At 45 he has been at the top of his profession for a decade. As vice president, human resources, Europe, Middle East and Africa, for Oracle, the US giant that is the worlds second biggest software company (after Microsoft), he has worked through boom and bust in one of the toughest marketplaces around, surviving far longer than most in a firm that isnt slow to get rid of executives. He has also maintained a far higher profile than many in the people business.
And its hard to miss him. One friend describes the garrulous Kearney as the it-girl of HR, always sounding off on something, always in view at every conference and black tie dinner you go to. Then theres the roguish appeal, the fags, the Ferrari, the fact that he sometimes, according to one report, twins his tux with dont wince black leather trousers and Cuban heels. Not bad for someone who also sits on the CBIs employment policy committee. Out to make an impression? Kearney, married twice, with four kids, shrugs when I put it to him later. You only get one shot at life, you should make the most of it.
Anyway, the fact that he has kept his individual style in a work environment peopled mainly with software programmers and solutions salesmen is something for us all to marvel at. But then again Oracle, led by the ebullient billionaire Larry Ellison, likes a bit of individuality. Certainly US commentators portray the firm as a place where flamboyance and ruthlessness happily coexist.
And in Kearney, the man who has to make Oracles hire-and-fire reputation work, that co-existence finds its human touch. He copes, I would guess, with a shrug and laugh, always frank, to-the-point, but a grin never far from his lips. We are meeting in Oracles Moorgate offices in the City of London, six floors up in a swish new glass and steel building with vertiginous see-through lifts and an orderly hush on the carpeted floors. Kearney actually works in the rather more banal Berkshire, at Oracles main HQ in Reading, but he likes the trip into town. Perhaps the fact that the $4.6 billion-revenue Oracle has recently been letting go 270 of its staff from its Reading-based consultancy division makes taking the London air a bit of a relief. As if he cares
I am not making any apologies for the fact that it is a demanding company, he shrugs when I ask him about Oracles alleged ruthlessness. That is why people want to work for us. In the past few years, when we have been engaged in the so-called war for talent, we have still had lots of people wanting to work here. They want to work for a company which is stimulating and where everyone is highly regarded. And anyway, the Oracle cuts, around 9% of its UK workforce but only 1%-2% in total worldwide, are small beer compared to those of some of its competitors.
So does Kearney, whose responsibilities cover 14,000 employees in 42 countries, do the sacking himself? You could certainly imagine he does it with aplomb, given his bluntness. Actually, he says in his distinctly unposh tones, HR never does it. He always insists that the managers responsible bite the bullet. Its a fundamental law of mine that if you want to fire someone you look them in the eye, face to face, and explain the reason.
Sometimes, though, its not that easy. Three years ago, in a case that received some publicity Stateside, Kearney was sent to sack Pier Carlo Falotti, Oracles Europe, Middle East and Africa executive vice president, in Geneva. US journalists described Kearneys task as terminating Falotti. Oracle called it a retirement.
To the rest of us, it reads like John Grisham. The termination came just four days before Falotti was due to receive $10 million-worth of options. He wasnt in the office to receive Kearney. He is now claiming that, as he was off sick, he couldnt be fired within the due dates and is owed the money when Kearney and I met, the case was still going through a Swiss court. One American report on the story describes it as offering a rare glimpse into the sometimes cut-throat inner workings of the software giant.
Shouldnt using Kearneys own logic Ellison have been doing the firing? That was the exception, says Kearney. There was no local manager around to do it. But terminating senior executives? Hiring is more fun than firing, thats for sure, he smiles.
Kearneys laconic, no-nonsense style makes him a popular if controversial figure in HR circles, too blunt for some but clearly effective in the right environment. Vance is particularly good in a fast-moving industry that needs decisions immediately, says Val Siddiqui, one of his senior compensation and benefits directors. Hes also very receptive to new ideas, and brilliant at selling them.
Kearney says he has always been happier in American firms British companies, by comparison, seem a bit old-fashioned. I want to work for companies with ambition and passion, he says, splaying his fingers on the table. I want to work for winners.
He attributes his directness to a working-class upbringing and an early grounding in engineering. His dad was a toolmaker, his mum was a seamstress. Brought up in Hatfield, Herts not far from where he now lives in Hemel Hempstead attending the local primary and comprehensive schools, Kearney always wanted to work in industry, and never lacked in confidence. When a teacher told him he had no chance of getting sponsorship to read business studies at the local technical college, he wrote to every FTSE 100 company and was taken on by Rolls Royce Aeroengines. He learned early on that perseverance pays. With a name like Vance some B movie actor my mum had a crush on he had something to live up to.
