Adam Bryant conducts interviews of senior-level executives that appear in his “Corner Office” column each week in the SundayBusiness section of The New York Times. Here are a few insights provided during an interview of Lesa France Kennedy, chief executive of the International Speedway Corporation and vice chairwoman of NASCAR. One of the most powerful women in sports, Kennedy is the granddaughter of NASCAR founder William France Sr. (d. 1992). In addition to her 18% stake in the stock car governing body itself, she serves as CEO of International Speedway Corp., a public sister company that runs many of the racetracks. To read the complete interview, check out other articles, and obtain subscription information, please click here.
Photo credit: Forbes
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Your grandfather, Bill France Sr., started NASCAR, and you grew up in the family business. What are some early memories for you?
My brother and I did a variety of jobs, starting when we were 10 years old. I was in the ticket office. I had the chance to interact with customers. They were all characters. It was a really neat job to have at that age.
I worked a lot with my grandmother. All our family members have very strong personalities, and she was very particular with the details, and that was very important in the business, especially starting out from scratch.
She was a penny counter. My grandfather was a visionary. He knew from the very beginning what his passion was and what his vision for the sport was. At the time, it was very disorganized, and it needed someone to wrap their arms around it and say, “Let’s get this headed in the right direction.” They were a great match for each other.
My grandmother even kept two sets of books. One was the real set for the business. And then she kept a second set of books to show my grandfather, because she knew if there was any money in the bank, he would be looking to spend it quickly, and she was more of a rainy-day type of a person.
After every race, she would go to the back room and count with the bankers and make sure that every dollar got right into the bank. She would sit there and count dollars and wrap them herself.
Do you see their influence in your leadership style today?
You’re always looking to do new things with the business and think about what people really want, and that’s a lesson that all of our family members took away from my grandfather. My grandmother always kept things in check, and we have to remind ourselves to do that. The pace of change in the world of motor sports is so fast and furious that you have to make sure you’re headed in the right direction and at the right speed.
Moving up through the ranks in a family business has its unique challenges. How did you handle them?
My father had some very specific expectations, and I admire him for it, even though it was a little bit painful at the time. He let us find our own way. A lot of the senior executives at the time were a little bit leery of new ideas from my brother and me, and we’d have to fight for those quite a bit.
It would have been easy for Dad to step in and say, “No, no, let the kids try this out.” But instead he would really make us work for it and prove those ideas, and also to convince the other people. It was a great learning experience. He could have made it easier, but in the long run, I don’t think that would have been the way to go.
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To read the complete interview as well as Bryant’s interviews of other executives, please click here.
Adam Bryant, deputy national editor of The New York Times, oversees coverage of education issues, military affairs, law, and works with reporters in many of the Times’ domestic bureaus. He also conducts interviews with CEOs and other leaders for Corner Office, a weekly feature in the SundayBusiness section and on nytimes.com that he started in March 2009. In his book, The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEOs on How to Lead and Succeed, (Times Books), he analyzes the broader lessons that emerge from his interviews of hundreds of business leaders. To read an excerpt, please click here. To contact him, please click here.