• Perfumes were massively popular in 2024, especially those from prestige brands.
• Business Insider asked successful women across industries to name their favorite scents.
• Some like expensive, trendy options from Aesop, while others enjoy body sprays and classic perfumes.

The key to everyday luxury in 2024 was simple: spray some perfume.

The fine fragrance industry boomed throughout the year, with Women's Wear Daily reporting that prestige scents were the fastest and largest growing sector of the overall beauty industry.

Colognes were also extremely popular with men, and members of Gen Z became obsessed with smelling good.

So, Business Insider turned to successful women across industries to learn which perfumes they recently favored. Here are their picks.

The founder of a sustainable marketing agency loves unisex scents from Aesop.

Estella Struck founded Viviene New York, a marketing agency that promotes sustainable businesses. She's also a rising star of influencer management.

The 23-year-old told BI that she's "not a perfume maximalist" — but there are two scents she loves.

"I really like Aesop. I think they have an amazing line of fragrances, and they're unisex," she said.

She's purchased the Tacit scent for herself, which costs $160 or $220 depending on the bottle you buy, and the $200 Karst scent for her boyfriend.

"I'll use his Aesop scent depending on my mood," she added.

She also likes a clean version of a popular Gucci fragrance.

Struck told BI that she loves the scent of Gucci Bloom but doesn't find it to be the most sustainable and skin-friendly option on the market.

It's also priced pretty high, between $110 and $128 each for full-sized bottles.

So, the marketing professional turned to Dossier, a brand known for selling clean, inexpensive fragrances inspired by designer products.

Struck said the brand's Floral Honeysuckle perfume smells exactly like Gucci's, and the bottle costs $39.

One media strategist is loyal to a classic Victoria's Secret perfume.

Abby Carlos has spent the past two years working as a media strategist for Warner Bros. Discovery.

So far, she's worn the same perfume each day on the job: Victoria's Secret Bombshell.

She prefers the brand's original scent, which is sold as a body mist, lotion, and perfume (though the latter is sold out).

Other variations of the fragrance — including Bombshell Intense — are still available on the Victoria's Secret website for upward of $60.

For nights out, she turns to a designer brand.

Carlos told BI she likes to wear a limited-edition Carolina Herrera scent called Good Girl Fantastic Pink for nights out.

"It's packaged in a sparkly pink bottle, and I get so many compliments on that one," she said.

She also previously enjoyed the brand's Very Good Girl scent, packaged in a red, heel-shaped bottle. But over time, she thinks it's become a bit overrated.

"It felt like everyone started wearing it," she said of the perfume. "I was like, 'Oh my God. Now I've got to find a new scent.'"

Bottles of the latter fragrance — and others in Carolina Herrera's Good Girl line — range in price between $94 and $192 per bottle. The brand no longer sells the Fantastic Pink line, but it can be purchased on fragrance websites and Amazon.

One entrepreneur sprays an underrated Viktor and Rolf perfume as a mood booster.

Sabrina Guler, 31, is an author and entrepreneur who cofounded the real-estate investment company Techvestor, which landed her on BI's rising stars of real estate list.

"I love Viktor & Rolf's Tiger Lily," she said. "That's been my go-to, and I always get complimented on it."

She describes the scent as floral, feminine, and "very sexy."

"I'm someone who wears fragrance when I want to enhance my self-love," she said. "If I want to feel better about myself, if my mood is kind of off, or if I just want to feel more connected to me, I'll add a little bit of perfume."

An influencer talent agent layers multiple fragrances to create her signature "vanilla cupcake" scent.

Asia Gousse found herself on BI's list of rising stars in influencer talent management thanks to her work with Slash Management. She works with an all-female client roster that she discovered on TikTok.

Even when her job is busy, the 28-year-old makes time for a thorough fragrance routine.

Gousse always begins by applying unscented body oil to help her perfume last longer. She then uses the $14.99 Being Frenshe body spray in Cashmere Vanilla as a base layer for a rotating perfume.

Sometimes, she sprays Valentino's Born in Roma Intense, which costs between $110 and $140. On other days, she chooses Maison Margiela's Replica Afternoon Delight ($35 to $165) or Viktor & Rolf's Flower Bomb Ruby Orchid ($38 to $225).

Finally, she uses a niche fragrance from Idult Paris called Tiholta, which she says is the "truest vanilla" scent she can find. It costs 180 euros, or about $187.

"I want to always walk around smelling like a vanilla cupcake. It's my pride and joy," she said.

A fashion designer has found her signature scent in YSL's line.

Anna Molinari is a 26-year-old content creator and sustainable fashion designer. She's also a newly cemented fragrance fan.

"I never used to be a fragrance person, but now I've been learning about them as I receive them in PR packages," she told BI. "My favorite is the YSL Black Opium Over Red."

