Part 2 of 2 Interview with Bob Flexon, CEO of Dynegy in Houston

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
There is only one real problem in the world, and it doesn't matter whether the desired accomplishment is managing a sports team, building a business, or running an empire. The problem is the same, leadership. Because of the tremendous consequences involved and outcomes that affect the lives of so many, the importance of leadership is immutable through the ages and highly relevant into the future.
Welcome to the Leadership Lyceum, a CEO's Virtual Mentor. Now, here's your host, Tom Lindquist.

**Thomas B. Linquist** (0:46)
You've entered the Leadership Lyceum. We'll bring you direct access to top CEOs and directors of boards in an interview format that provides insight on situational issues that confront CEOs every day.
Think of it as a CEO's virtual mentor.
Thanks for joining us for the conclusion of our two-part installment with Bob Flexon, CEO of Dynegy. In part one, we covered the importance of culture shaping in Bob's transition to Dynegy as CEO and the continued importance of culture even in terms of direct business opportunities for Dynegy. In part two, we'll explore Bob's leadership in the bankruptcy, the value of mentors and his advice to CFOs, CEOs and boards toward development of CEO successors. Stay tuned.
Before we turn to the interview, it's helpful to have the knowledge and context of Bob's background. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in accounting from Villanova. And upon graduation, joined Coopers and Librand in auditing in 1980, and spent seven foundational years in auditing. He was involved in Arcochemical's IPO, and then joined Arcochemical. Over a 13-year career at Arco, Bob developed through domestic and international controllership, auditing and strategic planning roles. From Arco, he joined the specialty chemical manufacturer Hercules, where he focused on operational finance and strategic restructuring of the company. Bob joined NRG in 2004 as CFO, soon after NRG emerged from bankruptcy. And as CFO, presided over EBIT growth from 600 million in 2004 to an excess of 2.3 billion in 2009 In 2008, he was appointed COO of NRG, but returned to CFO duties to help the defense during Exelon's unsuccessful hostile takeover attempt that concluded with NRG's winning proxy vote. While at NRG in 2006, Bob joined Foster Wheeler's board. Foster Wheeler is a global engineering and construction firm and also a power equipment manufacturer. He left NRG in 2009 to lead the US division for Foster Wheeler and in short order, was appointed to CEO over all of Foster Wheeler at end of 2009 Bob joined Dynegy in 2011 and led the company through an orderly bankruptcy in 2012 After Emergence, Bob has led the company through a period of prolonged growth, including the 2013 purchase of Amarin's competitive generation fleet and as previously mentioned, the 2014 Duke Midwest generating assets and Equipower assets, which doubled the company's generating capacity. In addition, the pending acquisition of the NG portfolio will further increase Dynegy's scale and geographic diversity.
Stay tuned and we'll be right back with the interview.
We're back with Bob Flexon, CEO of Dynegy. In moving from CFO to CEO, everything sounds so planful. You face these challenging situations, and it always seemed that you had a plan. In the bankruptcy, you were already looking towards 2013 and 2014 in acquisitions on the back end of that. What was different for you, though, from an executive leadership standpoint, between CFO and CEO? Were there surprises? Were there differences in the muscles that you exercised?

**Bob Flexon** (4:36)
Well, I think the one thing that I never really planned for was being CEO. Throughout my career, and you mentioned it at the beginning, I started out in public accounting.
And then my career path, for the most part, has been in the finance and accounting track. I've always thought about what are the things you need to do to be a good CFO. And that's always been my focus. And I've never really gave any thought to being a CEO, and I always remember David Crane at NRG, and David and I, again, we had an open seating, so we sat next to each other there.
And David, it would ask me at the beginning, is what type of CFO are you? You're the type of CFO who always wants to be CFO, or you're a CFO who wants to be a CEO? And I quite honestly, I never really thought about it before, and I always really just thought it in the context, is that I'm a CFO who will always be a CFO. And so I never really thought about it. So going from CFO to CEO was kind of a big step. You mentioned briefly at Foster Wheeler, and I got a chance to find out there to know what I didn't know. And coming in the Dynegy, I was better prepared to deal with that. I would say maybe the biggest difference, and CFO, you can get your arms around what a CFO does, and it can be a painful job, but you know what it is. It deals certainly with the financials of a company and the controls within a company, the reporting elements of the company, and you get involved in strategic planning in the execution, but at the CEO level, it's very different on how you think about things and how you lead. It's a very different requirement from CFO, and what I started to do more is reflecting back on influential people. Bill Joyce at Hercules, Bill used to be the CEO and chair at Union Carbide, he came in the Hercules, and I worked on the restructuring of Hercules with Bill, which you mentioned early on.