Morehouse School of Medicine’s “Danforth Dialogues” Features United Parcel Services CEO Carol B. Tomé
MSM President and CEO Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice and Tomé discuss the value of mentors and discover a surprising connection between the two of them.
ATLANTA, GA – Oct. 25, 2024 – Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) has released the October edition of its 2024 "Danforth Dialogues" podcast, featuring a conversation between MSM President and CEO Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice, and United Parcel Services CEO Carol B. Tomé.
Raised in Jackson, Wyo., Tomé, who graduated from the University of Wyoming and holds a master’s degree in finance from the University of Denver, began her career in banking before becoming vice president and treasurer at Riverwood International. She joined The Home Depot and ultimately became its chief financial officer. Coming out of retirement, she is the first woman and first outsider to be CEO of United Parcel Service.
“Atlanta ranks seventh in the country for cities with the most Fortune 500 companies and we are so pleased to not only have Carol Tomé, one of the CEOs of our hometown Fortune companies on Danforth Dialogues, but also according to Fortune the sixth most powerful businesswomen in the country,” said Dr. Montgomery Rice.
Tomé credited her parents for her rise to the top in corporate America. “I was incredibly blessed because my parents, they just raised me in a way that I am so grateful for,” she said. “They instilled in me a sense of confidence that I could do anything and be anything that I wanted. They drilled that into me as a girl, and I believed them. And they taught me how to live off the land. As a young girl, I could hunt and fish and cook and sew.”
As a commercial banker, Tomé helped Riverwood International, then a subsidiary of Johns Manville, become an independent public company, and was later asked to join Riverwood International, now called Graphic Packaging, and moved to Atlanta. During the podcast, Tomé learned that Dr. Montgomery Rice’s mother spent 25 years as an employee in Riverwood’s Macon, Ga., factory. “That was the job that changed our life,” said Dr. Montgomery Rice. “A game changer.”
A “game changer” in Tomé’s life was joining The Home Depot where she worked with the company’s legendary co-founder, Arthur Blank. “Arthur has been one of the most influential people in my entire life,” Tomé said. “You know he gives direct feedback. And he gives it to you in your face. And I got a lot of that direct feedback. Which was extraordinarily helpful. But he would follow up on the direct feedback with handwritten notes to me. Notes of inspiration. Of coaching. Of guidance. I have every one of those letters. Every one of them. And I refer to them today.”
And those letters may have been very helpful to Tomé when she took over UPS just as the COVID-19 pandemic started. “I'm announced as the incoming CEO and a week after that, the world shut down and I'm like, holy moly,” Tomé. “UPSers are essential workers. We can't shut down. We can't shelter in place. We got to keep commerce moving. We move 6% of the US GDP every day, 2% of the world's GDP. We can't stop. And I must say our team did a masterful job of managing through that. They really, really did.”
For Tomé, hearkening back to her upbringing helped her as she guided UPS through the pandemic. “I thought a lot about my mom,” she said. “My mom was in assisted living at that point, and we couldn't get in to see her. Because it's COVID, right? I thought a lot about her and how she would be handling this situation. She would say, "Carol, it's not work when you see it's working."
To hear this edition of the podcast, click here
For more information about the Danforth Dialogues leadership series, click here.
To listen and subscribe to the Danforth Dialogues podcast, click here.
For more information about Morehouse School of Medicine, please visit MSM.edu.
About Morehouse School of Medicine
Founded in 1975, Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) is among the nation's leading educators of primary care physicians, biomedical scientists, and public health professionals. An independent and private historically-Black medical school, MSM was recognized by the Annals of Internal Medicine as the nation's number one medical school in fulfilling a social mission—the creation and advancement of health equity. Morehouse School of Medicine's faculty and alumni are noted for excellence in teaching, research, and public policy, as well as exceptional patient care. MSM is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award doctoral and master's degrees. To learn more about programs and donate today, please visit www.msm.edu or call 404-752-1500.
Contact
Jamille Bradfield
Morehouse School of Medicine
jbradfield@msm.edu