Black History Month Fact

Kenneth I Chenault: Chairman and chief executive officer, American Express Company

Nationality: American.

Born: June 2, 1951, in New York, New York.

Education: Bowdoin College, BA, 1973; Harvard University Law School, JD, 1976.

Family: Son of Hortenius Chenault (dentist) and Anne Quick (dental hygienist); married Kathryn Cassell (nonpracticing attorney); children: two.

Career: Rogers & Wells, 1977–1979, attorney; Bain & Company, 1979–1981, management consultant; American Express Company, 1981–1983, director of strategic planning; American Express Travel Related Services Company, 1981–1996, vice president, then senior vice president; 1986–1988, executive vice president of platinum/gold card; 1988–1989, executive vice president of personal-card division; 1990–1993, president of consumer-card and financial-services group; 1993–1995, president; American Express Company, 1995–1997, vice chairman; 1997–2000, president and COO; 2001–, chairman and CEO.

Address: American Express Company, World Financial Center, 200 Vesey Street, 50th Floor, New York, New York 10281-1009; http://www.americanexpress.com.

One of just four African American CEOs of Fortune 500 companies in 2004, Kenneth I. Chenault was a leader by example and an executive who focused on performance day in, day out. As the head of American Express Company (AMEX) he reenergized his company's brand, increased its market share, and won back many of the merchants who had abandoned the firm because of its high fees. He inspired fierce loyalty in his employees, boosting morale in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Chenault was designated to succeed the outgoing CEO in 1999 and officially took over the role in January 2001.

With 2003 sales of $25.9 billion American Express was a prominent financial-services firm and the world's number-one travel agency. It issued traveler's checks, published magazines—such as Food & Wine and Travel & Leisure—and provided financial-advisory services. The company had four units: Global Corporate Services, Global Financial Services, Global Establishment Services and Traveler's Cheques, and U.S. Consumer and Small Business Services. On the Internet AMEX offered online banking and mortgage and brokerage services. Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway owned about 11 percent of the company. Key competitors included Carlson Wagonlit, JTB, and Visa.

Brains But Little Ambition As a Young Man

Chenault's immense success in corporate America could not have been predicted based on his performance early in life. As a high-school student in a middle-class white community he received a slew of Cs—except in history class, where he typically earned As. His parents knew that he was extremely intelligent but worried about whether he had the focus to maximize his potential. They were certainly good role models: Chenault's father graduated first in his class at Howard University's Dental School, and his mother graduated at the top of her class at Howard's School of Dental Hygiene. While he had an incessant desire to learn, Chenault conceded in Ebony magazine with respect to his poor performance in school, "I'm sure it was frustrating for them that I was not applying myself" (July 1997).

Chenault eventually received crucial mentoring from Peter Curran, the head of Waldorf High School—a private school in Garden City, New York—who encouraged the wayward student to apply himself. When Chenault graduated, he did so with numerous honors; he had been class president, an honor student, and the captain of the basketball, soccer, and track teams. He enrolled in Springfield College in Massachusetts, which had offered him a sports scholarship, but craved a more academic experience and thus ended up at Bowdoin College in Maine.

Motivated to Make a Difference

At Bowdoin, Chenault realized that he wanted to pursue a profession that would enable him to help other African Americans. He debated the merits of a corporate career with fellow African American students—there were 23 at Bowdoin at the time, as compared with the 950 white students—who warned of a lifestyle that might ultimately force him to abandon his convictions. Chenault disagreed, believing it to be possible for an African American to succeed without selling out. During these often-heated discussions, Chenault displayed his aptitude for debate. Rasuli Lewis, a fellow Bowdoin student *****mained a friend, told Ebony, "His style was to come in more the middle of the road, to say let's consider both sides here, and to look at it from the point of fact rather than emotion" (July 1997).

Chenault had the ability to elicit respect from African American and white students alike. Geoffrey Canada, another college friend, told Fortune, "This was a time when people wanted you to choose sides; he sat with whomever he wanted. What was remarkable was that he could do that and still remain in the mainstream of both worlds. Other people would end up being shunned by one group or the other" (January 22, 2001).

Landing a Coveted Job Without an Mba

After graduating from Bowdoin and later from Harvard Law School, Chenault spent two years in corporate law at Rogers & Wells and two more years at Bain & Company as a management consultant. W. Mitt Romney, the son of former governor of Michigan who had attended Harvard Law School with Chenault and gone on to Bain, recruited Chenault to the firm. Romney told Ebony, "I'll take full credit for hiring Ken. Although Ken lacked an MBA, he was a natural fit for the business world. He was able to process a lot of conflict and frenzy and still be able to cut through the confusion and arrive at very powerful conclusions and recommendations and then see them through to their implementation" (July 1997).