Abigail Johnson is an American businesswoman who is the current chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of Fidelity Investments and the great-granddaughter of Edward C. Johnson II, the company’s founder. Under her leadership, Fidelity has become one of the world’s largest asset management firms, with more than $2 trillion in assets under management.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Johnson graduated from Hobart and William Smith Colleges with a bachelor’s degree in art history. She began her career at Fidelity in 1988 as an equity research analyst. She subsequently held a number of senior roles within the company, including president of Personal Investing, head of Fidelity’s retirement and benefits businesses, and co-chief operating officer. She was named CEO in 2014, succeeding her father Edward “Ned” Johnson III.
In addition to her role at Fidelity, Johnson is a director of General Electric and a member of the Harvard Corporation. She is also a trustee of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
Here are 20 Hard-Hitting Abigail Johnson Quotes
1. “There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.” – Abigail Johnson
2. “Every day you have to get up with new energy and new ideas to contribute to pushing the organization forward.” – Abigail Johnson
3. “Don’t assume that the answers are out there in the form of somebody else already doing something. Sometimes they are. But you have to think beyond that.’” – Abigail Johnson
4. “When everyone is running the machine and it’s all working, there’s a tendency to look at the short term and focus on incremental opportunities and not look ahead to the really big opportunities.” – Abigail Johnson
5. “When things are not going the way they need to go, there’s a time when one has to step up to set the organization back on the right direction.” – Abigail Johnson
6. “You have to think that the answer – and the right answer – for you and your organization might not be something that’s been done before. And it’s up to you to discover and work with your team to form and figure out how to do that successfully.” – Abigail Johnson
7. “Change is something that is expected and, therefore, not resisted.” – Abigail Johnson
8. “I was responsible for filling out the forms to correctly put in order the transactions that they were requesting. It was a pretty basic job. But it gave me an appreciation of what it was like to be responsible for really important things in people’s lives and making sure that they were always done accurately and correctly.” – Abigail Johnson
9. “No matter how senior you get in an organization, no matter how well you’re perceived to be doing, your job is never done. Every day, you get up and the world is changing; your customers are expecting more from you. Your competitors are putting pressure on you by doing more and trying to beat you here and beat you there.” – Abigail Johnson
10. “Lots of people will give you advice… and depending upon how well they know you, the advice might be valid or not so valid.” – Abigail Johnson
11. “If it’s going well, why is it going well? If it’s not going well, what do we need to do about it? What are some ideas to try to get us on course so that we can meet those goals? And even possibly were they the right goals? Did we do a good job in our goal setting?” – Abigail Johnson
12. “Sometimes you can gradually improve things. But sometimes, they don’t work, and you’ve just got to say, ‘Let’s grind this baby to a halt.” – Abigail Johnson
13. “I had to learn to communicate to very different types of groups of managers with different orientations, different priorities. And that was a real leadership challenge.” – Abigail Johnson
14. “I demand pretty aggressive goal setting and a commitment to measured progress towards those goals because I don’t like surprises. I don’t even like good surprises.” – Abigail Johnson
15. “There’s a time that may come in an organization where leading by influence is not enough.” – Abigail Johnson
16. “At the end of the day, you know yourself best.” – Abigail Johnson
17. “Anyone who has run money knows that blowing your own horn is usually a way of calling a top on your own performance.” – Abigail Johnson
18. “It’s never obvious what a smart risk is, which is why we hire smart people.” – Abigail Johnson
19. “Never trust a decision you don’t want your mother to know about. How’s that for a brilliant insight?” – Abigail Johnson
20. “Even a small reduction in errors and rework can have a significant impact.” – Abigail Johnson