迈克尔•布隆伯格重掌彭博

    最近，纽约前任市长迈克尔•布隆伯格对外宣称将重掌其商业帝国。对于了解布隆伯格的人来说，他的回归是必然的。

    《财富》（Fortune）杂志去年对彭博（Bloomberg LP）公司的报道明确显示，即便他在担任纽约市市长时，这位亿万富翁也一直在密切地参与管理彭博的各种事务。彭博是布隆伯格私人持有的数据与新闻媒体集团。

    在多个场合中，时任纽约市长的布隆伯格会在下班后出现在彭博公司总部，参加公司的业务会议，其中包括彭博网站新设计展示的会议，而且当时正值暴风雪天气。他还从位于纽约市政大楼的彭博终端跟进公司事务。布隆伯格钦点的首席执行官董德融每周都会向他汇报公司情况。

    因此，尽管布隆伯格和董德融多年来一直对外宣称布隆伯格不会重回公司，但当布隆伯格（彭博员工亲切地称他为迈克）将于2014年年底重掌公司的消息传出时，外界对此并不感到惊讶，而这离他离任市长一职还不到一年。他此前的计划是将大部分时间用于开展广泛的慈善事业。

    56岁的董德融便理所当然地成为了出局之人，这位前任纽约副市长自2008年便一直掌管彭博。这并不是件容易的事。即便在担任市长期间，布隆伯格（持有彭博超过80%的股份）一直在彭博幕后关注着公司的大小事务。彭博前任人力资源总监梅琳达•伍尔夫去年对《财富》杂志称：“员工时刻能感受到布隆伯格在公司的影子。遇到问题时，人们总是会问：要是迈克会怎么做？”

    此外，公司还有大佬级人物的存在，例如新闻业务负责人马特•温科勒和终端业务掌门汤姆•瑟昆达。这一切对董德融而言无异于一场管理噩梦。董德融一直在努力地改变彭博古怪的、由布隆伯格建立起来的企业文化，并在时代不断变化和终端业务销售放缓的情况下创建新业务、控制成本。

    彭博的盈利能力依然强劲，而且处于上升状态，其2014年营收有望达到90亿美元。但是随着布隆伯格的回归，并且鉴于他不可能在公司里屈居他人之下，这一局面很快发生了变化。

    最近，董德融在纽约一间咖啡馆（在座的还有布隆伯格）向《纽约时报》（New York Times）记者安德鲁•罗斯•索金解释道：“迈克在公司就像上帝一样。他创建了宇宙，发布了十诫，然后消失了。现在又回来了。人们有必要意识到，一旦上帝回归，事情就会发生变化。当上帝重新出现时，人们就会变得言听计从。”（布隆伯格和董德融通过发言人拒绝了《财富》杂志的采访。）

    For those who know former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, it’s hard to view his move to reclaim the reins of his business empire, publicly unveiled late yesterday, as anything but inevitable.

    Even when he had a big city to run, the billionaire remained intimately involved in the affairs of his privately owned data-and-media powerhouse, as Fortune’scoverage of Bloomberg LP last year made clear.

    On several occasions, the then-mayor showed up at Bloomberg headquarters after hours for business meetings—including a presentation on a redesign of Bloomberg’s website held during a blizzard. He monitored the company from his Bloomberg terminal at City Hall. And he received weekly briefings from Dan Doctoroff, his handpicked CEO.

    So despite years of public declarations by both Bloomberg and Doctoroff that it would never happen, it hardly comes as a shock that Mike (as he is known at Bloomberg LP) is reassuming command of his business at the end of 2014, just under a year after leaving office. His previous plan had been to devote the majority of his time to his extensive philanthropic activities.

    The odd man out, of course, is Doctoroff, 56, the former deputy mayor who has been running Bloomberg LP since 2008. That wasn’t an easy task. Even while Mike—who owns more than 80% of the business—was at City Hall, he loomed over everything at Bloomberg LP. “People live there in the shadow of Mike,” former HR chief Melinda Wolfe told Fortune last year. “There’s a constant questioning: What would Mike do?”

    That reality—along with the presence of powerful sacred cows inside the company, such as news chief Matt Winkler and terminal boss Tom Secunda—created a management nightmare for Doctoroff. He labored to change Bloomberg’s eccentric, Mike-shaped culture, starting new businesses and reining in costs in the face of changing times and slowing terminal sales.

    Bloomberg remains highly profitable and kept growing, with revenues expected to reach $9 billion for 2014. But with Mike back on the premises—and constitutionally unable to play the role of second banana—the situation quickly became untenable.

    “Mike is kind of like God at the company,” Doctoroff explained on Wednesday, sitting with Bloomberg at a New York coffee shop, to Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times. “He created the universe. He issued the Ten Commandments and then he disappeared. And then he came back. You have to understand that when God comes back, things are going to be different. When God reappeared, people defer.” (Through a spokesman, Bloomberg and Doctoroff both declined interviews.)