"The one quote from my father that stands out is to focus on the things that you can control and the only thing that you can control is your performance." -Kenneth Chenault
Kenneth Chenault was born in Minneola, Long Island, as the son of a dental hygienist and dentist. He grew up in an affluent suburban neighborhood of Hempstead, L.I., and went to The Waldorf private school, Bowdoin College and Harvard Law School, where he graduated with a juris doctor degree. His leadership qualities were notable as early as middle school when he captained the basketball, soccer, and track teams and was also elected class president.
After starting in a corporate law firm, Rogers and Wells in New York, he switched to Bain and Co. from 1979 to 1981. He joined American Express in 1981 working in the Strategic Planning Group and became President and COO in 1997. He became CEO in 2007 and is currently the CEO and Chairman of American Express Company. He is the third African-American CEO of a Fortune 500 company. In addition, he is a Director at IBM.
We feature him this week for being an extraordinarily successful African-American business person. According to reports, he was different from other African American activists of his time since he believed that the cause was best addressed from the inside and not when it involves attacking unfairness from the outside. His equanimity and poise are noted from many comments on the internet, with one striking example of his interpersonal skills of working with the former CEO, Harvey Gollub, who was notoriously difficult to work with.
When we study his profile, it is clear that he learned much of his determination from his father and that his intellectual skills and social intelligence held him in high esteem amongst many of the people with whom he had worked. Coupled with a fervent loyalty to Amex, Kenneth is in inspiration as a modern leader who overcame many social obstacles despite his privileged upbringing to rise to the top of his profession.
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“There isn’t a worthwhile thing in the world that can’t be accomplished with good hard work. You’ve got to want something first and then have to go after it with all your heart and soul.” Margaret Fogarty Rudkin
Using her grandmother’s recipe for whole-wheat bread with old-fashioned ingredients, she came up with a loaf of bread that eventually helped her son’s health and after initially making small batches, she was producing 4000 loaves a bread weekly. By 1940, when she was 43, she was producing 50,000 loaves of bread a year and by 1967, when she died, she was selling about 70 million loaves of bread annually. The average annual growth rate for the company was 53%.
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Sir Ratan Naval Tata is an Indian businessman who became Chairman of the Tata Group, an Indian conglomerate based in Mumbai, India. Born on December 28, 1937, Sir Ratan Tata had a difficult childhood after his parents separated; he was raised by his grandmother in Mumbai. He graduated from Cornell University with a degree in Architecture and Structural Engineering. His personal life is notable for the fact that he came close to getting married four times but each time he came close, he is noted to have said that he backed off in fear. He has no regrets about his decisions.
Aside from his business prowess, Sir Ratan Tata is also widely recognized as a philanthropist. After the fatal attacks at the Taj Hotel in Mumbai, Sir Tata is noted for his uncompromising generosity to victims, their families, and even the beggars on the streets who happened to be present at the time of the attacks. Details of what he did can be found at Pravsworld.
He is scheduled to retire this year (2012) at the age of 75.
Gerard Swope was the President of General Electric (GE) Company between 1922 and 1939 and again from 1942 to 1944. Some of his major contributions include the integration of small appliances into GE’s sales pipelines, as well as offering consumer credit.
Swope is best known for his labor relations innovation including labor reforms, making conditions better for employees with voluntary unemployment insurance, profit-sharing, and other programs considered radical in their day. Even though he focused on employee retention and training, he increased sales and overall efficiency, earning high profits and market shares.
In 2005, Forbes magazine ranked Swope the 20th most influential businessman of all time. Swope was born in St. Louis, Missouri to Jewish immigrant parents. He graduated from MIT in 1895. During his time at GE, this expansion was so successful that by 1930, it accounted for 50% of GE’s business. Under Swope’s guidance, GE’s sales grew from $200 million in 1922 to $1.35 billion in 1944.
We highlight Swope for his business acumen combined with his attention to labor conditions. This shows that doing good for others can increase your sales. He was a representative of conscious capitalism without knowing it by this term. Instead, he championed the causes with which he resonated.
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