Remembering FedEx's Fred Smith, a CEO of CEOs

The last time I saw Fred Smith was just a few weeks ago, at a meeting in Nashville. We were taking a quick break from an intense dialogue with leaders across the political spectrum. Fred had been calling for dialogue, for common ground, for a way forward. The room was loud, full of opinions. As we got up, Fred took me aside to coach me, as he often did: “Now is the time to lead with our values,” he told me. That was Fred: clear in his convictions, generous in his vision, and unwavering in his belief that business could—and must—be a force for good in the world. Fred Smith is of course a giant in the history of American business. His vision and daring revolutionized global commerce and connected the world in unprecedented ways. But to those who knew him, Fred was something even rarer: a leader whose values ran even deeper than his ambition. I saw that moral compass in action during the first chaotic weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hospitals were desperate for protective gear, and at Salesforce we were racing to source and deliver what we could. One breakthrough came when our team located 500,000 surgical masks in Los Angeles—but we had no way to get them quickly to hospitals in San Francisco. I called Fred. Without hesitation, he and his son Richard, a senior executive at FedEx, offered help, and within hours the masks were on trucks and on their way. That one shipment saved lives. And that moment told you everything you needed to know about Fred: decisive, humble, always leading with purpose. It should be noted that FedEx was ultimately responsible for the successful distribution of roughly half of all COVID-19 vaccines in the United States. FedEx, under Fred’s leadership, was an innovative company as well as an ethical one, among the earliest global leaders in corporate responsibility and philanthropy. That legacy came from the top. Fred believed in delivering with excellence, acting with integrity and putting people first. Over the years, I saw Fred often as a fellow member of the Business Council, as a guest at dinners that I hosted and elsewhere. He wasn’t the most frequent speaker in those settings, but when he had something to say, the room listened. His wisdom was grounded in experience and offered without ego. That’s what made him a leader of leaders. A CEO of CEOs. Fred and I also shared a deep devotion to our hometowns—mine, San Francisco; his, Memphis, the city he loved and helped transform by making it a global center of commerce and through decades of quiet generosity to education, health care, the arts and community development. I’ve been thinking, too, about how Fred didn’t just build a company. FedEx redefined what was possible, making the world feel smaller, faster, more interconnected. In its own way, it joined the ranks of the greatest technological breakthroughs – the telephone, the internet – in collapsing time and geography. That’s a legacy few can claim. I’ll miss Fred greatly: his voice, his example, his values. But I know they live on—in his family, in the leadership of the company he built, and in all of us lucky enough to have learned from him.