An Inspiring Leader

On Friday, October 21, Douglas R. Conant will receive the 2022 Stephen R. Covey Principle-Centered Leadership Award, presented by the Covey Leadership Center at the Huntsman School of Business. Mr. Conant embodies a life of purpose, passion and principles. He is an internationally renowned business leader, New York Times bestselling author, keynote speaker, and social media influencer with over 40 years of leadership experience at world-class global companies.

He is the only former Fortune 500 CEO who is a Top 100 Leadership Speaker, a Top 15 Leadership Guru, and a Top 100 Most Influential Author in the World. For the past 20 years of his leadership journey, he has honed his leadership craft at the most senior levels—first as president of the Nabisco Foods Company, then as CEO of Campbell Soup Company, and finally as chairman of Avon Products. In 2011, he founded ConantLeadership: a mission-driven community of leaders and learners who are championing leadership that works in the 21st century. Conant also serves as chairman of Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose and chairman of the Higher Ambition Leadership Alliance.

Conant is known as a leader who builds high-performance organizations by acknowledging the great contributions of his people. In organizations, it is easy to look for and find what is going wrong. He had a practice of celebrating what was right by expressing gratitude. Every day to and from work, he would review everything that had gone well that day and write thank you notes to people about something they did well that added value to the company. He would write 10-20 notes per day. It is estimated that during his 10 years at Campbell Soup Company he wrote over 30,000 notes. With 20,000 employees, that means most everyone had received at least one personalized thank you from the CEO. He built the emotional bank account and increased trust, and thereby inspired superior performance. 

If you are interested in attending any of the events honoring Douglas Conant and hearing him speak, please contact bret.crane@usu.edu.