Agility Champions: CEOs on Time-Competitive Execution

Goldman Sachs is a titan of finance but, for a giant, it is remarkably dynamic. Our MIT research has identified the company as an Agility Champion. Agility is a strategic dimension of culture that allows a firm to respond to changing market circumstances and nimbly seize emerging opportunities. In this discussion, Jacqueline Arthur, Goldman’s senior-most human capital management executive, walks t...

Kunal Kapoor is the CEO of Morningstar.  In 1984, Morningstar was founded out of a Chicago apartment, named after a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote. The company aimed to empower investors to make more successful decisions by providing them with high quality insights. Ten years later, Morningstar had about 200 employees, and around that time Kunal became one of them.  Since then, the company has indeed t...

Craig Kliethermes is the CEO of RLI Insurance Company In 1961, Gerald Stephens founded Replacement Lens Inc to offer a novel insurance policy that covered the cost of replacing contact lenses. As the price of contacts fell over time, insurance demand fell as well, but RLI already diversified into other niche insurance markets.  Today, RLI offers dozens of highly specialized insurance products acro...

Adam Holton is the Chief People Officer of GE HealthCare.  General Electric entered the healthcare more than one hundred years ago. In January 2023, GE HealthCare was spun off from General Electric as a publicly traded company with more than 50,000 employees and 2024 revenue of nearly $20 billion.  Especially since its spin-off, GE HealthCare has cultivated a best-in-industry culture, as measured...

When Steve joined Milwaukee Tool as president in 2007, the company was 83 years old and sold a limited range of traditional power tools During his tenure as president, Steve led a remarkable transformation of the company’s strategy and culture that produced a steady stream of technical and product innovations.  Today, Milwaukee Tool sells a wide range of cordless power tools for the building trade...

Loren Shuster is the Chief People Officer at the LEGO Group. 92 years after its founding in Billund, Denmark, the LEGO Group today ranks first among most reputable companies in the world, according to RepTrak’s 2024 list. The world’s largest tire manufacturer (although it does not make large tires), the LEGO Group has increased revenues at a 10% compound annual growth rate over the past five years...

Sharon MacBeath is the seniormost executive responsible for human resources at Hermès, where she sits on the company’s executive board.  Hermès was founded in 1837 when expert leather maker Thierry Hermès opened a Paris workshop to make horse harnesses for European nobility. The company has thrived since then while maintaining its commitment to exquisite craftmanship and uncompromising quality acr...

Manny Maceda has the unique distinction of being the seniormost leader of the best-led company in America, according to Glassdoor’s 2024 Best-Led Companies list.  Bain and Company, which Manny led as Worldwide Managing Partner up until recently, when he transitioned to Chairman, was also ranked #1 in Glassdoor’s 2024 Best Paces to Work list, and has been the top-ranked consulting firm on Glassdoor...

During Katie Burke’s tenure as Chief People Officer, HubSpot was one of the brightest stars of the tech universe that shone both culturally and financially.  HubSpot boasted the highest average culture rating within the enterprise software industry, which itself had the highest average culture rating of the fifty industries we measured. HubSpot ranked #2 among all large US employers in Glassdoor’s...

Marvin Boakye is the Chief Human Resources Officer of Cummins, where he oversees all aspects of recruitment, people operations, learning and development, culture, and the employee experience. Cummins is a manufacturer and distributor of engines, power sources, and components for vehicles and industrial use. The firm has nearly 75,000 employees across 190 countries, and ranks #146 in the Fortune 50...

Jim Whitehurst has the distinction of leading not one, two companies who were Culture Champions at the time of his leadership: Delta and Red Hat.  As Chief Operating Officer, Jim navigated Delta through a hostile takeover bid and bankruptcy in 2005, maintaining the airline’s distinctive culture, and positioning it to thrive in the future. Jim then joined open-source software pioneer Red Hat as CEO...