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2025-07-14 11:00:00| Fast Company

Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! Im Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. Prominent CEOs and high-net-worth individuals have long had security details, but in recent months executive security feels like it has become a more conspicuous part of the corporate landscape. It is no longer unusual to see a CEOs protection officer standing nearby during lunch in a restaurant. Ive had a growing number of companies request a sweep of our office before a CEO visits Fast Company or Inc., and Ive seen leaders arrive at meetings in bulletproof vehicles, even after traveling just a few blocks. This rise in CEO security isnt just anecdotal: More than a third (34.4%) of S&P 500 companies offered executive security in 2024, according to a fresh analysis of 2025 proxy statements by intelligence firm Equilar, up from 28.2% in 2023. Median security spending last year increased to $105,749, up 6% from a year earlier, with some companies, such as Intel, boosting security spending more than 8,000%, to $250,000 from just $3,000 in 2023. And security spending is likely to climb in 2025 following the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024. Experts say heightened security resources correlate to a rise in credible threats against executives, fomented by political rhetoric, social media, and antibusiness sentiment. Bodyguards for the top boss Even for public company CEOs, the level and visibility of their security operations vary wildly based on their fame and circumstances. Meta provides CEO Mark Zuckerberg with a $14 million annual pretax allowance to protect him and his family, up from $10 million in 2018. We believe that Mr. Zuckerberg’s role puts him in a unique position: He is synonymous with Meta and, as a result, negative sentiment regarding our company is directly associated with, and often transferred to, Mr. Zuckerberg, the company says in its 2025 proxy statement. In contrast, Berkshire Hathaway last year spent $305,111 on in-home and personal security services for its equally high-profile but relatively unprovocative CEO, Warren Buffett. Most CEOs are initially reluctant to embrace protection. Usually, CEOs think everythings fine, says Paul Donahue, president, global security services at Constellis, which provides security services and support. When they do concede to security, chief executives can be very selective about the professionals who guard them. We tell all of our executive protection folks, CEOs operate at a very high speed, theyre highly demanding, and theyre as particular in picking security as they are in picking a plane theyre buying, so weve had a lot of turnover, he says. Constellis recruits ex-military, ex-law enforcement, and career security professionals to work in its executive protection unit. Donahue says those careers instill people with the skills, including discipline and an understanding of chain of command, needed to succeed in the field. Protecting a CEO can be a balancing act: Security professionals need to be able to say no to clients, especially when a seemingly simple request, like running out to pick up a pint of ice cream, might require Constellis to put together a patrol team and mobilize several cars. But if they insist, we’ll go to Häagen-Dazs at 11 p.m., Donanue says. It’s as personal a service as I think there is. Should companies invest in CEO security? While the odds of an incident are fairly low, Donahue argues (self-servingly) that it is money well spent. He notes that the Thompson killing unleashed a wave of negative sentiment about United Healthcare and the health insurance industry, damaging the companys reputation and hurting employee morale. Furthermore, he says, if companies spend millions of dollars guarding intellectual property, products, and brands, they should feel comfortable earmarking a couple hundred thousand dollars for CEO protection. If you truly believe your most important asset is your people, which we hear over and over, you probably should spend a little more on protecting that important asset, he says. How do you protect yourself? CEOs, how are you thinking about personal security? How do you protect yourself and your leadership teams? Send your experiences to me at stephaniemehta@mansueto.com, and well highlight examples in a future newsletter. Read more: CEO comp Founders are among the most fairly paid CEOs Heres how much entrepreneurs paid themselves in 2024 CTOs outearn founders at tech startups


Category: E-Commerce

 

