From 19-year-old receptionist to CEO: Ramona Hood's promotion makes FedEx history
Thursday, February 27, 2020
Published February 23, 2020 by CommercialAppeal
Before Ramona Hood became CEO of a FedEx company, she was a 19-year-old single mother looking for a regular day job while taking night classes.
"I just wanted a schedule that would be consistent," she recalled.
Hood landed an 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. shift in 1991 as a receptionist for Roberts Express, which later became FedEx Custom Critical. It didn't take long for her to develop that short-term win into a long-term pursuit of leadership, culminating in her latest promotion.
FedEx Custom Critical promoted Hood from vice president of operations, strategy and planning to its president and CEO on Jan. 1, succeeding the retiring Virginia Addicott. Hood is the first African American woman to lead a FedEx operating company.
“That is something we can be really, really proud of,” said Shannon Brown, FedEx Express chief diversity officer and senior vice president of Eastern Division U.S. operations.
FedEx Custom Critical, which operates under FedEx Logistics, provides time-critical shipping services. The Ohio-based company delivers hundreds of thousands of shipments annually, specializing in same-day and overnight shipping.
Hood said under her leadership, Custom Critical will be agile in addressing customer needs and using technology, all while “looking at things in ways we haven’t in the past.”
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