Fortune

Last year, Thasunda Brown Duckett, President and CEO of TIAA spoke to the graduating class of the MBA program at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She reflected on her speech in a personal Linkedln post, where she shared some of her key reflections. “And what I know today, as a leader, is that I rent my title, but I own my character,” Duckett wrote. “I get introduced as Thasunda Brown Duckett, President and CEO of TIAA. But that title is rented. It describes me, but it doesn’t define me. I earned it, but I don’t own it. To own something feels entirely different. When you own something, it belongs to you. You can claim it and proclaim it. It’s yours,” she added. bit.ly/3Lcsu6J

Alejandro Reynal is the perfect CEO for Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, I learned from talking to him for CEO Agenda. Thanks to Lynn Yu for making the intro. If you’d ask an advanced AI model to come up with the ideal CEO for Four Seasons, the luxury hospitality group owned by Bill Gates that operates 130 hotels in 47 countries, and offers “experiential offerings” on yachts, jets, and the world’s most exclusive bars and restaurants, I figure it would suggest someone like Alejandro Reynal. Reynal looks the part: in his early 50s, the hospitality executive is well-groomed, likes to stay fit, and has his home base in Miami, a city that bathes in new luxury developments. The Harvard Business School graduate also speaks in a polished and polite way, exuding the sense of high-end hospitality synonymous with the hotel group. Reynal’s answers in today’s CEO Agenda reinforce that image. He reveals that some top managers really do live and lead in a textbook way. Reynal gets up at 5 a.m. for a workout and meditation, likes to clear his inbox at the end of each day, and looks up to giants of the managerial class, such as Roberto Goizueta, the former Coca-Cola CEO. If other CEOs in this series indicate some hints of eccentricity or peculiar personality traits, in our more personal questions, Reynal displayed none of it, either. His favorite company as a consumer? Four Seasons, he said at first, before reverting to Montblanc, the Swiss high-end pen manufacturer. Even our Zoom conversation was timed to perfection. Though being so “perfect” isn’t my style – my inbox is currently at 8,307 unread, and I’m lucky if I get a workout once a week – I found it somehow fitting that the head of the world’s most luxurious hospitality group does live up to the image. This may be the smoothest, most polished #CEO Agenda so far. And that’s alright with me.

“Getting good sleep is crucial,” says multimillionaire music mogul Simon Cowell. “You hear about these people who survive on four hours of sleep a night and I’m like, how? I need 10 hours if possible.” Cowell’s comments mark an exception from the sleeping schedules of high-flying execs. A 2022 poll of Fortune 500 CEOs found the average boss got about 6.3 hours of sleep per night. Other wellness-focused business leaders, including anti-aging guru Bryan Johnson, have called out the “mythology” around tech giants who pride themselves on how little they can sleep. “I really believe that sleep is the best medicine that your body can have,” Cowell said, admitting that if “old Simon” heard him say that, his reply would be “yeah, right.” Here's your ultimate guide to getting a good night’s sleep: bit.ly/3RVnSFL

POV: you're celebrating the Fourth of July in 1936. bit.ly/3VPrkmr

When Steve Ballmer joined Microsoft he didn’t get a single company share. But now, his skyrocketing Microsoft holdings have made him richer than the company’s founder. The 68-year-old former Microsoft CEO squeaked by his onetime boss Bill Gates to become the sixth richest person in the world on Monday with a net worth of $157 billion. He is now richer than many well-known tech entrepreneurs including Google cofounder Sergey Brin, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, and Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell. It’s also the first time that Ballmer’s net worth has surpassed that of Gates, and one of the few times in history an employee has come to be richer than a company’s founder. Read more: https://lnkd.in/ebxs77hP

Say what you will about Tom Brady, there’s no undercutting his singularity—or the endless fascination with how he “gets it done.” During his momentous football career, the longtime New England Patriots quarterback won seven Super Bowl rings—the most of any player, ever—and garnered a reputation for being fastidious and disciplined. (TB12, anyone?) In his second act, Brady has pivoted toward everything from NFTs to FTX to sports commentating to, most recently, partnering with Delta Air Lines as an advisor. He appeared opposite CEO Ed Bastian on Delta’s Gaining Altitude podcast this week to discuss his virtues and values and reflect on what’s put him ahead of the pack. bit.ly/4bxl5tx

Making it to the Olympics is “a non-stop grind,” according to soccer star Lindsey Horan. The 30-year-old co-captain of the U.S. Women’s National Team is gearing up for her third Olympics this summer after helping her team earn a bronze medal at the 2020 Tokyo Games. Now in her third Olympics, Horan will lead the 18-player roster, announced just last week, in Paris as the team aims to recapture a gold medal, one the U.S. has not seen since 2012. While investment in women’s sports is growing, “there’s still a massive difference” between men’s and women’s contracts, admits Horan, whose status as the most expensive USWNT player nets her just $1.5 million in off- and on-field earnings, according to Forbes. “It’s an investment that we’ve talked about before, it just needs to keep growing and growing, which I think it will because you see the way that women’s sports is moving,” Horan says. bit.ly/4cHGOzG

When Steve Ballmer joined Microsoft he didn’t get a single company share. But now, his skyrocketing Microsoft holdings have made him richer than the company’s founder. The 68-year-old former Microsoft CEO squeaked by his onetime boss Bill Gates to become the sixth richest person in the world on Monday with a net worth of $157 billion. He is now richer than many well-known tech entrepreneurs including Google cofounder Sergey Brin, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, and Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell. It’s also the first time that Ballmer’s net worth has surpassed that of Gates, and one of the few times in history an employee has come to be richer than a company’s founder. Ballmer is the only person with a net worth of $100 billion or more who made their money as an employee rather than a founder, as Fortune previously reported. bit.ly/4buOuEo

The Aston Martin F1 Team has races in 24 geographies this year, ranging from Brazil to Azerbaijan, and CIO Clare Lansley and her IT team plays a key role in working fast and furiously to crunch data to get their race cars as fast as possible, without losing sight of traditional IT responsibilities like cloud-computing and cybersecurity. “My job is to make the car go faster,” says Lansley, in my latest CIO Intelligence newsletter for Fortune. “And we do that through technology.” https://lnkd.in/eewPuYvK

“If you’re on time, you’re late.” We asked New Yorkers how many minutes they consider too late to arrive at work. Here’s what they said. bit.ly/3xIOBOY