LATEST NEWS

2025-07-14 10:00:00| Fast Company

What does Krogers brand sound like? Until recently, no one knew. And then on June 25, the grocery behemoth (which includes regional chains like King Soopers, Fred Meyer, Ralphs, and Pick’n Save) launched its first-ever sonic identity. Theres a succinct sonic logo (think Netflixs tudum), a full brand theme song, and moreso as it turns out, this is officially what Kroger sounds like: Its an upbeat earworm youre going to be hearing a lot of in grocery stores, on TV, and everywhere the Kroger family of brands reaches. But its no mere jingle, and theres a surprising amount of strategy and craft behind such an audio signatureand real financial impact as well, notes John Taite, EVP of global brand partnerships and development at Made Music Studio, which created the work.  People think about what they see, but they feel what they hear, he says. And it’s apropos, because, well, there’s always an emotional element to any sort of purchase decision. THE SOUND OF ‘KROJIS‘ The work comes at the tail of a five-year brand revamp at Kroger, the largest U.S. supermarket chain by revenue. Its family of brands across the U.S. had essentially operated as independent entities from a marketing perspective, but around 20192020, the company decided to begin uniting them in a more intentional way. Tom Duncan, Krogers VP, head of marketing, says the initiative began with the launch of the brands animated Kroji characters (a portmanteau of Kroger and emoji), and continued with the debut of the fresh cart logo in 2021, which like the Krojis was rolled out to all Kroger markets and sub-brands. Now, the sonic identity is the latest tool in Krogers bid to unify everything under one marketing roof.  We believe that this makes our advertising work harder to drive more traffic and sales, Duncan says. In a holistic system standpoint, creating consistent, distinctive assets and engaging more of the customers senses are a way to make it work harder for usand be more memorable over time. FINDING THE INEVITABLE  Taite says that in Made Musics competitive analysis, they found that grocery as a category was lacking or inconsistent when it came to sonic logos. No one was embracing sonic design in a truly comprehensive way, so in a cluttered marketplace, that presented an opportunity.  The development process of the new work took around a year, and Taite says his team began with a deep immersion.  I don’t want to say we become musical detectives, but we almost become like method actors. We have to live and breathe and really experience the brand, and that’s why spending a lot of time with the team members, looking at the places where the work will live in the world, and understanding the brand’s place in culture as well is a really important starting point.   Duncan adds that everyone from store managers to Krogers comms and marketing teams were involved, and the process was deeply collaborative.  As Made Music worked to absorb the brand, they began to build a foundation to work towardto find the almost inevitable sound of a brand, as Taite puts it. They seized on notions of fresh, friendly, relatable, and playful, and envisioned Kroger a bit like a weddinga space thats a multigenerational gathering point, with music elevating the experience. And from there, they began to give dimensionality those notions with sound. Contrary to what you might expect, Made Music does not start by making the core sonic logo of a few seconds, but rather the larger brand theme. Even though consumers might not ever hear it, Taite says it offers the blueprint for all of the subsequent campaign materials, including the logo, which is a distillation of the longer piece.  When it came to translating Krogers brand values into audio, we know exactly what types of sounds can stimulate particular emotional responses, Taite says, citing the companys decades of experience. Here, that translated to an uplifting track with welcoming rhythms and jazz vibes, where the sound of all the instruments working together mirrors the notion of inviting everyone in. (Theres a bit of an Easter egg, too: Kroger is synonymous with the color blue, and the sonic identity features a blue note, which in music is essentially a note at an alternate pitch.) ART + SCIENCE Similar to disciplines like brand naming, all of this might seem a bit subjective and nebulous. How do you know if youre actually on the right track? Taite says Made Music has worked with the market research firm Sentient Decision Science for a number of yearsand this project rated the highest of any sonic identity his company has ever developed.  Per Duncan on the Kroger side, There’s an element of art and science hereand obviously, the science part gives us confidence.   After being presented with options from Made Music, the Kroger team seized on the winning concept right away. Given that Kroger had involved so many stakeholders throughout, Taite says, there was a sense of pride and enthusiasm around the work, which he adds has yielded one of the fastest rollouts in the organizations history.  That little earworm melody that we created, the more you hear it, the more you think it’s always been there, Taite says. That’s the lightning-in-the-bottle moment that we’re always, always searching for.


Category: E-Commerce

 

