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If we are doers,
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if we can do anything that comes our way,
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let's actually put the decision making
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closer to the people, so that we can go fast.
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(upbeat music)
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Hi Carol.
Hi. Christoph.
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It's great to see you.
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We're delighted to have you here.
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Come on in.
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(upbeat music)
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Carol, it's so great to be here.
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Explain to us where we are.
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We are at Integrad,
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and this is where we train
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all of our UPSers on safe driving practices.
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We put thousands of UPSers
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through this training program every year,
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and I'm proud of it because our safety statistics
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are best in the world.
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Everyone in the US knows and loves UPS.
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It's an iconic company.
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It's also well known around the world.
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Can you share some surprising facts with us about UPS?
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We were founded in 1907
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by an entrepreneur whose name was Jim Casey.
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He was 18 years old at the time,
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and he took out a $100 loan,
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and he and a buddy started delivering packages on bicycles.
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So once they moved away from bicycles to cars,
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well, it was the early 1900s,
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they were driving on dirt roads
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and the cars were getting dirty.
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So one of the leaders said,
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"Hey, let's paint the cars brown
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because it will cover up the grime."
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So we love brown.
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Now our package cars are brown,
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our uniforms are brown.
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We all bleed brown.
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You got announced as CEO of UPS in March 2020,
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and then COVID hit the world
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and where the pandemic changed and how we all worked.
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Tell us about some of your shaping moments of your tenure.
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Well, Christoph, I've had many shaping moments,
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but I'll talk about two.
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The first to your point was when I was announced
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as the incoming CEO, and a week later, the world shut down,
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and yet UPSers were essential employees.
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We knew that we needed to continue
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to get essential goods to people
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as they were sheltering in place around the world.
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And it was utter chaos
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because the first thing, the first order of business
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was keeping our people safe.
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During the midst of COVID craziness,
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we said let's declare what our purpose is,
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because it will be a rallying cry
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for the people who are working.
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And so we landed on our purpose,
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which is moving our world forward
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by delivering what matters.
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And I love that
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because you can unpack it in so many different ways.
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It's not just about moving goods,
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it's about doing good too.
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And what Peter Drucker said, you know,
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long, long time ago he says,
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"Culture eats strategy for breakfast."
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And we saw that, we saw that,
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that the strategy didn't matter so much.
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It was the culture that powered us through.
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The next moment that was really scary,
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but where I learned a whole lot was in 2023.
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Our Teamster contract came up for renewal,
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and we employ more Teamsters than any company on the planet.
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And as we started this contract negotiation,
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our objectives were not that far apart.
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So we were moving the negotiation
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and making some very good progress,
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until one weekend, they wouldn't return our calls,
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they wouldn't return our texts.
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Instead, Teamster leadership went on the media circuit
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to try to negotiate the contract in the airwaves.
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And I received a telephone call from Nancy Pelosi.
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She says, "I'm calling to see if I can help."
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I said, "Well, you could call them,
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ask them to come back to the table,
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because if they come back to the table,
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I am convinced we can get a deal."
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So she said, all right, and they came back to the table
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and we got a deal, and we avoided a work stoppage.
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Our customers were concerned
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that maybe there would be a work stoppage,
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so our customers diverted volume from us.
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So getting that contract,
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a handshake deal was critically important
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so we could start to win the volume back,
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which we have done.
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But the impact of all of this
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was really traumatic to our company,
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because you see, with volume leaving our company,
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our company got smaller.
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It was tough.
Well then,
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the cost was going to go up.
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No, exactly.
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We have a new contract,
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costs go up, volume comes down.
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It's like, you know, whoa, this is not the equation
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that we expected or wanted.
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But the cool thing about it
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is that we're coming out of it.
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We are coming out of it,
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and we're going to be stronger as a result.
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Most incoming CEOs are overwhelmed
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with all the things they need to do
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in their first 100 days or first six months.
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And on top of that, you were a sensation, so to say,
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at UPS because you were the first outsider
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and also the first woman who became CEO of UPS.
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How did you prioritize,
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how did you navigate through
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that incredible amount of challenge?
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When I actually took the CEO job,
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I grabbed the executive leadership team
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and we went to my farm.
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And in my barn, we sat and talked about
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how we were going to work together as a team.
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You know, the behaviors that we would model,
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the behaviors that we wouldn't model.
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We agreed on five key principles
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that were important and would never change,
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everything else is under review.
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We took a large conference room
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and we put up every initiative on the walls
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around the conference room.
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I said, put the green dots
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on the initiatives that should stay,
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and the red dots on the initiatives that we should kill.
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So clearly the red dots were easy to stop working on.
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The no dots were easy too
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because there was no emotion around the no dots.
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So we narrowed our focus on the initiatives
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that were gonna drive the results that we wanted to see.
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And then we also zoomed out
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and took a look at our portfolio and said,
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all right, this portfolio needs some tweaking.
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How are we gonna really create value?
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So we landed on something called Better Not Bigger,
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where we said we will get better, we're gonna get better.
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We will be more productive with the assets that we own,
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and we don't necessarily have to be big.
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So we'd focused on the segments of the opportunity
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that valued our end-to-end network.
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And coming back to this point that you became CEO,
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but the company didn't really know you too much,
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how did you play that in your early months?
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Well, lots of folks were working from home.
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I was in the office every day
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and people started to get to know me.
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And I do think I had an advantage
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because I had been on the board.
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So I had a deep appreciation for our culture
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and I made sure people understood that because I do.
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Many CEOs think of culture as something fluffy.
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In fact, it is something very precise.
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It's something measurable.
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It's something manageable.
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How did you go about that?
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It is a get it done culture.
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It's also a culture of incredible responsibility.
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Here's what you hear UPSers say a lot,
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"Leave it with me, consider it done."
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I respect that, right?
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So I wanted to make sure that the culture felt empowered,
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because candidly, we had gotten a little bureaucratic.
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This happens to these old companies, right?
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It also happens to younger companies, I can confirm.
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It happens and bureaucracy is death.
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And so when I understood our can-do attitude,
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I'm like, there are some things
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getting in the way of can-do.
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For example, we had lots of committees.
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If we are doers, if we can do anything that comes our way,
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let's kill the committees and actually put
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the decision making closer to people,
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so that we can go fast.
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So that was a really important thing culturally to change.
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The other thing that we changed culturally
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was just authenticity.
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We're super proud of our brand standards.
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We're super proud of that.
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But we had overindexed on what really mattered.
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So for example, if you were African-American,
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you could not have natural hair.
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If you were a male, you could not have facial hair.
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And our tattoo policy was more restrictive than the US Army.
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So I'm like, you know what?
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We can let people bring in their real,
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genuine, authentic self.
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If you look forward into UPS's future,
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what excites you for the company?
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Well, I'm excited that because of our ability
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to deliver those COVID-19 vaccines so effectively,
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we legitimized our right to be in healthcare logistics.
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When I started with the company,
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our healthcare logistics business
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was around 6 billion.
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Last year, around 10 billion.
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We're gonna double that by 2026.
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And as we look forward, there's so much goodness ahead.
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I think it's wonderful to hear
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about your aspirations for UPS and your optimism.
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I think you have all reason for that.
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Thank you.
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Thank you, Christoph.
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It was a joy.
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(upbeat music)