In addition to the YSL scent, which costs between $35 and $160 per bottle, Molinari enjoys the Mugler Alien scent, which retails for around $150 per bottle.

"My issue with perfumes is that, to me, they can smell like old ladies," she said. "So what I like about the YSL cherry scent specifically is that it does smell very fruity. Same thing with Mugler Alien. I can wear them every day."

• Reid Hoffman said he'd faced threats after Elon Musk fueled a baseless conspiracy theory about him.
• Musk has amplified claims that the LinkedIn cofounder was a client of Jeffrey Epstein.
• Hoffman said he regretted his past association with Epstein and had hired security after threats.

Reid Hoffman, a cofounder of LinkedIn, said he had received threats of violence — and had to hire security — since Elon Musk fueled a baseless conspiracy theory about him.

Musk, the Tesla CEO who worked with Hoffman at PayPal, replied earlier this month to an X post in which a user implied Hoffman had visited the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein's private island.

He replied with the "100" emoji to a post saying: "This guy is TERRIFIED about Trump releasing the Epstein Client list after all his visits to Epstein Island."

Musk also made the claim during an October interview with the former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, in which he said Hoffman was among the "billionaires behind Kamala" who were "terrified" by the prospect of Epstein's client list being made public.

Speaking with the British newspaper The Sunday Times, Hoffman said Musk had developed a "conviction with no evidence" that he had a close relationship with Epstein.

"Elon's defamation makes me angry and sad," he said. "Angry because it is an ugly assault. Sad because it comes from someone whose entrepreneurial achievements I continue to admire."

He added that he didn't want to "dignify" the threats he had received by sharing any details but said, "I've hired security staff as a result."

After Epstein's suicide in jail in 2019, Hoffman apologized for inviting him to a dinner party in 2015 with other tech tycoons — including Musk, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Palantir's cofounder Peter Thiel — while fundraising for MIT's renowned Media Lab.

Hoffman said he was told Epstein's involvement in raising donations had been vetted and approved by MIT. But he later wrote in an email to Axios that he regretted not conducting his own research into Epstein, who died while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.

"My last interaction with Epstein was in 2015," Hoffman said in the email. "Still, by agreeing to participate in any fundraising activity where Epstein was present, I helped to repair his reputation and perpetuate injustice. For this, I am deeply regretful."

He told The Sunday Times that he "went to no Epstein parties" and that he "didn't even know who he was."

Hoffman is a major Democratic donor who used X to voice his support for Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential election. "My message for American voters and Russian bots: don't vote for the guy too busy selling you a scamcoin," he wrote in a post on X on Election Day. Donald Trump, then the Republican presidential nominee, launched his own crypto coin, World Liberty Financial's wlfi, in October.

Musk has become a close ally of Trump, having been tasked with leading a new advisory committee, the Department of Government Efficiency, alongside the pharmaceutical entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

• Campbell Wilson has been CEO of Air India since it was privatized in 2022.
• He's leading a turnaround that involves hundreds of new jets plus refurbishing old cabins.
• Wilson told BI about his frustrations with the airline's supply chain, and his leadership style.

Campbell Wilson has a tough job — he compares his efforts turning around Air India to "drinking from a firehose."

The New Zealander was appointed CEO in June 2022 after the state-owned flag carrier was privatized in a deal with India's Tata Group conglomerate.

"It was sort of like walking down a beach with 10,000 stones, and under each one of those stones, you knew that there was a creepy crawly," Wilson told Business Insider in an interview at a Taj Hotel in London, also owned by the Tata Group.

"But progressively, you work through it, and you pick up all the stones, and you address everything that's sitting underneath," he added. "And I think now, for the most part, the beach is clean. It's just we have to erect the edifice on top."

At 2023's Paris Airshow, the new Air India set out its ambitions when it signed deals for 470 aircraft worth $70 billion at list prices.

To speed things up, the airline agreed to take six Airbus A350 jets originally destined for the Russian carrier Aeroflot. They're a much more modern upgrade from the aged jets that make up most of Air India's fleet.

For passengers, it's the most tangible evidence of the turnaround, operating on flights to New York and London.

There are another 44 Airbus A350 jets on the way — 10 of which were ordered on Monday. As well as hundreds of narrow-body jets, Air India has ordered 20 Boeing 787 Dreamliners and 10 Boeing 777X jets.

The 777X has been much anticipated throughout the industry but has faced several delays in certification. First deliveries are expected in 2026, six years later than initially scheduled.

"I have full confidence in Boeing to go through whatever's necessary to get these aircraft in the air," Wilson told BI.

"There are other airlines ahead of us who are equally impatient with the delivery," he added. "We just need to let them run through that process with the [Federal Aviation Administration]."

