape parade where thousands of cheering fans filled the streets in a wild celebration as the team went down the “Canyon of Heroes,” a stretch of Lower Manhattan where America’s greatest of the greats are celebrated.

    In his memoir he remembers, “I was alone in my

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Pagination

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About Off the Cuff

Ever wondered what your boss eats for breakfast? Or why he or she works 24/7? Off the Cuff takes you outside the boardroom to show you what high-impact leaders do off the clock. Every week, corporate tycoons will answer questions about what they like (and loathe), what makes them get up in the morning, what inspires them, and what makes them the most proud.