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Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. “CEO succession is the board’s No. 1 job, says leadership expert and Harvard Business School executive education fellow Bill George. “In my experience, across hundreds of companies, businesses rise or fall with decisions on CEO succession. Yet according to a new report by executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles, only 26% of directors and CEOs say that chief executive transition is among their top priorities. Another 40% don’t consider it a priority at all. Tom Monahan, CEO of Heidrick & Struggles, says succession can get crowded out if boards get pulled into crises or are distracted by other issues. As a leader, you have days where you say, the most important thing today is do this, and you look up and [realize] I spent two hours on [my] coffee selection, he says. It turns out boards seem to have some of that as well.” And when they do turn to succession, too often directors are trying to figure out who could step into the role immediately in the event of an emergency, such as the unexpected death of a CEO. Instead, Monahan says boards should remember that CEO succession is a strategy exercise. “We do see more boards and leadership teams treating succession as a process, not a project, he says. If you look at companies where it’s a projectCEO says I’m retiring, board says it’s time to move, we kick into place a projectthat compresses a lot of important strategic activity into probably too narrow a timetable. The Berkshire Hathaway model Heidrick & Struggless “Route to the Top” report praises the CEO succession process at Berkshire Hathaway. CEO Warren Buffett earlier this year announced his plans to retire at the end of 2025. But Buffett, 94, had been talking about his replacement for more than a decade, and in 2021, the company anointed Greg Abel, who currently serves as chair of Berkshire Hathaway Energy and vice chairman of the conglomerates non-insurance businesses. In a time when CEO transitions often spark volatility or uncertainty, Berkshires process delivered confidence, continuity, and clarity to the market, the report concludes. CEO succession has become something of a parlor game in investor and media circles, especially at high-profile companies such as Apple and Disney. (Please check out my colleague David Lidskys surprising take on who should succeed Bob Iger at Disney.) The founder-CEO challenge Replacing founder-CEOs can be especially challenging because the entrepreneur is so personally tied to the company and can have a hard time letting go. A founder is also one of a companys largest shareholders and may feel compelled to step in when the company struggles. Michael Dell, for example, returned to the top job at his eponymous tech company in 2007 after the computer maker started to lose market share, among other issues. If you have a founder who has been able to conceptualize an idea and scale a company, thats a rare set of talents, and youre not going to be able to replicate that, Monahan says. Monahan encourages boards to make clear which committee will be responsible for succession planning and then to make sure the topic is on the agenda. He says boards should have a process for meeting with executives in the C-suite, as those leaders are candidates to take over for the sitting CEO. And directors need to constantly assess the link between leadership and strategy to make sure theyre looking at candidates who can support the business in the future. And what is the role of the sitting CEO? CEOs should play an active role in training their successors, but don’t groom people in your own image, cautions George, who has served on the boards of Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil, Target, Novartis, Mayo Clinic, and Medtronic, where he was CEO for 10 years. Figure out what [the company] is going to need for the next 10 years, and find people with the mental agility and courage to look at it differently than you looked at it. What is your succession plan? CEOs, do you have a successor in placeand if not, whats holding you back from naming an heir apparent? Send your feedback to me at stephaniemehta@mansueto.com. Ill publish your responses in a future newsletter. Read more: CEO succession Who will be Tim Cooks successor? This founder was miserable as CEO, so she brought in a replacement How entrepreneurs should handle succession
Category:
E-Commerce
