Spring 2008 Edition
FedEx Express CEO David Bronczek's speech available on line
David J. Bronczek, CEO of FedEx Express, delivered the keynote address of the 2007 UNCG Business Summit before an audience of 200 in Cone Ballroom. Bronczek emphasized the need for students to be better prepared for the global economy and for students to hone their “soft skills” — oral and written communication, teamwork, cross functional organizational skills, innovation, and leadership.
The highlights of the speech can now be streamed online below. Real Player or Quicktime are required to view the 7 minute video. (View text transcript.)
Text Transcript from FedEx Express CEO David Bronczek's speech
Joshua Smith: To meet a person who is the Red Adair of FedEx, you know that he has to be an exceptional person. Dave is a true friend, a man of deep faith, and one of the best executives I have met in my lifetime, and I have met a whole bunch of them. Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring you with great pleasure, Dave Bronczek.
(Applause)
David Bronczek: Oh, all right let’s take a break (laughter)
I mean after that was fantastic. I actually have a lot to say about Joshua and I’m going to do that in a minute here and of
course Patti and Patricia Sullivan we thank her very much for this invitation. But before I do that I always do what Joshua
just said, I always thank the people that make this company great, and I go all around the world. I just came back from
China, I know you did as well. We just bought a company in India and I was just in Delhi, and everywhere I go in the
world people ask me why FedEx is such a great company. And in the center of it all and it will always stay the same is our
great people. I mean I started with this company thirty-one years ago and I will give you my life history in a minute here,
but we have the great men and women of FedEx from North Carolina here with us today and I think they are in some of
these tables. Can you all stand up please, everyone from FedEx at these tables here. These – these are the men and
women that make this company great. And yes Joshua is right, we have 300,000 people so it is hard to keep track of
everybody, but I do have a story to tell. Sometimes we at FedEx forget how great it is to work at a company like FedEx
and sometimes people that live here in Greensboro and North Carolina forget how great of a community you all live
in.
(Fade to)
David Bronczek: This whole airport development, the road system and the off ramps, and the network that this is going to provide for us as a company and many other companies coming here with us is going to be spectacular.
(Fade to)
David Bronczek: And of course it’s by no mistake that we’re here in this part of North Carolina because there are so many Universities here. And what we end up doing throughout the world is we go to locations that great universities and great employee work bases for now and into the future. We’re going to have fantastic jobs here.
(Fade to)
David Bronczek: The problem that we have at FedEx, the problem the University has, and Chancellor Measer and I talked about this at length. There is not enough students, there is not enough faculty, there is not enough international studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and I'm sure there are not enough here.
(Fade to)
David Bronczek: People around the rest of the world are occupying very good jobs here and American students aren't occupying jobs elsewhere in the world. And it is something that we need to as a country address and deal with.
(Fade to)
David Bronczek: But it's a global world now, its transformed itself that the United States is just one more region of the world. I mean, it's amazing to me when I go anywhere else in the world how the rest of the world views us in America, and correctly so, we're just one more region of the world
(Fade to)
David Bronczek: Focusing narrowly on specific fields of education is fine if you want to be an engineer, that's fine, finance fine, but it's not good enough anymore. What business executives look for, and I jotted them down, is the specific field of expertise and more.
(Fade to)
David Bronczek: We're looking for teamwork skills, beyond just being an engineer. We're looking for creative thinking and resourcing. We're looking for oral and written communications ability. It doesn't matter if you actually know the answer and can't communicate it with anyone orally or in writing, so we're looking for that. We're looking for the ability to organize across cross functional disciplines. And of course we are looking for innovation. So you have this area of focus that a lot of universities have - narrowly focused, too narrowly focused in our opinion. We need to have that; our engineers need to be excellent engineers but they've got to cross over cross functional lines. They have got to cross over in our teams that we deploy over the world, global issues.
(Fade to)
David Bronczek: Our executive management team has, and I was very very fortunate to be on this path very early on in my career. To move up in FedEx you need to have spent time offshore living in the environment that you work in. It's one thing to go visit it, it's another thing to actually live in it, it's another thing to go be part of it, to actually assimilate in the communities that you are working in and being a part of.
(Cut to)
David Bronczek: I'll close by saying this is going to be a great partnership. The academia side we are going to have new relationships, I see Dean Weeks there we met yesterday on interning and having more involvement with FedEx and this University. We're just glad to have this hub going up in Greensboro. It's a little bit late but it's coming in the Summer of 2009. And with that I would like to open it up with any questions you have for me. Thank you. (Applause)