Corporate Leadership Quotes

It is incredibly fun to run a company like AMD.

Paul Otellini, the former CEO of Intel, I worked with while I was still with VMware. I knew Ram Shriram through the tech industry.

Personal ambition is 'I want to be CEO.' Greater vision ambition is, 'I want to lead this company so that people want to work here.'

I'm bored, I'm the chairman of the board.

Being a president is being a CEO, essentially.

When I was president of the company, I said, 'Okay, I can do this - piece of cake.' Then when you are the CEO, the responsibilities multiply enormously because you worry about everything.

You know, I think when people are in important positions in big organizations, they often get tied up with the minutia of managing money, managing things. They often forget that people deserve to be led.

Companies the size of PepsiCo is like running a little republic, there is no question about it. The only difference is that I don't have to worry about the media hounding me every day, on every word that I say. I have a board of directors that runs the country in the interest of the stake holders.

Why would I ever want to run Disney? Wouldn't it make more sense just to sell them Pixar and retire?

I've had a terrific life, from building one company to be the second largest company in the securities industry and merging that into American Express, and becoming president of that company.

I was, as president and chairman of the board, required by law to verify the veracity of the financial figures, the assets under management, the number of outstanding shares, et cetera.

The executive moves we are announcing today will strengthen American for the long-term future and reflect well on the depth of the Company's management team.

Running a company is pretty demanding.

CEOs make hard decisions; sometimes, the least worst is the right one.

Abby Johnson has agreed to become Chief Executive Officer of Fidelity, reflecting a further step forward in our leadership succession plan. Abby will retain her role of President, and I will continue to serve as Chairman of the Board.

I'm the non-executive chairman of nine or so major companies, and on the nine companies, it's a little trying because you jump from one industry to another, as the case might be. But one had the reasonable knowledge of those nine activities, and it's been an exciting job.

If Bill Gates left Microsoft we wouldn't allow Donald Trump to run it.

Whether you were talking about Pillsbury, Burger King, Godfather's, the National Restaurant Association, in each one of those situations, I had a daunting problem that I had to solve. And I used the same business principles to approach the problem and, more importantly, solve the problem in every one of the situations.

Business people have been made into these rock stars because they've made a lot of money.

When I was growing up, my father helped kindle my passion for innovation and technology. He was a high-ranking executive at AT&T and used our family dinner table as a focus group.

I've been a comedian since I was fourteen. But I've never really been a CEO.

I'm in a different position than most CEO's. I'm a founder. I'm not a hired CEO. Now, I can be fired by the board, but most CEO's are hired by the board.

Some people worry about our federal deficit, but I, I worry about our bravery deficit. Our economy, our society - we're just losing out because we're not raising our girls to be brave. The bravery deficit is why women are underrepresented in STEM, in C-suites, in boardrooms, in Congress, and pretty much everywhere you look.

I have spent some time talking to Rex Tillerson. He's an amazing human being. He's an American success story, not just in his business life. He's a rags-to-riches success story. He stated working at 8, lived in a one-bedroom house until the time he went to college, and grew to become the CEO of one of the world's largest companies.

If the employees fundamentally trust the C.E.O., then communications will be vastly more efficient than if they don't. Telling things as they are is a critical part of building this trust.