The days of flying just to move from point A to point B are over. Delta has just officially declared that were entering the era of the lifestyle airline. Nowadays, selecting a flight no longer means simply choosing an airline to fly with. It’s a multistep process that involves navigating a sea of ancillary fees, wading through seating charts, and selecting add-ons like extra legroom. Cutting through that noise requires brands to go to extra lengths to draw in customers. For Delta, that means repositioning itself as not just a form of transport, but also a luxury, personalized experience. The brand just refreshed its core identity for the first time since 2008 to embody that shift. In collaboration with the design firm DixonBaxi, Delta is rolling out a refresh that includes new brand colors, motion elements, and typography to appear as more than just an airline, according to Libby Tsoi, design director at DixonBaxi. [Image: courtesy DixonBaxi/Delta] Air travel gets a chaotic rebrand The landscape of air travel has been in a major state of flux over the past several years, as the top airline brands in the U.S. chase bigger bottom lines through an increasingly complex fee system. According to a Senate report released late last year, between 2018 and 2023, the airlines American, Delta, United, Spirit, and Frontier collectively raked in $12.4 billion in revenue from ancillary fees like advanced seat assignments and carry-on bags. In 2024 alone, Spirit Airlines moved further from its origins as a low-budget carrier by implementing a new seat class with extra add-ons, while Southwest abandoned its iconic bags fly free and open seating policies altogether in favor of a tiered pricing system. This July, Delta announced that it has begun using AI to institute dynamic pricing based on factors like seat availability, current news, weather conditions, and even fluctuating oil prices. As brands continue to ratchet up their extra add-ons, theyre starting to look more and more similar. That means the pressure to offer the next best perk or experience is mounting across the board. [Image: courtesy DixonBaxi/Delta] So far, Deltas answer to this conundrum has been to start branding its travel as a premium experience, rather than just a form of transportation. The brand is currently in the process of redesigning all of its planes’ interiors for a more luxe feel, including by installing new seat fabrics, mood lighting, and a swanky color palette. For its most high-paying ticket holders, it’s also begun rolling out a series of ultra-opulent airport lounges. In 2024, premium ticket offerings accounted for $5.2 billion out of Deltas total $15.6 billion revenue. Delta CEO Ed Bastian noted in the companys full-year earnings report that he expected consumers to increasingly seek the premium products and experiences that Delta provides. One way the company is supporting that goal is by adopting a more premium brand identity. [Image: courtesy DixonBaxi/Delta] Is this the beginning of the ‘lifestyle airline’ era? Deltas vision with this brand refresh was bold, Tsoi says. The brands end goal was to stand shoulder to shoulder with the worlds most iconic lifestyle brands. Lifestyle branding describes a kind of branding that expands a consumers brand association beyond an actual product to a way of living, based on that brands core values. Its become something of a buzzword across categories in recent months, with names like Tesla, Erewhon, and Sweetgreen all striving for lifestyle status in some capacity. [Image: courtesy DixonBaxi/Delta] Even our earliest creative campfires werent filled with aircraft, but with lifestyle imagerypeople, moments, stories, Tsoi says. This shift in mindset shaped everything: the tone, the aesthetic, the system. We brought an editorial sensibility to the visual language, framing Delta not just as a carrier of people, but as a curator of experience. To that end, Deltas updated look has a significantly less corporate feel. The lifestyle photography has been pulled out of the airport or plane altogether, showing Delta passengers in bustling cities and mountain vistas. The brands logo and wordmark remain physically unchanged, but DixonBaxi reimagined the classic Delta symbol as a 3D object, setting guidelines around how it can be used to bring motion into Deltas visual identity. Alongside the type foundry Pangram Pangram, DixonBaxi also developed two new bespoke typefaces: Delta Sans and Delta Serif. Delta Serif, which features sculpted terminals drawn directly from the angled geometry of the Delta icon, can be used in a thin weight that will eventually lend an artsier feel to Deltas website, boarding passes, and ad campaigns. And, while red and blue will remain core Delta colors, the full palette has been expanded to include more emotive accent hues like sky blue, mint green, and neon pink. The new look began rolling out on Deltas social channels over the past few weeks, and will eventually evolve to encompass lounges, in-flight design, and out-of-home ad campaigns. Tsoi emphasizes that the effort to reimagine Deltas branding has only just gotten underway, and fans can expect further updates in the coming months. [Image: courtesy DixonBaxi/Delta] Given Deltas status as a leading player in the industry, it wouldnt be a surprise if its move to become a lifestyle airline sets a new tone for how other airlines begin brand their own flight experiences.
