The Upshot: Lucent's Faux COO Leaves Investors Wondering

Self-promotion is getting a little out of hand at Lucent (LU).

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In a display of "take charge" initiative not seen since Alexander Haig ran the State Department, Jose Mejia last week introduced himself as Lucent's new chief operating officer to a crowd attending an Ariba (ARBA) supply system conference at New York's Radio City Music Hall.

The hitch: Lucent doesn't have a chief operating officer. In fact, the telecom equipment maker hasn't had a COO since October 1999.

So when word of a mysterious new top Lucent exec reached ING Barings analyst Tom Lauria, he quickly called the company for a confirmation. Lucent's initial response: "It's a typo."

But a replay of Mejia's speech leaves little room for doubt. Mejia's actual words: "I am now the chief operating officer, I've been on the job for about four weeks, before that I was the chief procurement officer for Lucent," he told those at the gathering. The promotion, if it were true, would have catapulted Mejia over his boss, executive vice president Robert Holder.

Now clearly, people in some organizations abhor a leadership vacuum more than others. Restructurings, resignations and forced dismissals have left vacant more than few suites on Lucent's executive row. And though Lucent enlisted executive headhunter Spencer Stuart last year to find a chief executive after Rich McGinn finally got the boot, it's no secret that a replacement has yet to be found.

But just what's going on over there at Lucent headquarters in Murray Hill, N.J.? A naked power grab? Missed signals? Or just another gaffe from a company stumbling its way down the road to disaster?

"It's downright embarrassing," says another Wall Street analyst who conferred with ING's Lauria about the snafu.

Mejia, who in April was lured from archrival Nortel (NT) to head Lucent's supply operations, didn't reply to requests for comment. But he did highlight his merits for the COO job in an attempted joke with the Ariba crowd, a real sidesplitter about the apparent overabundance of gray-hairs at Lucent. "I know why I have the job," said Mejia. "I still have black hair and I have a lot of it."

After Mejia told his joke and gave his presentation, he ran, as only a COO can, to catch a waiting helicopter back to Jersey.

Lucent officials -- already wracked with problems such as an ongoing Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into the company's financials and an acrimonious countersuit against a former top saleswoman -- weren't too amused by the attention Mejia's title claim has drawn.

One explanation is that Mejia is still learning the ropes about public speaking.

"He has a very important job in terms of his responsibilities to the supply chain," says a Lucent spokesman. "But clearly it was a misunderstanding in terms of the way his responsibilities were conveyed to the community there."

Right, but there's also the power of positive thinking. This scribbler might not be alone in finding inspiration in Mejia's ploy. Who's to say, with a little zip left on my fastball, that I'm not the next Pedro Martinez?

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