Good morning from the Salamander Resort in Middleburg, Va., where we are about to kick off the inaugural Fortune COO Summit. You can click here to join us for our livestreamed conversations today and tomorrow.
One reason we’re focused on chief operating officers, alongside our founding summit partner Cognizant, is that the COO role is making a comeback, often combined with other roles. Operational excellence is a prerequisite for success in everything from transformations to developing talent, especially at the speed demanded today.
Along with hearing from operating leaders at companies like Citi, Bayer, Carlyle, L’Oreal, Cognizant, Capital One, TPG, Google, New Balance, Heidrick, D.C. United, Synchrony, Scopely, and Slack, we will have conversations and workshops with thought leaders like Keith Ferrazzi, Bill Schaninger, Tierney Remick, Ashish Kothari, Linda Findley, Daniel Swan, Jessica Orkin, Babak Hodjat and Captain Sandy Yawn from the Bravo TV series, Below Deck: Mediterranean. We will also chat with CEOs who used to be in the COO role, like Enterprise Mobility chief Chrissy Taylor, Kendra Scott’s Tom Nolan and Leslie Motter of Make-a-Wish America.
It feels fitting to launch this new event at a resort that’s the centerpiece of a growing collection from another incredible operator, Sheila Johnson. Along with being CEO of Salamander Hotels and Resorts, Johnson is cofounder of BET and vice-chairman of Monumental Sports & Entertainment. I’ll be speaking with Johnson later this morning.
Meanwhile, about an hour east of here, the nine Supreme Court justices are heading back to work today for a new nine-month term. The court has been struggling with its own leadership crisis, as we saw last term, and is facing record-low approval ratings, according to Gallup. That may not impact how the justices rule on cases involving Tennessee’s ban on sex-transition treatments or restrictions on environmental protections or ‘ghost’ guns assembled from kits online, but it doesn’t help the culture at work.
It's hard to imagine anything on the scale of last term’s bombshell ruling on the Chevron doctrine, which stripped away the presumptive powers of government regulators to interpret laws, or the court’s ruling on presidential immunity. But keep watch for decisions on Smith & Wesson’s plea to dismiss a lawsuit from the Mexican government, Meta’s appeal in the Cambridge Analytica lawsuit, and a shareholder suit against Nvidia. For the justices, here’s to a more collegial culture at work.
Hope you can join our discussions.
More news below.
Diane Brady
diane.brady@fortune.com
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