Corporate America has chosen another Indian-American with an IIT degree to lead one of its illustrious firms. FedEx, the worldwide package and courier services corporation with $ 84 billion in revenue and 700 aircraft, has named Rajesh (“Raj”) Subramaniam as its next CEO.
Subramaniam, 56, has an IIT engineering degree and an MBA from a US business school, similar to his senior Vivek Sankaran, CEO of Albertsons, America’s second biggest grocery chain, and his younger Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, the parent company of Google.
He’s also a FedEx insider, having worked for the corporation since receiving his MBA from the University of Texas at Austin in 1991. “For the past 50 years, FedEx has revolutionised the globe by linking people and opportunities. As we look to the future, I am certain that a leader of Raj Subramaniam’s quality will lead FedEx to tremendous success “In a statement announcing the succession, FedEx Founder and CEO Fred Smith stated.
Smith is a legend in his own right, having invented FedEx, which is derived from its original name Federal Express, in 1973 based on a term paper he wrote at Yale proposing a system intended exclusively for urgent delivery. Because of its proximity to America’s mean population centre and its consistent, predictable weather, he decided to put it in Memphis, Tennessee.
Memphis is now the world’s busiest cargo airport, serving as the home base and hub for FedEx’s 700 aircraft, the world’s biggest cargo air fleet. The corporation has become so well-known in the business world that it has been adjectivized (“Please fedex the box to me”), and it has also become the nickname for one of the greatest athletes of all time, Roger Federer.
Even without these frills, the Memphis-based corporation has a long and illustrious history in American commerce and industry, having pioneered overnight delivery in the 1970s with the tagline “When it Absolutely, Positively Has to Be There Overnight.” Subramaniam has spent more than half of the company’s history with it.
He moved to the United States after earning an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering and two post-graduate degrees: a Master of Science in Chemical Engineering from Syracuse University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Texas at Austin, before joining FedEx as an entry-level marketing analyst in Memphis in 1991 and working his way to the top.
Founder Smith described Subramaniam as a “brilliant and humble man with great empathy for our various constituencies, particularly our frontline team members and customers… a gentleman of impeccable integrity and is a consummate team player… (with) a wonderful family and a broad network of friends around the globe” in a letter to FedEx’s 600,000 employees on Monday.
“I can’t conceive of a better leader in the world to take on the post of FedEx CEO given his blend of expertise,” Smith continued.
In a 2019 interview with the IIT newsletter, Subramaniam, who was born in Trivandrum, said he came to Mumbai when he was 15 and credited the institute for his achievements. “I was surrounded by some of the world’s brightest and most gifted minds, and I was pushed to think in ways that have influenced practically every aspect of my professional life to this day. Most significantly, some of the deep connections I had at IIT are still going strong “According to the alumni newsletter, he said.
