Eric Schmidt of Novell. He presided over a period of decline at Novell where its IPX protocol was being replaced by open TCP/IP products, while at the same time Microsoft was shipping free TCP/IP stacks in Windows 95, making Novell much less profitable. In 2001, he departed after the acquisition of Cambridge Technology Partners. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin interviewed Schmidt. Impressed by him, they recruited Schmidt to run their company in 2001 under the guidance of venture capitalists John Doerr and Michael Moritz. In March 2001, Schmidt joined Google's board of directors as chairman, and became the company's CEO
Guido Schmidt-Chiari received his PhD in law from the University of Vienna. In 1957 Guido Schmidt-Chiari worked for the Belgian-American Banking Corporation in New York City. In 1958 he began work at Creditanstalt in Vienna, in 1971 he was appointed to the Executive Board and further promoted to CEO in 1988. After the Fall of the Iron Curtain Schmidt-Chiari initiated the expansion of Creditanstalt into Central European countries. Following the acquisition of Creditanstalt by Bank Austria Schmidt-Chiari resigned in 1997. Under the direction of Guido Schmidt-Chiari, the Creditanstalt Group grew manifold and saw net profit after tax grow from 1.2 billion ATS