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E-Commerce
Matthew Williams has slept very little since he learned about Sacha Stone’s plan to build a sovereign micronation on 60 acres of land near his home in rural Tennessee. What began as a quick Google search in April quickly became hours of research and then days, then weeks. It was between working on this and then stressing about working on this, he says. Within a month, between me and my wife, we watched over 30 hours of his videos. With his long hair and often bare chest, intense patter, and hundreds of thousands of online followers, the 59-year-old British “peace activist” looks like the archetype of a globetrotting, spiritual guru. In late June, Stone arrived in Surgoinsville, a sleepy hamlet 90 minutes northeast of Knoxville, to lead dozens of supporters in a “consecration” ceremony at the site, dedicating what he calls the NewEarth Tanasi Micronation as a template for the emergent Rainbow Warrior Tribe. But beyond the peace and rainbows, Williams had seen something much darker in Stones “sovereign” movement: a mix of extreme far-right ideas, an alliance of influential fringe figures like Michael Flynn and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and a revenge-minded rhetorical war against a parade of bogeymen, from governments to globalists. In June, Stone and dozens of supporters gathered at the NewEarth nation site in Surgoinsville, Tenn. [Photo: Matthew Williams] The battles have also become a brisk business, with speaking tours, retreats, health products and memberships, which Stone promotes to his hundreds of thousands of followers. For a “donation” of $10,000, Stone has said, members of the NewEarth micronation will be able to exist tax-free in a futuristic-looking residential enclave, with access to an on-site healing center specializing in advanced microbiology” and cures. A devoted Christian and libertarian, Williams, 31, believes in religious freedom and a hands-off approach by the government. (Both political parties would hate me, he says.) But for months, hes been pressing Hawkins County, where hes lived for two decades to do something, meeting with officials, hosting community meetings, posting signs and Facebook updates, and enlisting dozens of neighbors in building a local groundswell against NewEarth. If they were a hippie cult and they wanted to do stuff out in the middle of the woods, I couldnt care less, Williams says. But a lot of Sacha Stones theories kind of fall in line with that QAnon theory, and people here who associate themselves with QAnon tend to be extremist, right-wing, violent individuals. Stone and his deputies have been pushing back against Williams and the local opposition, insisting that his movement is peacefulthat it isnt a cultand decrying defamatory actions and false claims in local forums. Online, Stone has used more aggressive rhetoric, alluded to NewEarth members strapped with guns, and alleged that Williams and other critics are part of a Satanic conspiracy. Stone did not respond to questions from Fast Company. Local officials are uneasy too, but say the NewEarth group has broken no laws. It obviously is not something that most people in the community are looking forward to having in Hawkins County, Mayor Mark DeWitt told NBC affiliate WCYB in May. But we have to realize that right now, theres nothing that theyre doing that can stop them from being here at this point. Recently, Williams and two dozen neighbors began meeting near the site simply to pray together. Practically everyone weve talked to, theyre afraid, and theyre worried about what is coming, he says. Hes been carrying pepper spray too, just in case someone tries to do anything stupid.” This has Waco, Texas, written all over it “The world’s gone mad,” Sacha Stone told the audience, and he was mad too. It was August 2023 at the Las Vegas stop of the ReAwaken America Tour, a MAGA-themed religious roadshow, and hundreds of ticketholders had just watched MyPillow founder Mike Lindell deliver his evidence of election fraud; Donald Trump Jr. was that nights headliner. With pendants swaying across his bare torso, Stone gripped the microphone, and, temper flaring, raised his voice to offer his central message: “Do not comply, do not do anything, anything that moves against the spirit, that moves against your soul!” His British accent and aging rocker persona easily stood out at the ultraconservative confab, a Christian nationalist revival meeting-meets-QAnon expo cofounded by former Trump national security adviser and QAnon icon Michael Flynn in the wake of January 6. But his speech recited many familiar claims. “They are planning to asphyxiate your children and your parents from God-given oxygen, and inject mRNA, genetic therapy, into every single child in this blessed country, he told the audience. The government gives you two things: mind control and trafficking. Thats it baby! Thats it! Sacha Stone at the Arise USA tour in Milton, Florida, in May 2021 [Photo: ZimmComm/Flickr] For more than a decade, Stones “sovereignty” movement has pit him against