Clarence otis jr. biography

American businessman

Clarence Otis Jr.
Born	() 11 April (age&#;68)
Occupation(s)	CEO, Darden Restaurants

Clarence Otis Jr. (born April 11, , in Vicksburg, Mississippi, United States) is an American businessman and former CEO and chairman of Darden Restaurants.

Otis was named the 11th most powerful person in Central Florida by the Orlando Sentinel in ^[1]

Early life

Otis was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, on April 11, , to Clarence Otis, a janitor and Calanthus Hall Otis, a homemaker. He moved with his family to Los Angeles where he grew up in Watts, at the height of the civil unrest of the s.^[2]

Education

He gained a scholarship into Williams College in Massachusetts, where he majored in Economics and Political Science.

Clarence otis jr ceo In the s African Americans remained rare as chief executives of "Fortune " companies—the largest companies in the United States. When Clarence Otis Jr. He reached his high-level post not only through skills and hard work but also through versatility: his career led him through law, investment banking, corporate finance, and operations management, and he excelled in each new area he challenged himself with. At the helm of a company with more than , employees serving over million meals a year, Otis kept a clear focus on corporate essentials. Brown of Black Enterprise , "he or she needs to understand the basics—how that company makes money.

He graduated magna cum laude in , receiving the school's Political Science writing prize and Phi Beta Kappa recognition in his senior year. Otis then moved on to Stanford Law School in California, earning his J.D. degree in

Career

He worked in the field of corporate law, specializing in the fields of securities law and mergers and acquisitions.

He started out with the firm Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Irvine and moved on to Gordon, Hurwitz, Butowsky, Weitzen, Shalov & Wein. From the start he ran with a high-flying crowd; one of his clients was famed financier Carl Icahn. He later on remarked, "I thought the finance side was more exciting than the law, so I moved to an investment banking firm"—Kidder, Peabody & Co.

The barely year-old Otis became a vice president at First Boston Corporation in In this job he got his first exposure to Florida's booming economy as he worked on real estate deals there. He became interested in public and government finance, serving as managing director of Giebert Municipal Capital in and , and as a vice president and later managing director in Chemical Bank's securities arm between and He played a key part in turning around the bank's struggling public finance division, shepherding funding of $ billion for tax-exempt pollution-control projects and participating a $ million New York City bond issue that was named deal of the year by Institutional Investor magazine.

In , Otis was recruited by Darden Restaurants in Orlando for the post of treasurer, overseeing finance activities for the 1,restaurant chain.

Otis, Clarence Jr. In the s African Americans remained rare as chief executives of "Fortune " companies—the largest companies in the United States. When Clarence Otis Jr. He reached his high-level post not only through skills and hard work but also through versatility: his career led him through law, investment banking, corporate finance, and operations management, and he excelled in each new area he challenged himself with. At the helm of a company with more than , employees serving over million meals a year, Otis kept a clear focus on corporate essentials.

He correctly assessed Darden as a company on the rise as its "casual dining" market niche—high-volume sit-down restaurants a step above fast food in terms of quality—was growing rapidly. Otis came to the company in the final stages of its spin-off from food giant General Mills.

While Otis supervised a staff of six, his decisions had company wide ramifications as Darden acquired new sites and financed new buildings all over the country; the chain owns its restaurants rather than franchising them to independent entrepreneurs.

He ascended the corporate ladder at Darden, becoming senior vice president of finance in and chief financial officer in As the chain shuttered its struggling China Coast restaurants and opened new ventures such as the casual sports-bar barbecue Smokey Bones and the Caribbean-themed Bahama Breeze,

As longtime Darden CEO Joe L. Lee, who opened the first Red Lobster restaurant in Florida in , approached retirement, Otis was widely regarded as a protégé of Lee, and after one of his top rivals left for a top position with Burger King, his way was clear.

Clarence otis jr. biography Clarence Otis' parents were living in Vicksburg, Mississippi, when he was born in While financial circumstances caused both parents to quit school by the eighth grade, they had been good students. Otis' father worked in a cotton mill but knew he needed to find a more secure job when mill positions started moving offshore. The family moved to California in , settling in the Watts section of Los Angeles in Otis' father worked as a custodian for the city and had a second full-time custodial job for private companies.

Otis was named Lee's successor as CEO in ^[3] He stepped down in ^[4]

Compensation

While CEO of Darden Restaurants in , Otis earned a total compensation of $7,,, which included a base salary of $,, a cash bonus of $1,,, stocks granted of $1,,, options granted of $2,,, and other compensation totaling $,^[5]

Politics

According to Matthew Yglesias, Otis "seems to be a Democrat" and has donated to Democratic Congressman Ron Klein of Florida.^[6]

Personal life

Otis and his wife Jacqueline Bradley (b.

) were married in and have raised three children.^[7]

References

External links