David Abney is the classic “company man.” He started working at a UPS facility in rural Mississippi in a part-time job loading packages on UPS delivery trucks when he was a college student. Over the next four decades, Abney worked his way up the ranks, and by 2016, he got the top job as CEO of United Parcel Service.
So it may seem surprising that this company man has become the change agent who is transforming this iconic 112-year-old company. Two years ago he announced a sweeping $20 billion plan to overhaul UPS.
“It was clear to me that the business environment had changed, and it was going to change even more,” he explains. “I just knew our future was not going to be as bright as our past if we didn’t embrace the times.”
And Abney told his employees that they needed to move fast: The speed of change was as important as delivering a priority package.
“We just don’t have time,” says Abney. “If we measure ourselves based on a speed that we have done in the past, it’s just still going to be too late. So we talked about moving forward fast.”
It has been a tall order for Big Brown. UPS is one of the biggest companies on the Fortune 500. With 2018 revenues of nearly $72 billion, it is ranked at number 41 on the list of the 500 largest companies in America. The Atlanta-based shipper has about 500,000 employees working in almost every country in the world.
One of the first big changes Abney made was creating a new position of Chief Transformation Officer and going outside UPS to fill the job—a break with the company’s history of promoting from within. He hired Scott Price from Walmart where he specialized in international strategic transformation.
“I was concerned that I could not ask a 30-year or more UPS-er to really try to bring about dramatic change, transformation. I’d be much better off to take someone from the outside that’s already done this once or twice and then have them work with us and lead us through,” Abney says. “It’s proven to be the right decision.”
There is already of ample evidence of change at UPS. It has been investing in new technologies, modernizing sorting hubs, and buying new aircraft. To top it off, UPS recently got approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to operate a fleet of drones, beating out competitors Amazon, FedEx and Google. So far, investors approve of the changes. UPS stock is up 20% so far this year.
And Abney is the happiest one of all: “I couldn’t be any prouder of where we are and where we’re going to be.”
Watch the video above for more.