an array of existential threats: 5G, COVID-19 vaccinations, Bill Gates, the World Health Organization, the deep tate, pedophiles, the United Nations, Jesuits, the Vatican, globalists and cabals suppressing advanced, alien technologies and violating “natural law.” One project, the International Tribunal of Natural Justice (ITNJ), has held hearings that purport to show corporations hiding as government engaged in human trafficking and child sex abuse. At times, Stone has argued that satanic government policies warrant violent resistance. At some point, you have to drag these people into the market square we have to hang them by the neck until dead, if they continue to stick HIV/AIDS into our babies, he said in 2021. Years after the pandemic, messages like Stones are flourishing online. With a two-time president who’s built a political career out of spreading falsehoods and promoting conspiracy theorists, even hiring them to top cabinet posts, Trumps second term has given new permission to wild, inflammatory ideas and the profiteers who push them. Social media companies have loosened their rules around false content, too, just as the Trump administration has slashed funding for misinformation research, and gutted the Homeland Security office responsible for helping localities counter domestic extremism. All of this is particularly concerning now, since the evidence suggests that conspiracy thinking is fueling historically high levels of polarization and political violence, from the attack on the Capitol to a wave of attacks and assassinations. Of course, the country has been mired in dangerous conspiracy theories since long before Trump leapt onto Fox News with questions about President Barack Obamas birthplace (or onto Jeffrey Epsteins jet, for that matter). Since the early 2010s, Stone has cultivated a kind of spiritual conspiracismembraced for decades by both the countercultural left and the Christian rightand leveraged a motley alliance of very online freedom fighters, from anti-vax advocates and cosmic starseeds to tax protesters, pedophile-fighting patriots and white supremacists. But his right-wing ideology of sovereignty, with its illiberal, authoritarian leanings, also descends from a tradition that dates back hundreds of years. One of Stone’s recurring fixations are the Sabbateans, a 17th-century Messianic Jewish movement that has become a focus of contemporary antisemitic conspiracy theories. Stone has managed to evade direct controversy for years by avoiding explicitly antisemitic language, and cloaking his theories in lengthy monologues with seemingly harmless, esoteric ideas about geoportals or the mechanics of ascension. In a 2017 talk in Dartington, England, posted on YouTube, he invites his audience to question whether Hitler was misrepresented in historical accounts. Adolf Hitler, the big bad scary guy, well thats a very compelling spellbinding [sic], he said, adding that ninety percent of the facts that we spout about the Second World War were introduced in 1952. Stones fortunes changed during the pandemic, when his anti-vaccine rants led YouTube and then Facebook to temporarily remove his accounts, costing him tens of thousands of followers. But as public trust sank and social media algorithms fed a fevered search for answers, the pandemic and America’s political chaos also opened new avenues for Stone’s repertoire of spiritualism, anti-government conspiracies, and commercial hustles. He drew support from networks of conspiracy superspreaders, like the “World Doctors Alliance,” a transatlantic group of vaccine skeptic health practitioners that reached millions during the pandemic. Neighbors posted protest signs around Stanley Valley ahead of Stone’s arrival. [Photo: Matthew Williams] New Age, esoteric strains of conspiracy thinking, like those that animate Stones movement, arent inherently far-right, says Marc Tuters, an assistant professor in media studies at the University of Amsterdam who examines political subcultures. But, he says, esoteric ideas have historically been popular in fascist movements, and notions that everything is connected and nothing is as it seems can easily slide into conspiracy thinking. When that happens, Tuters warns, it becomes dangerous, because it undermines the trust that holds society together. Amid legitimate concerns about failing political elites, the internet has provided the perfect environment for that kind of thinking to thrive, a place where anyone can become a kind of channel and broadcaster, says Tuters. A cursory web search only begins to hint at Stones reach, which now extends to more than 450 thousand followers across Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, Rumble and Telegram. By June 2024, his videos had racked up over 25 million views, not including the videos that have been taken down, like his 2019 documentary 5G Apocalypse. The hour-long filmin which he alleges the phone networks are weapons that cause dementia, diabetes and mental illnessreached more than 1 million views
Category:
E-Commerce
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