CEO Joe Taylor of Panasonic North America at Rutgers Business School

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At Rutgers Business School, students are able to access insights directly from CEOs who lead the world's top companies.

Joseph Taylor, chairman and chief executive officer of Panasonic's North American business,
provided Rutgers Business School students with a candid look at the tough decisions, the strategy and leadership that returned the company to profitability after a series of missteps led to huge losses for Panasonic beginning in 2006.

"The trend is positive now," Taylor told the audience at the CEO Lecture Series on Feb. 20 at Rutgers Business School. "We've learned a lot from the mistakes we've made." (Read full story: http://www.business.rutgers.edu/news/...)

Taylor, who has spent three decades at Panasonic, gave the audience a taste of the Japanese company's history -- one of its earliest products was a bicycle lamp and it was one of the first businesses to pay men and women equally -- and success before explaining how rapid shifts in consumer demand for plasma TV and the acquisition of one-time rival Sanyo left Panasonic hampered by losses.

Taylor told the Rutgers Business School students, many in Rutgers MBA program (http://business.rutgers.edu/mba), that Panasonic's turnaround was helped by the steady growth of its business-to-business products and a new strategy of forging partnerships around the company's technology in order to provide solutions to a variety of customers.