2025-07-14 10:00:00| Fast Company

In May of 1995, the video game industry hosted its first major trade show. Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) was designed to shine a spotlight on games, and every major player wanted to stand in it. Sega believed it had figured out how to command that spotlight. Riding high on the success of the Sega Genesis, the company unveiled the Sega Saturn at its press conference. After a quirky segment that resembled one of Sega’s off-the-wall commercials, Tom Kalinske, CEO of Sega of America, delivered a bombshell announcement. “Since I began my remarks with an announcement, I might as well finish with another: We started our rollout of the Sega Saturn yesterday,” he said. “We’re at retail today in 1,800 Toys “R” Us, Software Etc., and Electronics Boutique stores around the U.S. and Canada.” Sega hoped it would be a mic drop moment. Instead, it marked the beginning of the end for the companys hardware business. What the press conference audience didnt know was that Kalinske had strongly opposed the early launch. He had argued fiercely with Segas Japanese leadership, pointing to his past success with the Genesis in the U.S. and warning that a surprise launch without a proper marketing ramp-up wouldn’t work. But his objections were overruled. This story is part of 1995 Week, where well revisit some of the most interesting, unexpected, and confounding developments in tech 30 years ago. “[I] didnt understand why this was occurring,” he told TimeExtension in 2022. “I was forced to introduce it. We didnt have enough hardware. We didnt have enough software. And then, to make matters worse, we were forced to introduce it five months earlier than we wanted.” Segas announcement turned headsbut they quickly turned again when Sony held its own press conference later that day. After showcasing the PlayStation and a long list of development partners, Olaf Olafsson, head of Sony America, invited Steve Race (formerly Segas own marketing chief) to the stage. Race approached the podium, put down his notes, and simply said: “299,” then walked away. That one number undercut the Saturn and every other console on the market by $100. By the time Sega abandoned the Saturn just three years later, it had sold fewer than 2 million units in the U.S. The company would release one final systemthe Dreamcastin 1998 in Japan and 1999 in the U.S. But the Saturns mishandled launch had already altered Segas trajectory forever. A Doomed Launch “The Saturn was dead before it came out because of the poor decision-making Sega had made,” says Chris Kohler, a video game historian and editorial director at Digital Eclipse Entertainment Partners. When it came out in Japan, Sega was also launching 32X, an add-on for the Sega Genesis. . . . All it ended up doing was completely confusing consumers. They had no idea what to buy.” Despite that confusion, the Saturn had a decent launch in Japan. Its game lineup appealed to local tastes, especially with a home version of Virtua Fighter, a massive arcade hit. But American gamers were harder to win over. While titles like Panzer Dragoon and Clockwork Knight have dedicated fanbases today, they werent enough to justify a $399 console (about $842 in todays dollars). I tried and tried to get the launch pushed back so that we had some actual software to support it, Kalinske told TimeExtension. I was not successful. I had four glorious years where Sega Japan pretty much let me do whatever I felt was right, and then that stopped. One of the Saturns most glaring missteps was the lack of a Sonic the Hedgehog gamenot just at launch, but throughout its entire lifespan. At the time, Sonic was at the height of his popularity. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 had sold 4 million copies the year prior. He also starred in a Saturday morning cartoon and the CGI-animated series Sonic Boom on Cartoon Network. Launching a Sega console without Sonic was like launching a Nintendo console without Mario. The surprise launch strategy also backfired on Sega in another way. “Essentially, they kneecapped themselves,” says Kohler. “They can only ship it to certain retailers, so the retailers that don’t get those early shipments get burned and they don’t want to stock Sega products anymore. . . . Consumers didn’t have the ability to get excited or put down preorders. It hit the market without any buildup.” An Unexpected Fight Sega knew Sony would bring the PlayStation to the U.S., but didnt initially view it as a serious threat. By the mid-1990s, lots of big, non-gaming focused companies had tried to step into the videogame world. Magnavox had released several versions of the Odyssey in the 1970s. Philips had released the CD-i a few years prior to the Saturn’s introduction. The Neo Geo was already on the market and the TurboGrafx-16 had just been discontinued. But Sony was different. Aggressive and well-prepared, its $299 price point stunned the industry. “We didnt know they were going to do it, and when they did, we were like: ‘We are screwed here,'” said Kalinske. “We werent making money at $399, so we had a problem. Consumers responded immediately. Retailers increased orders, and developers rushed to work with the PlayStation. “All of these big hardware makers were coming into the video game industry and falling on their face,” says Kohler. “Sony, of all of them, comes in and is not only successful but outrageously successful.” Executive Departures Kalinskes frustrations continued after the Saturn launch, and in July of the following year, he resignedthough he remained on the board. Bernard Stolar, who had been instrumental in launching the PlayStation, took over at Sega. His first move was to abandon the Saturn. When I got to Sega I immediately said, We have to kill Saturn. We have to stop Saturn and start building the new technology. Thats what I did. I brought in a new team of people and cleaned house. . . . I took the company down to 90 employees to start rebuilding, Stolar, who died in 2022, once told GamesBeat. That team created the Dreamcast, which performed well in the U.S. but not well enough to restore Segas dominanceespecially as Microsoft prepared to enter the market. Lacking the resources to compete with Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, Sega exited the hardware business. Today, Sega is part of Sammy Corp. and focuses solely on software, with franchises ranging from Angry Birds to Total Warand of course, Sonic, who now stars in a successful film series. Still, it’s hard not to ask, What if? What if Sega had waited until September to launch the Saturn, as originally planned? What if it had a stronger launch lineup for the U.S. market? There are no answers, only the reality that the Saturns missteps reshaped the industry. “In a lot of ways, it was Sega’s to lose and they just fumbled it,” says Kohler.


Category: E-Commerce

 

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