GSK CEO Emma Walmsley was our guest this week on Fortune‘s Leadership Next podcast. She showed up in person at the Fortune offices in New York for the occasion, and the fascinating interview that followed proved again that in-person conversations are, well, just better than the largely remote ones we’ve been doing since the weekly podcast’s untimely launch in March of 2020. You can listen to the full interview on Apple or Spotify, but a few excerpts below.
On her view of corporate leadership:
“I violently reject the notion of CEOs as superheroes. I think by definition leadership is about helping others, collectively and individually, to do more together than we can ever do individually.”
On the relatively small number of women running large corporations (roughly 10% of the Fortune 500):
“I have always tried not to define my career by my gender first. But that doesn’t mean I’m not extremely thoughtful…about my responsibilities as a role model, and about the need to highlight what needs to change. We are a long, long way from being anywhere close to the kind of representation in leadership, whether that’s companies or governments or institutions, that better represents the societies that we serve.”
On the potential for A.I. to transform health care:
“I think there is a real opportunity for next gen technologies to improve the biggest challenge of the [pharmaceutical] sector, which is the productivity of R&D. It can take a decade, cost billions of dollars, on average has a 90% failure rate, to discover, develop and invent new medicines and vaccines. It’s the most profound challenge of our industry and also of society. When we talk about health care costs, the single biggest thing we can do is innovate more.”
And speaking of technology, the team at Fortune is gearing up for our annual Brainstorm Tech event, being held in Park City, Utah, for the first time on July 10-12. My Leadership Next co-host Michal Lev-Ram is hosting the event, and in addition to white water rafting, mountain biking, fly fishing and bob sledding, attendees will mingle with a diverse group of CEOs including Antonio Neri of Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Deborah Liu of Ancestry, as well as a flock of interesting founders, including Jeff Lawson of Twilio, Adam Neumann formerly of WeWork, Vivian Chu of Diligent Robotics, and Lisa Dyson of Air Protein. I’ll be interviewing the grandaddy of founders, Fred Smith of FedEx. Former Vice President Al Gore and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez also will be on hand. We are holding a few spots for loyal CEO Daily readers; if you are interested, shoot me a note, or go here to request an invitation.
Also this morning, be sure to read Emma Hinchliffe’s story on the new CEO of Slack, as well as Lance Lambert and Will Daniel’s story on why commercial real estate may cause the next banking blowup.
More news below.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
Debt ceiling
Late Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the deal between President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy to suspend the country’s debt limit to January 2025 in exchange for a series of spending freezes and cuts. The bill passed on a bipartisan 314-117 basis. The deal now goes to the Senate, which will need to vote to approve it before a looming U.S. default in early June. CNN
Salesforce earnings
Salesforce shares plunged over 5% in after-hours trading despite the company beating expectations on profits and revenue. The company reported a 36% year-on-year increase in capital expenditures, and warned of slowing demand from tech and financial companies for cloud computing. The company is spending on new A.I. products, such as “Einstein GPT,” dubbed the first generative A.I. for customer resource management. Reuters
Stars in the making
Executive search veterans helped Fortune identify 11 executives poised to become standout leaders. One common thread is that companies are looking beyond work experience in their succession planning, placing more value on a potential leader’s personal traits, such as humility, authenticity, and being “tech-savvy,” experts tell Fortune’s Geoff Colvin.
AROUND THE WATERCOOLER
Salesforce CEO talks up A.I. ambitions—and dinner with Sam Altman—in earnings call anecdote by Kylie Robison
The growing skills gap could become as permanent as the labor shortage, a LinkedIn exec says. A.I. might be the solution by Jane Thier
Trade Representative Katherine Tai’s background as a daughter of Taiwanese immigrants shapes her approach to global trade policy by Emma Hinchliffe and Kinsey Crowley
Is your chatbot hallucinating? A ‘bot debate’ could produce better A.I. answers, according to new research by Sheryl Estrada
The developing world wants to escape the dollar’s gravitational pull by shifting more reserves to gold by Christiaan Hetzner
Intel struggles to make good on chip-making bet as rivals like Nvidia get ahead: ‘We didn’t get into this mud hole because everything was going great’ by Prarthana Prakash
Commentary: Corporations still have to perform China’s dance–but not if the music stops by Jeremy Sonnenfeld, Kyle Bass and Steven Tian
This edition of CEO Daily was curated by Nicholas Gordon.
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