Thomas F. 'Mack' McLarty.

• Author: Alioto, Maryann
• Position: Director Spotlight - Profile on the board member of Acxiom Corp. and Entergy Corp.

From Main Street to the White House and back, this former chief of staff now brings his business acumen into the Acxiom and Entergy boardrooms.

On the day following the 1992 presidential election, Mack McLarty received a phone call from an old pal he had known since his kindergarten days in Hope, Ark. The caller was Bill Clinton, asking McLarty to leave his position as chairman and CEO of a Fortune 500 company to become the President-elect's chief of staff.

After spending two years in that hot seat, McLarty transitioned to the post of counselor to the President and, during the last two-and-a-half years of his time at Washington, he was special envoy to the Americas. In 1998 he returned to the private sector, once again helming his fourth-generation family business, McLarty Cos., an Arkansas-based automobile dealership, where his son Mark handles the day-to-day operations of the company.

He also founded McLarty International, a Washington D.C.-based international strategic advisory firm, where he serves as chairman. More recently, in March 1999 he accepted two board seats: at Acxiom Corp., a Arkansas-based data products and services company with revenues of over $700 million; and Entergy Corp., a $11.5 billion electric utility in New Orleans.

McLarty believes that his 10 years of experience as chairman and CEO of Arkla Corp., a natural gas utility, will be an asset to Entergy. (Arkla was acquired by Houston Industries, now Reliant Energy Inc., in 1997.) Many of the issues that he dealt with at Arkla echo challenges that are now facing Entergy, such as moving from a regulated utility to a competitive market. Also, he says, "What impressed me most about Entergy was, like most public utilities, it has a deep presence and commitment to the state and cities it serves."

McLarty and Acxiom's chairman and CEO, Charles Morgan, have been friends for 25 years. McLarty says he has great admiration for Morgan and what he has accomplished with Acxiom. Founded in 1969, Acxiom was recognized by Fortune magazine in January 1999 as one of the best places to work in the U.S. As this issue was going to press, it announced plans to build a multistory facility and bring 700 new jobs to downtown Little Rock, where it is projected to be the largest private-sector employer within two years. With ambitions to be the leading provider of information services for marketing and related operations worldwide, Acxiom is quickly extending itself into the global market - a...