Mark Frissora holds an impressive resume and that was one of the reasons why he was hired to be the new chief executive officer at Caesars Entertainment Corp. Frissora’s past includes being the chief executive officer at Tenneco between 2000 and 2006 and the chief executive officer at Hertz between 2006 and September 2014.
He took up his post as the CEO of Caesars on the 1st of July 2015 and has a huge challenge in reviving the fortunes of Caesars as the company has been struggling to post profits. Although Frissora is now part of Caesars, he has been forced to deal with allegations origination from his old company Hertz who have accused him of “material misstatements” in Hertz’s 2011 – 2013 fiscal reports that have resulted in a loss of $207 million.
The automobile rental company made these allegations against Frissora when it filed its year ending financial statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Hertz stated that it conducted an in-depth internal investigation that revealed there were “four categories of material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting.” Hertz accused their former CEO of using a management style and attitude that created tremendous pressure in the company’s operations which resulted in oversight and repeated errors. When Frissora stepped down as the CEO of Hertz, he cited personal reasons but there were also rumours that investors had called for his termination due to operational and accounting errors.
Such allegations often tarnish the image of a high profile candidate as it creates a shadow of doubt over their performance and management skills. However Caesars has decided to back Frissora and stand by him in the midst of these allegations.
In a statement Saturday, Jan Jones Blackhurst, Caesars Executive Vice President of Communications and Government Relations said “Hertz‘s disclosure very specifically did not suggest any wrongdoing by Mark. In fact, it described a CEO focused on driving performance and results and merely posits that this focus may have led to some of the accounting errors.”
Caesars named Frissora as a CEO designee back in February 2015 and he was given the responsibility of working closely with ex- CEO Gary Loveman, who continues to be chairman of Caesars. Frissora worked closely with Loveman during a four month tenure to ensure a successful handover was done and he was prepared to lead the company. Frissora’s immediate objectives with Caesars is to help scale its business and provide more value to its shareholders.