
Why Skills-First Leadership Is Replacing the Ivy League Playbook in the C-Suite
The old prestige pyramid—where Ivy League degrees and blue-chip consulting backgrounds paved the way to the CEO seat—is cracking.
September 19, 2022: -On Thursday, FedEx CEO Raj Subramaniam said that he believes a slump is impending for the global economy.
“I think so. But you know, these numbers don’t portend very well,” Subramaniam said in response to the question of whether the economy is “going into a recession in the whole world.”
The CEO’s pessimism came following FedEx’s missed estimates on revenue and profits in its first quarter. The company also withdrew its full-year guidance.
On Thursday, the shares of FedEx decreased 15% in extended trading.
“I’m very disappointed in the results that we are just saying here, and you know, the headline is the macro situation that we are facing,” Subramaniam said in an interview.
The chief executive, assuming the position earlier this year, said that weakening global shipment volumes is driving FedEx’s disappointing results. While the company anticipated growing demand after factories shuttered in China because Covid opened back up, it failed.
“Week over a week over week, that came down,” Subramaniam said.
The chief executive also stated that the loss in volume is wide-reaching and that the company has seen weekly refuses since around its investor day in June.
“We’re seeing that volume refuse in every segment around the world, and so you know, we’ve just begun our second quarter,” he added. “The weekly numbers are not looking so good, so we assume at this point that the economic conditions are not good.”
“We are a reflection of anyone else’s business, especially the high-value economy in the whole world,” he added.
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The old prestige pyramid—where Ivy League degrees and blue-chip consulting backgrounds paved the way to the CEO seat—is cracking.
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