Leadership Next

Typically, company CEOs also serve as Chairman of the Board. But that's not the case at AT&T. Bill Kennard is the newly installed Chair at AT&T and today, he's our guest on Leadership Next. The pandemic has made clear the importance of universal broadband access - and just how far the U.S. is from that goal. Kids struggling to connect to remote school "hits us in our gut" Kennard tells Alan Murray...

Ever since he fell ill with COVID-19, Visa CEO Al Kelly has made sure his 21,000 employees know they have a role to play in ending the global pandemic. And while he's made a full recovery, he admits Visa is still feeling some pain as the coronavirus continues to depress spending on travel and entertainment. But long-term, it seems as though the pandemic may wind up being good for business. Alan Mu...

One year ago we were just beginning to feel the impact of COVID-19 here in the U.S. And our efforts to fight the virus were in early innings.  But it was already clear to 3M's Mike Roman that the coronavirus was a force to be reckoned with. 3M is the company behind N95 respirators. Demand for the product took off early last year, and has remained incredibly high ever since.. Today on Leadership Ne...

Has the stock market lost touch with reality? That’s the first thing Alan Murray and Ellen McGirt want to know from this week’s Leadership Next guest, S&P Global CEO Doug Peterson. The conversation quickly turns to talk of ESG investing – the desire by investors to know their money is being invested in companies that are doing good for people and planet. Recent studies have shown that not only are...

Jeff Immelt was the CEO of General Electric for 16 years. It was a controversial run to say the least. During his tenure company stock plunged, wiping out well over $100 billion in market value. Now, Immelt is ready to talk about what went wrong – and, what went right. He’s written a new book called Hot Seat: What I Learned Leading a Great American Company. And today, he joins Alan Murray and Elle...

Years ago, the average person didn’t have a cell phone – mobile phones were a tool used primarily by big business. Of course today everyone has a phone in their pocket. Peggy Johnson believes augmented reality tech is going to follow this same trajectory. She’s the new CEO of Magic Leap, a startup founded in 2010 that makes augmented reality headsets. When it became clear that selling these device...

Fed up with razor blades that irritated his skin, and tired of walking down “ethnic” beauty aisles, entrepreneur Tristan Walker decided to start his own company. In 2013 he launched Bevel, a suite of shaving products designed for Black men.  Walker & Company Brands was acquired by Procter & Gamble in 2018, making Tristan the first Black CEO of a P&G subsidiary.   In this episode of Leadership Next...

Each year Fortune assembles about 50 of the top CEOs in the world for a dinner on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Of course this year, the annual event was postponed due to COVID-19. But Fortune still wanted to convene this group to discuss how business could best join forces to make a positive impact in 2021. How can all of us emerge from the global pandemic stron...

Leadership Next kicks off a new season with important discussions around Black Americans and work. Alan Murray and Ellen McGirt speak with tech executive Charles Phillips who is a founding member of OneTen – a coalition of business leaders committing to hire one million employees of color over the next ten years. Phillips explains how the group came about, and why it’s so important. He talks about...

Leadership Next has wrapped for the year. We’ll be back with more CEO interviews in January, when we kick off Season 2.  In the meantime, we invite you to check out - and subscribe - to a new Fortune podcast: Fortune Brainstorm.   Each week hosts Michal Lev-Ram and Brian O’Keefe talk about how tech is reshaping our world. They’ve explored how robots are identifying COVID-19, how AI is preventing w...

The first episode of Leadership Next launched on March 17th, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was gearing up to wallop the U.S. Over the next nine months, Alan Murray and Ellen McGirt talked to CEOs of some of the world's largest companies about how they were making decisions during this difficult time. Because of course the difficulty didn't stop with a health crisis. It led to economic upheaval too...

It has not been an easy time to be leading an oil company as the pandemic pushed down both oil demand and prices. Meanwhile, the UN is pushing for a future of zero net carbon emissions, and many countries and global companies have signed on to meet the goal. Does all of this mean we've hit "peak oil?" Chevron's CEO, Mike Wirth, says no. He explains his thinking on this episode of Leadership Next,...

