Case Name :      Rick Drumm (B)

Authors :           J. B.M. Kassarjian

Source:              Babson College

Case ID:             BAB142

Discipline :        General Management

Case Length :    03 pages

Solution sample availability : YES

Plagiarism : NO (100% Original work)

Rick Drumm (his real name), once a teen-age drumming contest winner, is facing the most promising, but also the most challenging, career transition in his career as a manager and a leader. While a second-year MBA student in a fast-track program, and working as President of Vic Firth Inc, a $20 million-sales drumstick manufacturer, he is being recruited to become president of J. D’Addario & Co., the largest manufacturer of musical accessories in the US. Having survived a series of interviews – by the headhunter, various Board members, and the Chairman of D’Addario – he is informed that he has to be interviewed by Jack Welch, the legendary CEO of General Electric, as the final step in his selection process. Rick has to decide how to prepare for this interview, how to approach this final test of his qualifications to assume the leadership of a much larger and more complex organization. The (B) case describes the actual interview process, and provides Rick’s reflections on this interview, the surprises he encountered, as well as the affirmations that he found in Welch’s observations about managing a family-owned business.