Remembering Fred Smith: FedEx Founder & Supply Chain Visionary

"Life is short and it ends, the clock is ticking. Don't get all wrapped up in your personal self, that's a very unhealthy thing to do." - Fred Smith, Founder of FedEx (1944 - 2025) On June 21, 2025, the business world - more specifically the supply chain world - lost a giant. FedEx Founder Fred Smith passed away at the age of 80. Frederick Wallace Smith was born in Marks, Mississippi in 1944. According to common anecdotes, he first imagined a company that could provide overnight delivery for an economics paper he wrote while studying at Yale in 1965 - and he got a C because the professor thought the idea was implausible. In this episode of Art of Supply, Kelly Barner looks at Fred Smith's many contributions from five decades in business: The risk he had to be willing to take on in pursuit of his vision The many innovations that were introduced by FedEx during his tenure Why Smith's perspective on what kind of business FedEx was in was so critical to its success Links: FedEx Ground's Contractor Woes Case Dismissed: Spencer Patton Prevails Over FedEx Reading FedEx Ground the RICO Act Will FedEx Freight hit the open road? Kelly Barner on LinkedIn Art of Supply LinkedIn newsletter  Art of Supply on AOP Subscribe to This Week in Procurement