He boldly lopped off Xerox's entire interest in financial services, directing the company back to its major strengths – the production of what Xerox called "document systems." In 1997, Allaire hired G. Richard "Rick" Thoman from IBM as Xerox President and COO which positioned Thoman as the eventual successor, and this news caused the company shares to rise $2 (2.9%) to $71.75 on the New York Stock Exchange, after earlier touching a record $73.25. A protégé of Lou Gerstner, Thoman was serving as Senior Vice President and CFO of IBM, and before that as Senior Vice President and general manager of IBM's Personal Systems Group which he led a successful turnaround. In April 1999 at the company annual meeting, Allaire was succeeded as CEO by Thoman but remained chairman of the board; Allaire had intended to retire but the board convinced him to stay on since Thoman was an outsider. As a nod to CFO Barry D. Romeril and William F. Buehler, who were Allaire loyalists that were ending up passed over in the succession planning, Allaire requested that they be given seats on the board as vice-chairman. Allaire and Thoman both shared the vision that Xerox needed to reinvent itself to succeed in the Digital Age, and Thoman's record of working with Gerstner in IBM's turnaround made him the ideal person to lead the transformation. However, it has been reported that many of Xerox's senior executives including Romeril and Buehler remained loyal to Allaire and viewed Thoman as an outsider. These undercut Thoman's authority as CEO, as he was only able to make a few senior management changes, and the entrenched bureaucracy as Xerox (nicknamed "Burox") provided passive resistance to Thoman's initiatives. This in turn may have contributed to several botched reorganizations under his tenure. After Thoman was fired in 2000, Allaire was once again appointed CEO, and he promoted Anne M. Mulcahy to President and COO. Allaire retired as CEO on August 1, 2001, being succeeded by Mulcahy. Allaire remained chairman of the board until the end of 2001. After leaving Xerox, Allaire became the chairman of GlaxoSmithKline's remuneration committee where he remained until his retirement in 2003, which was forced as part of a settlement with the SEC. He is also a former member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group.