Take a Lesson, 2nd Edition

6Kenneth I. Chenault

Chairman and Managing Director, General Catalyst

Former Chairman and CEO, American Express

He was only the third African American to lead a Fortune 500 company, and by the time Ken Chenault retired from American Express in 2018, the multinational financial services corporation had doubled in size—from a $20 billion business when he became CEO in 2001 to delivering more than $40 billion in revenue (according to the company's 2018 annual report), with nearly $7 billion in net income that year.

Despite Chenault's exemplary global presence, his powerful sphere of influence, and steady reputation as a CEO, corporate board director, and philanthropist, the floodgates never opened to Black corporate leaders as he and his Black peers once expected. In fact, in the history of the Fortune 500s (tracked since 1955), fewer than 25 of those roughly 1,800 CEOs have been Black to date, a fact that leaves Chenault “shocked and deeply frustrated” and more determined than ever to shift the scope and speed of that progress in the years ahead.

Chenault has been focusing his energies largely on the tech sector, which exists at the nexus of both great innovation and stubborn resistance to change where full inclusion is concerned. At 71, having amassed more wealth than he could've imagined as a child growing up in Long Island, New York, Chenault says money has never been ...