Chief Executive Officer & Chairman of Board, Flowers Foods
Search every verified A. Mcmullian interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. In a 2009 lecture at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, Flowers Foods Chairman Emeritus Amos McMullian discussed the relationship between business and government, arguing that U.S. policies placed American companies at a competitive disadvantage. He stated that the United States had the second-highest corporate income tax rate among 25 industrialized nations and was the only one where businesses, rather than the government, paid for healthcare. McMullian said manufacturing jobs had declined from over 40% of the workforce to 17%, and he attributed this to cost advantages held by foreign competitors, adding that those jobs would not return without policy reforms. McMullian also offered advice on management and career development. He said that "opportunities come disguised as problems" and urged leaders to "learn to be bold" after understanding the difference between boldness and recklessness. He emphasized the importance of early accountability in business, stating that his company tested employees early so that mistakes were small and costs low. McMullian criticized what he described as an adversarial relationship between government and business, and he encouraged greater political involvement, noting that only 7% of Americans were active in politics while 97% followed sports.
“You need to learn that opportunities come disguised as problems. You need to know the difference between being bold and being reckless and after you've learned that difference, learn to be bold.”
“In a global economy there are over 200 nations in the world out there so you've got corporations that are incorporated in 200 different countries with different rules and different regulations. We have to be careful that we don't trigger the law of unintended consequences in our regulatory process that gives the Americ...”
“Of the top 25 industrial developed nations in the world, 24 of them healthcare is paid for by government. Only one of them is healthcare paid for by business—that one is the United States. Now we're talking about healthcare as one-sixth of the largest economy in the world, so you're talking about a huge cost burden to...”
“The United States is second with the highest corporate income tax rate among those 25 countries. When our partners in the Keebler transaction sold, they paid zero capital gains tax because they were incorporated in Luxembourg. We would have paid a 38.5% corporate tax rate and then when we dividend it out to our shareho...”
Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, Leaders and Legends Lecture Series, May 14, 2009: Amos McMullian - Chairman, ...
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