Gatti & Associates and Northeastern University again joined forces in late 
October to co-sponsor their annual Executive Breakfast Forum, “Best 
Companies – Best Practices:  Keeping the Competitive Edge”.  The 
featured organizations, Genzyme Corporation and Thermo Electron, 
highlighted many of the reasons why they are true leaders in their fields.

At Northeastern’s Raytheon Amphitheater the speakers addressed a full 
house consisting of local leaders from industry, education, consulting and 
politics.  The presenters were, from Genzyme Corporation, Zoltan Csimma, 
Senior Vice President of Human Resources and Michael Wyzga, Chief 
Financial Officer and from Thermo Electron, Steve Sheehan,Vice President 
of Human Resources and Marc Casper, President, Life & Laboratory 
Sciences Sector.

The two organizations are significantly different in nature and approach, but 
the overall messages from both companies were strikingly similar:  the 
success of a company is directly related to their ability to recruit, retain, 
motivate and develop employees at every level in the organization.  They 
also agreed that there needs to be a strong human resources presence.

Genzyme has vigorous corporate values that emphasize the importance 
of each and every employee and this is demonstrated throughout the 
organization by their philosophy that “everybody has a vote and it 
counts”.  Their commitment to innovation, integrity, entrepreneurship and 
compassion is evident in their culture.  This is strongly re-enforced with 
a philosophy that emphasizes trust and relationships, personal initiatives 
within teams, rewards broadly distributed throughout the company, a flat 
organization with a matrix structure and a global approach.

Thermo Electron has successfully transitioned from a highly decentralized, 
holding company model, to a centralized organization represented by 
three business sectors.  There is a strong culture built around integrity, 
intensity, innovation and involvement.  In the face of this tremendous 
change effort, the company was able to create excitement and earn the 
commitment of employees at all levels.  This was accomplished by 
implementing a carefully planned and sophisticated ‘Three Act Program’ 
focused on restructuring, integration and results.

A spirited question and answer period followed the presentations with 
lively discussions around global issues, current marketplace challenges, 
reward and retention programs and the ever-changing demands placed on 
executives.  The co-hosts for this forum were Rita Allen (a Northeastern 
graduate) of Gatti & Associates and Ira Weiss of Northeastern University.  
Fred Hoskins played a major role in organizing this event and Len Glick, 
also from the University, was the panel moderator.