Wilson is more concerned about delays in the supply chain, given plans to retrofit old cabins. "It's the No. 1 frustration I have, to be quite honest," he said.

Two-thirds of its widebody planes haven't been updated since deliveries dating back to 2007. For all the work on behind-the-scenes operations, Wilson says the seats are "the most visible manifestation of the old Air India."

Passengers have seen problems including missing charging outlets, malfunctioning TVs, and broken tray tables.

"The gap between modern and what we offer is big, and so the urgency for us to refit these aircraft is probably greater than any other airline."

"Until we upgrade the aircraft, then people won't believe that the transformation has happened," he added. "And so it's frustrating, but we're working through it."

New Zealand to New York

Wilson didn't find himself running an airline out of a passion for aviation but was instead first driven by opportunities to see the world.

After a season playing field hockey in England, he traveled to New York, where he stayed at a teammate's brother's high-rise apartment.

"I'm sleeping on this guy's couch, looking between my feet at the Empire State Building," Wilson recounted.

He learned the apartment was a perk of his host's job, having been posted to New York. So back home in New Zealand, Wilson was excited when he spotted an ad for Singapore Airlines' management trainee scheme — with the offer to relocate to any of the destinations to which it flew.

"I had to make a sufficient nuisance of myself and knuckle down, work hard, make an impression," he said. "I got sent to Auckland, Sydney, and a few other places."

After working his way up the ranks of Singapore Airlines, Wilson was in 2011 tapped to become the founding CEO of Scoot — its subsidiary budget airline.

Over a decade later, Singapore Airlines took a minority stake in the Air India deal, and Wilson was chosen to lead the turnaround.

Contextual leadership

Wilson said a turnaround requires you to "get a lot of balls up in the air being juggled at once."

"You don't have the luxury of time to do things sequentially, and so you have to do everything in parallel," he added.

He said this can lead to heavy workloads, uncertainties, and people being stretched. "But you've only got a certain window before people really want to see the outcome."

Wilson described his leadership style as contextual. "Certainly, in the early part of the transformation, it was very hands-on," he said.

But after more progress was made, he said, people would come to him with ideas of what they wanted to do and how they could achieve them.

"Without being glib, I think the higher you go in the organization, more and more of your job is about people," Wilson told BI. He referred to the importance of aligning people behind a common objective and ensuring they have the necessary resources.

Wilson said his favorite part of being a CEO is interacting with people. Before he was in his 40s, he said, he was more interested in his own success and progress.

"And then you get to the mid-to-late 40s, and actually you take just as much pleasure — and eventually more pleasure — from seeing other people develop," he added.

The Air India boss said he was pleased with the turnaround so far, but there's still more to come.

What is he most excited about in 2025? "Getting these damn seats installed on the aircraft."

• Some leaders, including Airbnb's CEO, argue that favoritism can nurture excellence.
• But it can also breed resentment and further detachment among employees.
• Experts suggest balanced recognition to maintain motivation and prevent tensions.

Playing favorites at work is something some swear by, but it can be a risky strategy.

Airbnb's cofounder and CEO Brian Chesky, for example, told Fortune in November that he believed that nurturing high performers helps foster a culture of excellence.

"If you can't have favorites, if you can't say this is a high performer, and this is what excellence is, then you are going to be in big, big trouble," he said. "That's just not good leadership."

Chesky admitted that playing favorites "would be considered unfair and not systematic" at most companies and that doing so has to be done in the right way — free from bias and discrimination.

In fact, a bit of healthy competition can boost productivity and engagement among colleagues, but giving a select few people blatant and unfair preferential treatment will only fester resentment among teams in an already detached workforce.

Beth Hood, the founder and CEO of leadership and management training platform Verosa Leadership, told BI that favoritism in the workplace "is a slippery slope."

"While recognizing and nurturing high performers can drive excellence, if not handled carefully, it risks creating a culture of resentment and undermining team cohesion," she said.

"The challenge for leaders lies in striking a balance between celebrating outstanding contributions and maintaining the motivation and engagement of the wider team."

Nurturing high performers

Research from the Stevens Institute of Technology, the University of Illinois Chicago, and Hang Seng University of Hong Kong, published in the journal Personnel Psychology in 2022, found that one upside of workplace favoritism is that it can help clarify roles within teams and guide collaboration.

Hood said that for individuals who are highly motivated by positive reinforcement, "being openly acknowledged can act as a powerful catalyst for continued high performance. In this sense, leaders can use recognition as a tool to set a standard of excellence that inspires others to raise their game."

But favoritism can also get leaders into trouble.

Leena Rinne, the vice president of coaching at Skillsoft, a corporate training platform, told BI that favoritism is often "in the eye of the beholder."

"A leader can have really good intentions and still be perceived as playing favorites," she said.

