Chief Executive Leadership Institute Honors Lester Crown with Lifetime of Leadership Award
June 3, 2021 — Lester Crown, Chairman Emeritus of Henry Crown and Company, will accept the Lifetime of Leadership award of the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute today during the virtual Yale CEO Summit and Mayors College. The Lifetime of Leadership award will be presented to Mr. Crown by Walter Isaacson, Former Chairman & CEO, The Aspen Institute.
Summit organizer Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Senior Associate Dean for Leadership Studies at the Yale School of Management, commented:
“Lester Crown is one of the most revered corporate citizens across generations, states, sectors, and continents. He is a titan of the “The Greatest Generation” of WWII business leaders. He has helped guide great enterprises and institutions through great transformations including: General Dynamics Corporation, Maytag, Alltel, The Aspen Institute, The Weizmann Institute of Science, Northwestern University, the Ann & Robert H. Lure Children’s Hospital of Chicago, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, The Jerusalem Foundation, and The Commercial Club of Chicago.”
A longtime family friend, Richard Edelman of Edelman Communications commented:
“Lester is a singular force. Always a role model for me growing up in Chicago. He was generous to his city and to the Jewish community. He was a power broker in a city of power. He parlayed a construction materials business into a global powerhouse via investment in General Dynamics He has passed on the business to his son Jim while keeping his hand in the day to day. He is simply the best of America as an entrepreneur, a father and a philanthropist.”
The Lifetime of Leadership award celebrates those transformational leaders whose character and sustained contribution span sectors, decades, and generations with wise ambassadorial service, mentoring contributing powerfully to improve business performance, economic growth, creativity, community vitality, human understanding, national strength, and global relations. Previous recipients include: Carla A. Hills, US Trade Representative (1989-1993) and 5th US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; Andrew J. Young, Mayor (1982-1990), Atlanta, Georgia; U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (1977-1979); Farooq Kathwari CEO, Ethan Allen; David Stern, Commissioner Emeritus, National Basketball Association; Maurice R. Greenberg, Chairman and CEO, CV Starr & Co.; John Whitehead, Co-Chairman (1976-1985), Goldman Sachs; and Al Gordon, Honorary Chairman, Kidder, Peabody & Co.
The summit theme is The Ins & Outs of Infrastructure: Getting from Here to There. A conversation with 60 mid-to-large-size city mayors will kick off the Summit, followed by a lively, candid discussion with distinguished global corporate leaders from across industries for the final CEO Summit held remotely over Zoom.
Former Aspen Institute CEO, former CEO of CNN, and bestselling biographer Walter Isaacson will present the award. Also attending are US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, Anne Neuberger, Deputy National Security Advisor, Cyber & Emerging Tech, National Security Council; and CEOs and chairs from such firms as: General Motors; Goldman Sachs; American Airlines; Delta Air Lines; IBM; Deloitte; Hyundai; AMD; Freeport-McMoRan; eBay; Royal Caribbean; Stanley Black& Decker; Snap-on; Lowes Hotels; Goodyear; Xerox; and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. A full list of CEO Summit and Mayors College participants can be found online.
Conference partners include AccuWeather, Deloitte, Evercore, Gladstone Place Partners, IBM, IEX, Korn Ferry, The Stagwell Group, and UPS.
