People to Watch in 2000
Who will make big news in the business world this year? Who will emerge from relative obscurity to become a major player? To start the new year, Times business reporters selected people from their beats who they believe will be among those to watch in 2000--in Southern California, across the country and around the world. Some are well known, having made big news in previous years. Others are not exactly household names but nevertheless are likely to make a major impact in their fields.
Of course, there’s no way to predict just what’s going to happen in the next 12 months. Nor can any such list be complete--there’s always the come-from-nowhere phenom who’ll surprise everyone. But it’s a good bet that if you follow the fortunes of these 22, you’ll see the top business stories of 2000 unfold.
Christos Cotsakos of E-Trade
There would seem to be few company names more straightforward than that of E-Trade Group, the fast-growing No. 2 online brokerage.
But if Chief Executive Christos Cotsakos can make good on his bold vision, E-Trade could be something of a misnomer one day. The smooth-talking Cotsakos hopes to transform E-Trade from its roots as a cut-rate Internet brokerage into nothing less than a financial colossus peddling everything from mutual funds to online banking.
The “Neiman Marcus” of Web brokerages--that’s one image Cotsakos, 51, has used to describe what he wants E-Trade to become.
It’s a worthy strategy, analysts say. But Cotsakos, who was an Army squad leader in Vietnam and an executive at Federal Express and A.C. Nielsen before jumping to Menlo Park, Calif.-based E-Trade in 1996, is going up against powerful rivals in Charles Schwab Corp. and Fidelity Brokerage Services, to name two.
Yet the intensely competitive Cotsakos has already had impressive success drawing new customers to E-Trade and helping to reshape the entire brokerage industry landscape over the last two years--thanks in part to one of the edgiest and most expensive advertising campaigns in the industry.
Even so, E-Trade’s new customers have brought far fewer assets with them than the more well-heeled newbies lured by the firm’s competitors, raising questions about how profitable E-Trade’s burgeoning client base will be down the line.
