Three FedEx Execs Make Black Enterprise’s ‘Most Powerful’ List

Memphis Business Journal by Andy Ashby, Staff writer
Oct 11, 2012 2:00 PM ET

FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX) was well represented in Black Enterprise’s 100 Most Powerful Executives in Corporate America listing.

Of the honorees, three were from the FedEx Express division: Shannon Brown, senior vice president and chief human relations/diversity officer; Cathy D. Ross, chief financial officer; and Matthew Thornton III, senior vice president of U.S. operations.

“It is great to receive this recognition among your peers and to demonstrate there are no limits to achievement,” Thornton said.

Published in the magazine’s September issue, the listing highlights African-American business leaders who have risen to the highest-ranking corporate positions and hold revenue-generating and operating responsibilities critical to product development, sales and supply chain management at some of the world’s largest publicly traded companies.

Black Enterprise has identified the most powerful executives since launching its inaugural list in February 1988 as “America’s Hottest Black Managers.” That list included only one division president and no women.

In 25 years, the list has included some icons of American industry like ex-Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines; former Time Warner chairman & CEO and Citigroup chairman Dick Parsons; former Merrill Lynch & Co. honcho Stanley O’Neal; former Young & Rubicam chairman & CEO Ann M. Fudge and former head of Avis and current AARP CEO A. Barry Rand. Today, eight executives on the list – including one woman — are CEOs of leading publicly traded companies.