FREDERICK W. SMITH

1944–

Frederick W. Smith is the founder and CEO of FedEx, the world’s first overnight express-delivery company. He revolutionized delivery services, introducing international transit and tracking.

Born in Mississippi in 1944, Frederick Wallace Smith attended Yale University in the early 1960s, where he came up with a business model for an overnight delivery service—an idea that would later prove to be the key to his commercial success. From 1966, Smith served with the US Marine Corps in Vietnam, an experience he credited with teaching him how to build trust as a team leader. In 1971, having refined and developed his original idea, Smith founded Federal Express, an express-delivery service, after raising $91 million in venture capital. Faced with losses in the first two years, Smith made money gambling in Las Vegas to cover his costs. The company began recording profits in 1976 and went public in 1978. Smith implemented initiatives such as overseas services and package tracking and in 2000 rebranded the company as FedEx, today a multibillion-dollar operation. Smith has since received many awards for his leadership skills.