Sometimes It’s Hard to Judge a Job by Its Title
In the annals of weird job titles, Mossimo Giannulli’s new Dilbertesque moniker, Visionary, is definitely out there.
The founder of struggling apparel maker Mossimo Inc. revealed his new title on Thursday, along with the announcement that John Brincko would succeed him as chief executive and that the Irvine company had a big fourth-quarter loss.
But there are other titles that rival its strangeness.
Another Irvine surf-wear maker, Rusty Apparel, has a Vibe Guy, who is the company’s arbiter of what’s hip and cool.
Then there’s Diedrich Coffee’s former chairman, Martin Diedrich, who is currently Chief Coffee Officer.
A trend has started among many management consulting firms and some of their clients to appoint a Chief Knowledge Officer. The position has something to do with figuring out what everyone at a company knows so all the collective wisdom won’t go to waste.
Taco Bell President Peter Waller is also the company’s Chief Concept Officer, a title said to reflect a vision of how the product meshes with everything from the front counter through to advertising and marketing.
News of Mossimo’s new title went over like a lead balloon with some observers of corporate trends.
Marketing consultant Jack Trout of Greenwich, Conn., said the title was akin to garbage collectors being renamed “sanitation engineers.”
He sees many of these quirky titles as either an attempt to elevate someone’s perceived importance or to shirk responsibility by keeping things vague.
It’s also part of what he believes is a troubling trend of using chic buzzwords and terms that confuse rather than clarify.
Topping Trout’s list of mind-numbing terms are: dimensionalize (translation: let’s make a plan); cross-functional expertise (talk to each other); white-space opportunities (read between the lines), and co-evolution (cooperation with competitors).
“This is what you’re facing out there in corporate America, this avalanche of buzzwords, terms and crazy job titles,” he said. “It’s a wonder that anybody knows what’s going on.”
Graef S. “Bud” Crystal, the executive pay expert who designed the contract that has proved so lucrative for Walt Disney Co. Chairman Michael Eisner, said “visionary” is a new one on him.
“That’s the most pretentious title I’ve ever heard,” Crystal said. “How much does this guy make? By my way of seeing things, a visionary is only worth 75% as much as a clairvoyant.”
On second thought, Crystal said, a true visionary would have been able to foresee--and avoid--the recent troubles that have plagued Mossimo Inc.
“So really what he appears to be is a ‘retroactive visionary’--and those are a dime a dozen,” he said.
Souped-up titles are nothing new, of course, at companies that sell everyday products to the masses.
Cereal purveyor Kellogg Co. employs a “vice president for consumer and customer engagement,” Jon Wilson. Coca Cola Co.’s Steve Koonin is “vice president for presence marketing,” responsible for sports and entertainment. And as far back as the early 1980s, the burger barons at McDonald’s Corp. felt the need for an “executive chef,” Rene Arend.
Some defend the use of innovative new titles as colorful ways of describing what someone actually does in a fast-changing business world. Some high-tech companies, for instance, use titles such as Guru and Evangelist, which defenders say reflect a passionate quest for cutting-edge ideas.
At interactive game company Interplay Productions in Irvine, an Evangelist is basically a marketing and public relations specialist, said spokesman Kirk Green. The head of the firm’s sports division is the Head Coach.
These titles are “closer to the actual job description,” said Green. A title like Evangelist “gives it a little higher visibility than just saying you’re the marketing or P.R. person.”
Times staff writer Greg Johnson contributed to this report.
* MOSSIMO’S VISION: Management changes aim to stabilize troubled firm. D2
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Boxed Data Opportunity
Mossimo Giannulli, chairman of troubled apparel maker Mossimo, has taken on the title of Visionary, the latest example of corporate America’s craving for crazy job titles and buzzwords. A sampling:
Terms
* Co-evolution (cooperation with competitors)
* White space opportunities (read between the lines)
* Cross-functional expertise (talk to each other)
* Helicopter (looking ahead)
* Accelerating profit curves (make more money)
* Core competency (what we do best)
* Dimensionalize (let’s make a plan)
*
Titles
* Visionary
* Vibe Guy
* Chief Coffee Officer
* Chief Concept Officer
* Chief Knowledge Officer
* Evangelist
