How to stage a basketball season in a pandemic

Good morning.

A new episode of our podcast Leadership Next is out this morning featuring Cathy Engelbert, commissioner of the WNBA, who talked with us about struggling to figure out how to stage a basketball season in the midst of a pandemic.

Before taking the WNBA job last summer, Engelbert was the first female CEO of Deloitte, working there for 33 years, and as CEO for five. She says the similarities between business and basketball are surprising.

“I ran a people-first agenda at Deloitte, now we are running a player-first agenda. I took a 12-city tour and I listened to all the stakeholders, the media, the fans, the owners, the GMs, the front office people. It was pretty funny the similarities to big business. What I figured out very quickly was sports is big business.”

Engelbert played basketball herself in high school and college (Lehigh), and credits her rise into leadership to an athletic upbringing.

“It was all about competitiveness. I am one of eight kids. Five brothers. Really competitive background. We fought for everything, from cereal to pop tarts to our parents’ time . . . My dad played big time college basketball. He was actually drafted by the Detroit Pistons in 1957. It was all that competitiveness growing up in a very male-dominated family, went to a male-dominated university, entered a male-dominated profession.”

You can listen to the full podcast here. More news below.

Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com

TOP NEWS

Stocks up

It looks like a solid opening on Wall Street today, following gains around the world. The markets appear optimistic about economic reopening, even though escalating U.S.-China tensions remain a worry. Japan's lifting of its state of emergency yesterday saw the Nikkei 225 rise 2.6% today, while Australia's ASX 200 was up nearly 3%. Wall Street Journal

Stanley Ho

Stanley Ho, who turned Macau into a gambling hotspot, has died at the age of 98 in Hong Kong, where he also built a real estate empire. His SJM Holdings now controls 20 casinos on the 10-square-mile island of Macau, where he won a monopoly license in 1961—the license expired in 2001, allowing in competitors such as Sheldon Adelson's Las Vegas Sands and Wynn Resorts. Fortune

Aston Martin CEO

Andy Palmer has stepped down from the helm of embattled British carmaker Aston Martin, and three directors have also resigned. The moves follow the collapse in Aston Martin's share price (down 98% in less than two years)—and were followed by a 40% boost to that share price. Billionaire Lawrence Stroll, who became executive chair after rescuing the firm: "The board has determined that now is the time for new leadership to deliver our plans." BBC

U.K. government

A minister has resigned from the British government over its continued employment of Dominic Cummings, a key adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson and one of Brexit's architects. During lockdown, Cummings (who had COVID-19) drove his family 260 miles to his parents' estate, to organize childcare—however, in a press conference yesterday he refused to accept he did anything wrong. Today, Scotland Minister Douglas Ross said: "I have constituents who didn’t get to say goodbye to loved ones; families who didn’t visit sick relatives because they followed the guidance of the government. I cannot in good faith tell them they were all wrong and one senior advisor to the government was right." Guardian

AROUND THE WATER COOLER

Chinese surveillance

If only someone had predicted that China would use the pandemic to boost surveillance! The city of Hangzhou is thinking of extending a smartphone-based system, popularized during the coronavirus outbreak, to permanently track citizens' health by monitoring things like how much sleep they get, and how much booze they drink. CNBC

Hertz autopsy

Bloomberg's Chris Bryant has an interesting piece on what went wrong at Hertz, which has filed for bankruptcy protection due to the pandemic: "Hertz’s complicated financial plumbing contributed to it becoming one of the most high-profile companies to seek protection from creditors during the corona crisis . . . economic shutdowns stemming from efforts to curb the new coronavirus suddenly threw a lot of sand in Hertz’s gears: The resale value of its vehicles fleet fell sharply, requiring the company to inject more cash into the financing structure. With only about $1 billion of cash on its books, Hertz was ill-placed to fund that collateral call." Bloomberg

European taxes

The European Commission will reportedly call for new environmental taxes and corporate levies in order to finance a proposed 500 billion euro ($548 billion) pandemic recovery plan. Germany and France suggested the recovery fund, but left it to the Commission to figure out how half a trillion in debt should be repaid. Financial Times

COVID-19 task forces

Who should be in your company's COVID-19 task force? Fortune's Michal Lev-Ram spoke to IBM's John Kelly, who built and manages that company's task force, and got a series of tips: realize it's a full-time job, appoint people who know the company well, embrace diversity… and communicate, communicate, communicate. Fortune

This edition of CEO Daily was edited by David Meyer.