Articles
When the Going Gets Tough, The Tough Change Their Titles
Tough times call for daring strategies, which helps explain Silicon Valley's growing use of this innovative business tool: the really weird job title. WSJ Paid subscription required.

Playing the Name Game
[...] While funky titles like guru, assassin and wizard began crowding the middle echelons of org charts in the early '90s, it's primarily in the last couple of years that the top dogs have been infected with titular logorrhea. A handy ailment to have as one moves from company to company, or threatens to do so, driving executive titles ever higher. (The Industry Standard)

Noteworthy titles:

Tim Roberts — Chief Visionary Officer — Broadband Investment Group

Harry Kletter — Chief visionary Officer — Industrial Services of America

David Roberts — Chief Zaplet — FireDrop Inc.

Sheri Falco — Chief Catalyst — Libida.com (president)

John Sculley — Chief Listener — Apple Computer

Guy Kawasaki, — ex-Chief Evangelist at Apple (now CEO garage.com)

Joy D'Amore — Goddess of the People — FireDrop Inc.

Rayna Brown — Vice President of People — Vividence Corp.


All Chiefs and No Indians

Chief Zoom Officer

Chief Smart Officer

Chief Techie

Chief Technology Officer

Chief Morale Officers


All Time Favorites

Dark Jedi—Organic Inc.

Sushi Engineer—Organic Inc.

Code Therapist — Organic Inc.


From Quoi de Neuf's archives : an article from the San Jose Mercury News 21.4.97 "Off-the-Wall job titles break the ice"

Virtual Reality Evangelist — Silicon Graphics

Duchess of Chaos — Netscape Communications Corp

Technical Therapist — Taligent Inc.

Chief Convomaniac — Apple Computer

Village Idiot


More...

Sex Librarian (aka Content manager of a soon to be launched SF chat room for women to talk about their health and sexuality)

Chief Dreamer (aka chairman and chief executive – SF chat room for women)

Minister of Six Degrees (aka corporate communications manager – SF chat room for women)

Vice President of People


If you know of any other titles not included on this page, send an e-mail!





"In dot-com land, everybody's already a VP. And when these guys make a move, they want it to look like a great move – whether it is or not." -- Jim Bethmann, co-head of Korn-Ferry's tech-recruiting practice. (IS)

"Titles are like grades at a bad school." -- Michael Badar, chief marketing officer at business-to-business auto parts site ChoiceParts. (IS)

"It's made the recruiter's job a lot more difficult. You have to peel back the onion and make sure they actually accomplished something" -- Jim Bethmann, co-head of Korn-Ferry's tech-recruiting practice. (IS)

"It's a statement about the culture the company aspires to. And that's exactly the way an executive at another company would take it." -- Quinn Mills, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. (IS)