When an industry is facing disruption, which company has the better chance of ultimate survival: a startup or an incumbent?
Three years ago, I made a career bet. I was offered a dream job as the editor of Fortune. But I already had a good job as the editor of a media upstart that boasted a larger newsroom, more readership, and higher revenue than my potential new employer.
The upstart had adapted quickly to an onslaught of disruptive digital forces like mobile and social media. Fortune, meanwhile, didn’t even have its own website until 2014.
Despite the upstart’s momentum, I bet on the incumbent. I believed it would be easier to lead the digital transformation of a trusted brand than to try to build a brand as trusted as Fortune from scratch.
After all, Fortune earned its reputation over 95 years, with a relentless commitment to high-quality journalism. Our reporters and editors created the Fortune 500, coined the term “hedge fund,” and took down Enron. That sort of trust with customers (or, in our case, readers and advertisers) can’t be manufactured; there’s no playbook a leader can implement to build trust faster.
There are, of course, lots of ways to blow transformations, whether they’re digital, cultural, or structural. But those failures are more the result of poor leadership decisions than of the company’s circumstances or history.
Today, if you’re not prepared to lead your company through constant change, you’re not going to be a CEO for long. This issue of Fortune is full of transformation lessons from leaders who have succeeded across industries.
Mary Barra, who is on our cover and ranks No. 1 on our 27th annual Most Powerful Women in Business list, has spent a decade at the helm of General Motors, determined not to let the 116-year-old auto giant get disrupted by automation and the rise of electric vehicles. Under her watch, GM has navigated difficult circumstances like union battles and recalls, and has overhauled its culture. It’s now gaining EV market share and growing earnings even as its rivals struggle with the electric transition (see “GM CEO Mary Barra has spent a decade determined not to be disrupted. How she’s transforming the auto giant for the EV future“).
Cathy Engelbert, meanwhile, rejoins the MPW this year, having spent a few years on the list in the 2010s as Deloitte’s U.S. CEO. In 2019, she left that job to revitalize the WNBA, which has been around since 1996—and has often struggled to gain traction. Engelbert detailed to Fortune’s Emma Hinchliffe (see “WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert is leading the league to historic highs. Critics wonder if she’s fully seizing the moment“) how she’s trying to capitalize on the momentum new stars like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese are bringing to women’s sports, while overcoming historic business challenges that have held the league back.
In private equity, one of the top shops is getting a new mandate from a new set of leaders. Scott Nuttall and Joe Bae joined KKR as young recruits 28 years ago; they rose to become co-CEOs, succeeding KKR founders Henry Kravis and George Roberts, in 2021. While it can be tempting to follow in a founder’s footsteps, Bae and Nuttall are implementing a new playbook in an effort to increase assets under management by at least two-thirds—to over $1 trillion—by 2030 (see “KKR’s co-CEOs want to reach $1 trillion in assets by 2030. It will require the PE firm to operate very differently than its founders envisioned“).
We hope you’ll find these leaders’ transformation playbooks inspiring, and that you’ll borrow tactics you can use to future-proof your own businesses. Thanks for reading.
This article appears in the October/November 2024 issue of Fortune with the headline “Lessons in transformation.”
