Cisco failure Ned Hooper is now mouseketeering with Centerview Capital

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Cisco failure Ned Hooper is now mouseketeering with Centerview Capital

Ned Hooper's failure at Cisco has him mouseketeering with the #1 consumer brand squanderer, Jim Kilts.

Hummelstown, PA: Wed, 1/9/12 - 3:05pm View comments

Gee 6-months ago, Cisco CEO John Chambers (ranked as the #1 COC by Financial Times this week) blogged:

"Ned Hooper will be leaving the immediate Cisco family to form an independent investment partnership company and to pursue his goal to be a principal investor. Ned has been working on his plan with us over a number of months, and we look forward to partnering with him in his new endeavor. Ned has a unique passion and skill for investment and strategy, and will focus on this in the next phase of his career."

Well, based on Hooper's LinkedIn Profile, it certainly doesn't look like he's had much success starting his own "independent investment partnership company." I mean, it appears over the past 6-months that Ned Hooper has actually been mouseketeering with perhaps the #1 consumer brand squanderer, Jim Kilts (at least in my opinion).

What a small world, as it was only 10-years ago that I helped defeat Rick Lenny (a well-known protege of Jim Kilts, "Rick Lenny, CEO of Hershey, who worked for Kilts at both Kraft and Nabisco, still calls him for business advice"), when Lenny tried to sell Hershey to Bill Wrigley for $12.5 billion.

My cousin Robert Reese was on the losing end of the stick against another Jim Kilts' protege, Dave West, also a former CEO of Hershey:

Hershey Meltdown Looms After Cadbury Clash With Trust

Jim Kilts' protege Dave West stripped from Hershey shareholders untold billions of future wealth, here's my take on it:

Hershey - Cadbury - David West - Robert Reese

Not surpisingly, Centerview Partners advised Kraft in the Cadbury deal and then obviously appointed Hershey CEO Dave West as the new CEO of Del Monte (a Centerview Capital portfolio company) as West's "reward" for killing the Hershey/Cadbury deal.

So in summary, Jim Kilts and his proteges Rick Lenny and Dave West can't create long-term shareholder wealth without selling the company their gutting, and in that regard both Ned Hooper and Jim Kilts are actually superbly perfect for each other!

Finally an interesting tidbit, I directly contacted Centerview Capital earlier today and it could offer no explanation as to why Ned Hooper is not mentioned on its website (note: I've confirmed that Centerview Capital's David Hooper is not related to Ned Hooper).

Related document:

Hershey's former CEO Rick Lenny was an adviser to Centerview

Obviously, no conflict of interest when considering that Centerview represented Kraft in its bidding war against Hershey for the purchase of Cadbury.

Also keep in mind that the time frame in Ned Hooper's LinkedIn Profile obviously indicates that Hooper was working for Centerview while simultaneously Hooper was working for Cisco doing the NDS deal in which Centerview was advising Cisco, smells fishy to me.

What's your take?