Leadership During Covid-19: How 12 Business Leaders Led the Crisis

A cabinetmaker’s five-month battle with Covid. “You can’t really have a plan.”

To reopen after the spring closings, the family that owns Century Furniture in North Carolina had to cope with frightened employees, volatile orders and more coronavirus outbreaks in its factories and markets.

Wegmans has pampered his customers. Now it has to protect them.

Businesses that used to pamper their customers are adapting to an era when shoppers also pose dangers. Wegmans, a supermarket chain that inspired cult status, discovered how challenging that transformation could be.

Clorox’s new CEO races to keep wipes on store shelves

Linda Rendle took the top job at Clorox in September, becoming one of the youngest leaders of a Fortune 500 company. Her challenge: to meet the demand driven by the coronavirus.

NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell has no time for Hollywood egos

The entertainment giant’s new chief wanted to shake up the company as quickly as possible and throw old conventions overboard. The pandemic gave him a license to do it.

Quibi would revolutionize Hollywood. Here’s why it failed.

Investors put $ 1.75 billion into the short video startup, largely because they trusted the instinct and vision of its founder, movie mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg, and his CEO, Meg Whitman. But the duo’s famous instincts turned out to be wrong.

Can Gap escape the whirlwind? New CEO faces years of decline

The pandemic has washed away many retailers who were already on shaky ground. To avoid that at Gap and to revive the company’s eponymous brand, Sonia Syngal plans a future with fewer stores and more fashion risks.

“Let’s fly, for God’s sake.” Behind the American Airlines Chief’s all-in strategy

CEO Doug Parker quickly added flights back this summer, despite a growing coronavirus storm.

The Incredible Shrinking GM: Mary Barra Bets That Smaller Is Better

The CEO streamlined a company that for decades reigned as the world’s largest automaker. Then she got ready for the next big bet: electric cars. The pandemic didn’t change that.

The Covid crisis taught David Farr the power and limits of leadership

The Emerson Electric CEO enjoyed his firm control and belief in constant action. The pandemic made much of that experience irrelevant. And yet he never stopped moving. Getting through a crisis was better for him than waiting to act.

Coronavirus versus the last grocery store in town

Frank Timberlake, owner of the only grocery store in Rich Square, NC, didn’t have a business backstop when the pandemic hit. The local health service had little advice. He made decisions based on TV news, occasional e-mails from a grocery group, and “what my heart tells me.”

How Pfizer Delivered a Covid Vaccine in Record Time: Crazy Deadlines, a Pushy CEO

The drugmaker and his partner shortened the typical time to develop a vaccine from more than 10 years to less than one. This stems in part from their bet on new gene-based technology. It was also the product of demanding leadership that bordered on the unreasonable.

Reopening the restaurant was not the quick fix the owners needed

Reopening after the spring closings proved to be more of a challenge for a Georgia restaurant owner than closing in the first place.