Schacht, who ran the company from 1996 to 1997, agreed to return on a temporary basis after the board fired his protege, McGinn. Trouble is, after six months the board can't find a suitable candidate willing to take the job. But the highly regarded executive decided to run 3M Co. instead. Now board members are targeting Krish Prabhu, chief operating officer at Alcatel, according to one Wall Street analyst and another source close to the situation. Prabhu could not be reached for comment.
Investors think speed is of the essence.
People aren't really paying that much attention to second-quarter numbers. Schacht insists that Lucent's leadership is strong. He says the company is more closely managed now than it was during the McGinn era. For example, his core management team meets every Monday and Friday, compared with once a month for McGinn's group. We have put together a plan and a program to which everybody is fully committed, and we're in the process of executing, and there's total concentration.