With coronavirus hitting the U.S. with renewed force, are we on the verge of a double-dip recession?  That’s the first question Alan Murray and Ellen McGirt had for Roger Ferguson, the CEO of TIAA. Before leading the money management firm, Ferguson spent several years at the Federal Reserve. This background gives him great perspective on the roles business and government play in building a strong...

When Ethan Brown set out to look for a job, he wanted to tackle what he saw as one of the world’s biggest problems – climate change. After stints in government and the non-profit world, he found himself frustrated with the plodding pace of change. He decided business had the most power to move the needle on the problem. Enter Beyond Meat: his company that had a wildly successful IPO last year.  Hi...

In March of 2020, Kohl’s CEO Michelle Gass was preparing to unveil a retooled strategy for the retailer. Instead, she had to shelve those plans and face the coronavirus pandemic. In this episode of Leadership Next, she details many of the hard decisions she and her team had to make to keep employees safe and the business running. Kohl’s has long called itself an omnichannel retailer and, as Gass s...

Not many people obtain the title of CEO. But John Donahoe has held the position four times. He’s currently the CEO of Nike. Before he accepted that job, however, he took a year off to figure out what he really wanted the next decade of his life to look like. He solicited advice from 50 people during that period – much of which he summarizes and shares with Alan and Ellen.   Ultimately, that search...

In a nod to Election Day, Leadership Next is engaging in a hallmark of American democracy: debate. Part of the thesis on this podcast is that business is changing. The best leaders recognize that to motivate their employees, customers - and sometimes their investors - they need a purpose beyond profit. And they need to be willing to address some big social problems like climate change and inequali...

Paul Hudson became CEO of pharmaceutical company Sanofi in September 2019, just months before the COVID-19 pandemic. His company has moved quickly to develop vaccines for the illness. In this episode of Leadership Next, he shares the progress they’ve made. He also shares his enthusiasm for the new technology and tools the company is using to fight disease – COVID-19 of course, but also Parkinson’s...

Here’s a first for Leadership Next: an episode that begins with a story about being mauled by an elephant. The victim of that event: Tom Siebel, CEO of C3.ai, and a long-time Silicon Valley entrepreneur. Almost equally as unusual, in this episode Siebel lays out the case for government regulation of artificial intelligence – not something you expect to hear from the leader of an A.I. company. “If...

HP – the company perhaps best known for outfitting homes and businesses across the world with computers and printers – is widely considered the original Silicon Valley tech company. It was founded in a small garage in 1939; at the time it was called Hewlett-Packard.  Today, HP is run by Enrique Lores, who started at the company as an intern and moved into the corner office about a year ago.  Leade...

In its first year of life, Whole Foods Market had a “near-death” experience. Founder and long-time CEO John Mackey tells Leadership Next that a flood nearly destroyed the store – none of the damages were covered by insurance. But employees and customers banded together to clean things up, and a local banker personally guaranteed a loan to get Whole Foods back on its feet. This was Mackey’s first r...

Ursula Burns is not afraid to speak her mind. And she has lots to say in this episode of Leadership Next.  As the CEO of Xerox, Burns was the first and only Black woman to run a Fortune 500 company.  She stepped down from that position in 2016 and has refocused her energy on a new goal: diversifying corporate boards. She’s doing so through a new group, The Board Diversity Action Alliance.    But c...

Ab InBev may be the world’s largest brewer, but in many ways it’s a local company. CEO Carlos Brito tells Leadership Next 95% of the company’s products are brewed locally from local ingredients, and then sold locally. That means the company’s policies have a direct impact on communities around the world. And it makes caring for those communities a clear business imperative.  Brito shares some spec...

Marvin Ellison is one of just four Black CEOs to lead a Fortune 500 company. And the company he runs - home retailer Lowe's - has been booming since the pandemic struck. Sales rose 35 percent in the most recent quarter, and online sales were up 135 percent. Leadership Next's Alan Murray asks if that demand will continue. The heart of the episode however comes when Ellison talks about his efforts t...

It’s no surprise that the coronavirus pandemic has pushed more people than ever before towards digital payments. What is surprising is just how dramatic that shift has been. PayPal CEO Dan Schulman lays out those details in this episode of Leadership Next. But what he truly wants to talk about is what this means for all of those who have been left behind by America’s economic system. He’s convince...