Big news today!  Kodak's CMO, Jeffrey W.  Hayzlett, is resigning to pursue personal projects after four years with the company.  I spoke with Jeff a few minutes ago to get the full scoop.  He has been CMO for three years (part of the time as Chief Business Development Officer), beating the odds - the average CMO tenure is 18 months.

As many of you know, Jeff has written a best selling book, The Mirror Test: Is Your Business Really Breathing? He said, "We were #9 on Amazon's movers and shakers yesterday and in the top 1% of all books on Amazon.  I think we will hit the New York Times best seller list next week."

Jeff explains that with the book taking off, it brings speaking engagements, television and a lot of other opportunities, adding, "I just can't ignore that, from a financial perspective for my family.  I can't just walk away from it, I had to make a choice, bottomline."

Jeff indicates that he has been talking about this with CEO Antonio Perez for some time, so it comes as no surprise to anyone at Kodak.  He says, "This is the longest I have ever stayed in anything.  I have done my job, changed the mood at Kodak, raised the profile of the company, and everything is headed in the right direction."

I asked him what the top three things he was most proud of were during his tenure at Kodak, and he replied, "First, working on developing a bringing back a winning attitude at Kodak, the belief that we could get our mojo back.  Second was actually achievnng our mojo, raising the profile of the company to the point now where everyone thinks of it as a winning company and things are on a positive projection.  Third has been our leadership in some unbelievable transformation of marketing techniques, such as our prominence in Social Media, our prominence in branded entertainment, and quite frankly, the strength of our B2B marketing efforts.  We have been winning awards and accolades for these things.  We put in the first chief blogger, first chief listener, moved our team into social media prominence.  We were doing these things before it was cool, and before everyone else.  This comes from a really innovative company, and I did it with the team that was already there.  All I had to do was be myself and be encouraging, creating a playing field to let winners win.  I am very proud of that.  When I go to marketing meetings, people always ask how many new people I brought in at the top, and I say none, and they are shocked."

Jeff's last official day as an employee at Kodak is May 28th, although he will stay on in a consulting role through the summer.  He will be relocating from Rochester, New York, to New York City, although he says, "We still have our house in South Dakota, and for us, that is really 'home' home.  I only get there about three times a year normally.  This year, I have been there more.  My son is graduating next week and gets married next month.  And we will miss Rochester.  It is a beautiful community."

For those of you who are connected to him on LinkedIn and follow him on Twitter, I am sure you will still be hearing from him.  Meanwhile, WhatTheyThink will keep in touch to find out what's next for Hayzlett.  Our bets are on a television gig, at a minimum. I heard they were pulling the plug on Law & Order.  Who knows, maybe Jeff's gig will take that slot!