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Carol Tome

Chief Executive Officer & Director, United Parcel Service

Search every verified Carol Tome interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. In a September 2026 interview with the WSJ Leadership Institute, UPS CEO Carol Tomé discussed her return from retirement to lead the company, stating that the board approached her after determining that its existing leadership team did not yet match the skills and attributes required for the role. She described her leadership philosophy as "people-first," explaining that the CEO and leadership team sit at the bottom of the organizational pyramid to bear the weight of their decisions and free employees to serve customers. Tomé also recounted how UPS employees in Louisville, Kentucky, responded to a recent aircraft crash by immediately following their training, and noted that the company grounded its MD-11 fleet pending cost assessment while securing leases to maintain holiday service. Tomé said she has applied lessons from her onboarding in March 2020, when the company lacked personal protective equipment for essential workers during the pandemic, and that she learned management had previously shown her a more favorable view of operations than reality. She stated that UPS sold several businesses that were unprofitable or capital-intensive with low margins, and that the company has rejected the "old myth" that all packages are equal and volume solves all problems. She also mentioned that the company builds scenarios rather than plans to maintain agility, and that she has deliberately avoided knowing certain details to foster trust between herself, the team, and the board. Asked about her future plans, Tomé said she had once considered entering politics but indicated that "that ship has sailed."

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Notable quotes

“So we sold several businesses that were either not making money or were capital intensive with very low margins. And then we looked at the package business, the small package business and said, 'Wow, that old myth that all packages are created equal and volume solves all problems is really not true.' And our largest customer is a customer you all know. They're headquartered in Seattle and probably all are members of ”

“Complex healthcare logistics is a big growth story for UPS because we are the only carrier that owns all the assets necessary to provide control and visibility for this very important package. It's actually not a package, it's a patient. And so it is a growth story for us. We are growing faster than the market. And oh, by the way, the market's pretty growthy. The market's growing around 6%. We're growing faster than ”

“We launched a strategic transformation of our company 18 months ago to glide down Amazon volume and reconfigure our network. And we did that and then we returned to profit and revenue growth. And as you looked at the guidance for the balance of the year, we will continue to grow our profit and earnings, which gives us runway for a really good 2027.”

“We made a big bold call about a year, a little over a year ago to glide that volume down with our largest customer and we're on path to take it down by 50% by June of 2026. And what that allows us to do a few things. Reconfigure our network so that we optimize the network to grow in the areas of the market where we want to grow. And one of those areas is really leaning into complex healthcare logistics.”

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