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Leader the privately held Carlson Companies, the world's largest travel services business, Carlson Nelson calls herself a "mission-driven CEO."
"I have labored to make our company culture an inclusive culture," she says. "The mission-driven CEO has to serve all stakeholders: the shareholders, of course, but also the employees, the customers, the community and the na tion." Pausing, she adds: "And, in my case, the family."
Since childhood, Carlson Nelson has been on a mission to increase her speed, capability and endurance at work, home and play. As a voluntary test of her own abilities, for example, she flew with the Air Force Thunderbirds in 1997, withstanding nine times the force of gravity powerdiving an F-16. As she climbed out of the fighter jet at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, she removed her helmet and proudly held up her airsickness bag, empty and dry.
Her daring, carefree, yet businesslike attitude developed as a child, when Carlson Nelson learned that in a family business it's hard to distinguish between family and business. Shortly after she was horn, her father, Curt Carlson, quit his job and took a gamble. He became Minnesota's first billionaire, through Gold Bond trading stamps, building his startup, the Carlson Cos., into a global powerhouse based in a suburb of Minneapolis. And he would not fully relinquish the reins to his oldest daughter, Marilyn, until he was 84 years old and she was nearly 60.
Travel industry savants called Carlson Nelson's ascent "the longest-running succession saga in business history." In 1991, when she was vice-chair...
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