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The CEO Signal Any interference in next week’s US midterm elections should be a “red line” that prompts business leaders to rally behind American democratic norms, Ken Chenault is warning his peers. But the influential chairman of venture capital firm General Catalyst worries that some leaders have lost sight of where to draw such lines, as they’ve retreated from a social responsibility agenda they espoused just a few years ago. Chenault, who was one of the first Black CEOs to lead a Fortune 500 company and ran American Express for 17 years, says people concerned about meddling in Tuesday’s election or damaging disputes over the results have been calling him to ask: “Will business stand up?” In 2021, Chenault helped rally hundreds of executives in other companies to oppose restrictive voting bills. But he thinks it would be “very challenging” to muster the same response from executives now. Back then, businesses issued statements in favor of a peaceful transfer of power around the 2020 election and subsequent attack on the US Capitol. But they’ve since “backed down,” he notes. “They said, ‘Here’s what we’re not going to do.’ And then, in fact, they changed. And then the hammer came down.” CEOs have pulled back from public comment on issues they fear will attract a costly backlash, having watched President Donald Trump go after law firms, universities, and corporations in his second term. Some US officials have raised concerns about possible threats to the integrity of the midterms and campaigners have called on CEOs to express support for free and fair elections. Robert Rubin, the former Treasury Secretary, wrote recently that any manipulation of the process would have lasting economic effects. But very few active CEOs of large US companies have echoed such concerns publicly, and investors have been calm. “People feel threatened by consequences,” Chenault says. Some executives see voting rights as too political a topic to touch, but “it’s not political; we’re talking about a fundamental right here. We’re not saying Republican [or] Democrat.” In Equal to the Task, a memoir that will be published next week, Chenault argues a point many CEOs won’t: that it is “vitally important” for business to protect the democratic process. “As the integrity of elections becomes compromised, segments of the population become alienated, communities become less stable and less prosperous, and individual businesses suffer,” he writes. Chenault’s stance seems an increasingly lonely one in corporate America. He does not believe that every CEO should have to take a public position on every social or political controversy, he stresses, “but we need a few people.” A call to get business off the sidelines Warren Buffett, who appointed Chenault to the board of Berkshire Hathaway, has called him “the gold standard for corporate leaders and the benchmark that I measure others against.” The onetime lawyer earned widespread respect in the upper reaches of US business for the way he led Amex through struggles including the September 11 attacks, the 2008 financial crisis, and a US antitrust probe. “I think I confronted more major challenges than frankly, some of the CEOs of today,” he says. But he does not belittle the complexity of the environment facing this generation of executives, saying that “the transforming impact of AI, the geopolitical environment, [and] the increasing movement to authoritarianism [are] existential challenges.” Chenault’s book is both a personal account of his “uniquely American story” and an attempt to guide his successors through those challenges. And it ends with a call for a broader “rebalancing” of the relationship between business and society, which he implies will require a bolder stance from business leaders on issues from democracy to diversity. “I can’t recall a moment that has called for greater courage than today,” he writes, adding in an interview: “Business can’t afford to just be on the sidelines.” Chenault, who has mentored founders including Airbnb’s Brian Chesky in his role at General Catalyst, says he often asks CEOs what their core beliefs are beyond their strategy and which “red lines” they would never cross in business. He has grown concerned that “people are increasingly uncomfortable with that question,” he says, adding that executives should see any election interference as one of those boundaries. Organizations that know what behavior they would find beyond the pale have the advantage of being able to prepare for how to respond if they encounter it, Chenault says. The Harvard Corporation, the university governing body on which he served until earlier this year, discussed its red lines “before things happened,” he says, referring to the Trump administration’s multi-front campaign against the institution. Some people told him privately that they agreed with how Harvard responded, but said, “I could never do that; I’ve got to be silent,” Chenault says. “I’ve said to people, you can’t be silent about principles.” A ‘proud capitalist’ makes the case for social responsibility Chenault calls himself a “proud capitalist,” but he has long rejected Milton Friedman’s argument that the only social responsibility a business has is to use its resources to increase its profits “within the rules of the game.” “I believe that business exists because society allows it to exist. And, to me, that confers a level of responsibility,” Chenault says. As an example of what needs to change, he adapts a line popularized by the founder of Meta, whose board Chenault briefly served on and now says was “not a fit” for him. “The era of ‘move fast and break things’ is over,” he says. “Obviously that line is attributed to Mark Zuckerberg, but I think there are a range of people in business generally and technology specifically that have lost sight of what their responsibilities are.” Companies’ social license to operate has come under threat, he says, “and some of it is our fault.” Some business leaders think “I know better what society needs than the rest of the people because I’m far more intelligent, and so the most intelligent should rule,” he says. Other executives, he says, think, “I can’t be bothered with all these existential issues. I’ve just got to focus on my business.” Chenault describes the “rebalancing” he is calling for in the face of such views as “one that acknowledges that to earn the trust of an enlightened society, you must act in service to that society with core values, beliefs, character, and integrity.” Notable - State and local elections officials are increasingly anxious about incursions from the federal government, The New York Times detailed.
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