Foreword

Alyson Shontell

Editor-in-Chief

“If you don’t like change, you’re going to hate extinction.” That’s the framing FedEx (No. 50) CEO Raj Subramaniam uses to motivate his troops, particularly in unpredictable times. Subramaniam has dubbed the recent supply chain disruption brought on by geopolitical conflict, tariffs, and more as a moment of “re-globalization.” And, as a company that moves almost 19 million packages per day, FedEx is on the front lines of it.

I spoke to Subramaniam in June at FedEx’s Memphis headquarters for Fortune’s Titans and Disruptors podcast to learn how he’s leading through it and what he’s seeing around the corner. We also spoke about his transition to the top job after a multi-decade ascent from an entry-level FedEx position.

Subramaniam, the second CEO in the company’s 53-year history, is operating for the first time without his mentor and sounding board. One year ago, FedEx’s founder, Fred Smith, died at the age of 80. Taking the reins from a legendary founder—as Subramaniam did in 2022—is a great privilege, he told me. “I always say that I can see far because I’m standing on the shoulders of a giant,” he said. That giant had groomed Subramaniam for the top job for years, as he rose through the ranks and served stints as FedEx’s president and chief operating officer.

But as any CEO will tell you, even the most carefully planned leadership transition isn’t easy. “When the time came, I said, ‘I can do this,’” Subramaniam recalled. “But no, the whole thing changed…This is a whole different level.” As requests and demands came in from all sides, Subramaniam found himself having to say no—a lot. To stay focused on what mattered most, he set aside time to create his own CEO job description and KPIs. One of those was to be a guardian of the culture that the company’s founder built.

He recounted a conversation with Smith when he stepped into the CEO role: “I told him that a lot of things might change—whether we have new technology, [we] may have new people, we may buy new companies,” he recalled. “But one thing that is not going to change is the FedEx culture, and that’s why I came to work here in the first place.”

You can listen to our full conversation 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 July 15, 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.

Follow Alyson on X, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, and the Titans and Disruptors vodcast.

Deals & Developments

Meta Platforms (No. 17) is facing a lawsuit from 26 current and former employees who allege AI-assisted tools disproportionately targeted workers on medical, parental, and family leave for layoffs. Meta has denied the claims, saying workforce decisions “were and are made by people, not AI.”
A coalition of 12 states has sued to block the proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery (No. 126) by Paramount Skydance (No. 155), arguing that the deal would reduce competition in movie distribution and cable-channel licensing. The states, led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, say the combination could mean higher prices, fewer content choices, and weaker bargaining power for creative workers. Paramount has called the suit wrong on the facts and law and says the merger would create a stronger competitor to dominant streaming and technology platforms.
Uber Eats, a subsidiary of Uber Technologies (No. 92), agreed to acquire Delivery Hero for €41.50 a share in cash, valuing the German food-delivery company’s equity at about $14.8 billion. The deal would broaden Uber Eats’ international footprint and is expected to close in the second half of 2027, subject to regulatory approvals.
Stripe and private equity firm Advent International have reportedly offered $60.50 a share to acquire PayPal Holdings (No. 139), valuing the payments company at more than $53 billion, per Reuters. The offer represented about a 28% premium over PayPal’s July 14 closing price.

Overheard

“I always tell people that the customer has no clue who owns the company and doesn’t care.”

—David Boone, CEO of Michaels, which is owned by private equity firm Apollo Global Management (No. 143). In an interview with Fortune’s Phil Wahba, he explains how the retailer turned two of its rivals’ bankruptcies into a growth strategy.

On earnings calls:

JPMorgan Chase (No. 6) reported $58 billion in managed revenue and $21.2 billion in second-quarter net income—the highest quarterly profit ever reported by a U.S. bank, though roughly $5.6 billion of that came from one-time gains, mainly tied to its Visa stock holdings. Core profit rose 13% year over year to $16.9 billion, driven by a 30% jump in investment-banking fees to $3.3 billion and an 86% surge in equity-trading revenue. Read more: ‘Close to as good as it gets’: Jamie Dimon just offered another warning on bubbly markets as Wall Street had a monster quarter
Citigroup (No. 24) beat expectations with $24.8 billion in quarterly revenue, up 14% year over year and its highest quarterly total in a decade. Net income climbed 45% to $5.8 billion.
Morgan Stanley (No. 39) beat expectations with record second-quarter net revenue of $21.3 billion, up 27% year over year, and net income of $5.6 billion, up 58%. Equities-trading revenue surged 69% to a record $6.3 billion, while investment-banking revenue climbed as mergers and IPOs picked up. Read more: Morgan Stanley is riding high on the IPO boom with 70% of the top 100 unicorns in its pipeline, CFO says
IBM (No. 66) missed expectations—then suffered its worst stock crash of all time. Read more about what that says about the market’s two bubbles
Netflix (No. 105) narrowly missed revenue expectations with $12.56 billion in second-quarter sales, up 13% year over year but just below Bloomberg’s $12.58 billion consensus estimate. The company forecasts $12.86 billion in third-quarter revenue, short of Wall Street’s roughly $13 billion expectation. Read more: Netflix used AI to produce 17 minutes of a documentary ‘twice as fast and at half the cost’—as streaming competition drives up content spending to $20 billion
BlackRock (No. 190) beat expectations with $7.08 billion in second-quarter revenue, a 31% increase from a year earlier. The asset manager ended the quarter with $15.3 trillion in assets under management after $868 billion in net inflows, while its technology-services revenue grew 13%.
Plus: Learn how an SEC email address mix-up is causing confusion and threatening to disrupt its proposal to scrap quarterly reporting requirements.

Earnings calls next week include: General Motors (No. 23), Capital One Financial (No. 63), and Synchrony (No. 197) on July 21; Alphabet (No. 5), AT&T (No. 35), and Tesla (No. 43) on July 22; Intel (No. 88) and