Just two years after hiring him away from IBM, Xerox fired Richard Thoman as
its CEO. This week Xerox agreed to pay Thoman $800,000 and continue that annual
payment for as long as Thoman or his wife lives.
The payments were disclosed in a letter sent to Thoman by Xerox chairman Paul
Allaire, who has stepped back into the CEO position while Xerox searches for
Thoman's replacement. "The benefits package honors a written agreement
Xerox made with Rick when he joined the company in 1997," said company
spokeswoman Christa Carone.
Before joining Xerox, Thoman was the chief financial officer at IBM. In June
1997, Xerox named him president and chief operating officer. He was promoted as
CEO in April 1999. Thoman, however, failed to reorganize Xerox’s 15,000-person
sales force. He tried to re-align the sales force along product lines rather
than geographically. Xerox ended up having to re-train too many people at once.
At the same time, Xerox reorganized its billing centers, forcing salespeople to
often return from the field to iron out billing problems instead of selling
machines and service contracts.