He was taken on by Rolls as an undergraduate apprentice and learned his way round an engine. But it was his business studies degree that got him a place in HR. It fascinated him. His early career was spent working through HR jobs at Rolls, then at STC (Standard Telephones and Cables) and Data General. He spent only 18 months at Rolls after graduating, because it was dead mens shoes, with no chance of significant responsibility until you were 35. He jumped into an industrial relations role at STC because he thought promotion at an American firm would be faster. The HR director of Rolls said to me: You dont want to work for American companies, theyre all hire-and-fire, theyll want their pound of flesh. I thought: thats just the kind of company I want to work for.
In fact, STC was still too British for his tastes. Most of the management team were 50-plus in waistcoats with watch-chains. Others who know him put the trademark Kearney toughness down to the industrial relations experience he picked up there, moving easily between unions and management, helping defuse tensions.
Eventually he leapt from STC into Data General, then still a relatively young spin-off set up by two Digital Equipment escapees. That was more to his taste. It was growing fast, with a big recruitment challenge, increasing the sales force worldwide, very interested in HR, with very high standards of selection.
And yet he left? Purely market forces, he says. By 1991, the minicomputer industry was struggling. I had had five good years and helped build a good sales force, but things were going down. He looked around and spotted Oracle, another young company that was trying to make a name for itself. Hes been there ever since, part of the team that has made the UK-based operation one of the most profitable parts of Oracle worldwide.
A demanding job? Its demanding in terms of the resources I get to do the job. I run in the UK on a ratio of one HR person to 250 people, and in Europe one to 100. These are pretty respectable ratios, but it requires a certain discipline.
His cv is rather more uncompromising, banging on about how Oracles HR helps create great leadership, rather than emasculating line management, how it doesnt seek excellence, but continual improvement and change, how it has the best recruitment function, the most innovative incentives. Poor managers that cannot lead, inspire and motivate, it says chillingly, are asked to leave.
This is clearly HR, macho-style. Costs are constantly cut, systems pared down, slackers chucked, automation pushed through. Hes moved the firm from 17 separate HR systems in Europe, Middle East and Africa, to two. Shortly there will be just one worldwide.
Yet there must be downsides in a company so firmly imprinted with the character of its founder. Employees being let go, for instance, might resent seeing the boss sailing yachts, flying military jets and building palatial homes. If it was me being sacked, I might make the equation: one less jet, a few more jobs
Kearney looks quizzical. We are not, he says firmly, in the business of creating jobs, we are in the business of creating a successful, competitive and efficient company and, through doing that, we will win market share and provide the most jobs in the long term with the best terms and conditions for the people who work here.
Nice answer. Kearney grins. Others say Kearney has acute antennae and a finely honed political sense, as proven by the fact that he has thrived at Oracle for so long. Hes clearly someone who has been able to work with difficult and demanding bosses, says Simon Howard, a recruitment communication specialist who is a Kearney drinking buddy. And anyone who mistakes his estuary [English] tones for a lack of mental agility is swiftly going to get a knee in the balls. Howard would like to see Kearney stretch himself at a bigger institution, working with other straight-talkers like Allan Leighton at the Post Office or Greg Dyke at the BBC.
But Kearney is happy where he is. Its not been an easy last few years for him; he left his wife, who subsequently died after a hospital operation went wrong. He has remarried and you can tell that behind the jaunty bluster, there are probably more complex emotions at work. Take the car. He has always loved cars his dad used to tinker with them. But I would bet his first wifes death also has something to do with its purchase.
You can spend the whole of your life dreaming of what you are going to do, he says to me poignantly, and never actually doing it. All of us should ask ourselves what we want, and strive to get it. Before its too late.
So no taunts of male menopause from office colleagues? Some arent so sure its such a recent development. If Vance is going through the male menopause, Howard chuckles, its been a bloody long one. Yet others say his character has altered noticeably in the past few years. Hes less uptight, more approachable, says one. Everyone knows hes a romantic he must be, hes a long-suffering Spurs supporter but theres more evidence now that, behind the toughness, theres a soft side pushing through.
I have got to say something here, says Kearney, clearly perturbed at how I perceive Oracles culture. This company has a reputation for being ruthless, but its not true. Its done some things that have moved me to tears, but it never brags about it. He cites what was done for the families of the six Oracle employees who died in the World Trade Centre and the actions taken to help an employee who contracted AIDS, and how that contrasted with the bank that employed his partner. The bank sacked him, withdrew their mortgage and made them homeless. Now, when I read that we are cold, hard bastards, it really irritates me. We are demanding and we do strive to be the best, but thats how we make money for our employees and give them a company that is growing and successful.
And with that we finish. Phew, he says, running a hand through his hair, you really worked me. I could do with a drink And he wanders off. Later when I check facts, he tells me he never twins his tux with leather trousers. Never ever. Just so you know
