Foreword

Alyson Shontell

Editor-in-Chief

Good morning. When Thasunda Brown Duckett got tapped to run Fortune 100 company TIAA, it was the middle of COVID. She didn’t meet with her board in person for over a year, and mission No. 1 was to get the company through the pandemic, one Zoom call at a time.

But beyond that, she had a plan to modernize and expand the retirement behemoth’s offerings via a product dubbed “guaranteed lifetime income,” and five years into her tenure, it’s delivering.

TIAA has scaled to over $1.5 trillion in assets under management. Last December, it secured a partnership with Vanguard to put its lifetime income annuities in front of millions of American workers, expanding TIAA’s reach from its traditional nonprofit institutional market into the much broader 401(k) market.

Brown Duckett and I spoke about her CEO playbook on the most recent episode of my podcast, Fortune 500: Titans and Disruptors of Industry. We also covered the leadership and life lessons that have helped her succeed at the highest levels in business. A few that stood out:

Live life like a diversified portfolio. “You only have 100% [of your time] to offer. You do not have 110%,” she says. “You have to allocate it to the things that define who you are. I’m a philanthropist, a mother, a sister, an auntie, a wife, an executive. The reality is, my children don’t get 100%—they get 30%, and I have to divide that across three kids.”

You rent your title and own your character. “Yes, I am the CEO of a Fortune 100 company, and I am jealous of me in terms of what I get to do every day,” she says. “But it is rented. There will come a time when I will no longer be the CEO of TIAA. But I am always Thasunda Brown Duckett.”

Pursue joy, not happiness. “I try to live a life of joy, not happiness,” Brown Duckett says. “Happiness is a reaction: The kids are happy, I’m happy. Joy comes from within.”

On leaving JPMorgan and what it’s like to be recruited for a Fortune 100 CEO job. “Timing sometimes is not perfect. But behind the scenes, you get the call from a recruiter. You do not not take the call. You start asking a ton of questions, and then you get to the point where you’re like, ‘This is something that I can’t pass up,’” Brown Duckett says. “This was an opportunity to make a different impact. It was an opportunity to run the entire company and make history at the same time.”

Check out the full conversation with TIAA CEO Thasunda Brown Duckett on Fortune 500: Titans and Disruptors of Industry. And if you enjoy it, please leave a review of our podcast on Apple.

A version of this essay appeared in the June 17, 2026 edition of CEO Daily, Fortune’s weekday newsletter that shares global perspectives and insights from CEOs on the biggest stories in business. Sign up for CEO Daily here.

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Deals & Developments

In a Truth Social post, President Donald Trump announced a deal whereby Apple (No. 4) and Intel (No. 88) will work together to produce chips in the United States. Intel stock saw significant gains following the Thursday announcement, in which the president criticized “Stupid Presidents” that “took our Economy for granted, and let Taiwan and others steal our Semiconductor Factories.”
Salesforce (No. 114) agreed to acquire Fin, an agentic AI startup that automates and resolves customer support queries, in a cash-and-stock deal valued at about $3.6 billion. The company says Fin’s technology will help enterprise customers deploy AI agents that can handle a broader range of customer service workflows on their own.
Fox (No. 275) struck a deal to acquire Roku, the streaming platform and connected-TV operating system, in a transaction valued at about $22 billion. The deal is meant to bulk up Fox’s direct-to-consumer footprint and advertising technology, but the stock sold off as investors focused on the substantial debt Fox will take on to fund the acquisition.
Yum Brands (No. 474) agreed to sell Pizza Hut to private equity firm LongRange Capital for roughly $1.5 billion. In a separate deal, Yum China Holdings (No. 375) will buy back Pizza Hut’s mainland China operations for about $1.2 billion, underscoring the brand’s relatively stronger momentum in that market.