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
Stuart Gulliver then Group Chairman of HSBC, announced that he would step down, in order to accept the invitation of the UK Prime Minister to become Minister of State for Trade and Investment in January 2011. As a result of Stephen Green's decision to step down earlier than planned, Michael Geoghegan, the then Group CEO of HSBC, announced his retirement and Stuart Gulliver, who led HSBC's investment-banking division since 2006, was appointed as the new Group CEO of HSBC Holdings plc, effective 1 January 2011. He was also appointed the Chairman of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited, a wholly owned