"Recognition by a senior-level person does feel special," Rinne added. "So if that senior-level person is just even talking to or corresponding with or inviting people to different meetings, all of that can be perceived as unfair."

In a Harvard Business Review article published earlier this year, the authors pointed to the CEO of a Scandinavian robotics company who addressed just three of his nine direct reports in leadership meetings, and was seemingly unaware of the bias he was showing.

Pitting colleagues against each other — on purpose or not — can be hugely detrimental, Hood said.

"While in the short term this may seem like a powerful lever to pull, in the long term it is likely to cause significant performance challenges," she said.

Hood added: "It's a cynical leadership style that rarely ensures leaders can fully leverage everyone's potential, as it is predicated on a win/lose psychology."

Everyone appreciates recognition

Recognition is always appreciated, and it doesn't have to be big or costly.

Rinne said some of the most profound recognition she has heard people speak about years later is an email they received from their company's CEO.

"It takes almost no time on anyone's part, but really impacted how valued people felt, how seen they felt," she said.

If there are people in the organization shining brightly but not being recognized, you risk them feeling undervalued and ultimately leaving.

Rinne said praise works best when leaders communicate the link to performance, "ensuring that people feel that it's justified and fair."

Dilan Gomih, the founder and CEO of workplace performance and wellness consultancy Dilagence, told BI that words matter.

She said it's fine for leaders to favor people who are passionate about their work and do it tremendously well, but everyone has to be given the tools and opportunity to do so.

"It's got to be an equal playing field for anybody to be a favorite," she said.

Overall, Gomih said she struggled to see the benefit of having employees worry about being a favorite rather than about their work.

"Do you really want people wasting their mental energy thinking about favoritism? Or do you want their brains thinking about 'how do I perform my best at the job that I've been hired to do?'" Gomih said. "Because if they're doing that, it's win-win."

A better tactic may be to make that competition external and say, "It's us against the world," she said, to boost camaraderie and teamwork.

Rinne also said that the idea of "healthy competition" in companies could be reframed.

"It's always the team competition, the collaborative competition, that gets the organization the results we want," she said. "In my career, I haven't seen pitting team members against each other work in any context — except maybe the offsite scavenger hunt."

Airbnb declined a request to comment.

• The billionaire Jared Isaacman said his Polaris missions with SpaceX are "a question mark" now.
• Donald Trump nominated Isaacman for NASA Administrator months after he did SpaceX's first spacewalk.
• Space experts doubt Isaacman will fly during his NASA term, due to job demands and safety risks.

SpaceX and its go-to billionaire-turned-private-astronaut seem to be going their separate ways, at least for the next four years.

Jared Isaacman has flown two SpaceX missions to space and is slated to fly two more.

However, Isaacman may no longer fly those missions now that President-elect Donald Trump has tapped him to lead NASA.

Isaacman is the founder and CEO of a payments-processing company called Shift4, but he's more famous for conducting the world's first commercial spacewalk in September.

The spacewalk was the main feature of the first mission of the Polaris Program, which Isaacman started in partnership with SpaceX to supercharge the company's human-spaceflight capabilities as it aims for the moon and Mars.

The program is scheduled to fly two future missions, including the first human flight aboard SpaceX's Starship mega-rocket.

Isaacman has previously indicated that he would be on board that flight. It would be a crucial step in Elon Musk's plans to establish a human settlement on Mars using Starship.

The NASA nomination throws that mission into uncertainty, Isaacman acknowledged on Wednesday.

"The future of the Polaris program is a little bit of a question mark at the moment. It may wind up on hold for a moment," Isaacman said at the Spacepower 2024 conference in Orlando, according to Reuters.

Indeed, shortly after his nomination, experts told Business Insider that it was unlikely Isaacman would fly to space during his term as NASA Administrator.

"Well, it certainly has never happened before," John Logsdon, the founder of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, told BI.

That doesn't mean it can't happen, but Logsdon added, "NASA Administrator is a full-time, high-level government job. Taking time off to train for and carry out another spaceflight seems to me to be a little implausible."

If Isaacman wanted to fly a SpaceX mission during his NASA term, "that would take some thought on his part and the rest of the team," George Nield, a former head of the FAA's office of commercial space transportation, told BI. "What's the risk, what's the benefit, what happens if there's a bad day, and are there succession plans?"

Nield co-authored a 2020 analysis which calculated that US spaceflight has a 1% fatal failure rate, because four out of nearly 400 spaceflights have ended in deadly malfunctions. That's a rate 10,000 times greater than commercial airliners.

The US Senate has to confirm Isaacman's nomination before he can take office.

"Having the boss of the enterprise take the risk of spaceflight would be unusual, but we live in unusual times," Logsdon said.

• Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck views paranoia as a leadership superpower.
• Experts warn Beck's mindset may lead to burnout and a toxic work environment.
• Effective leadership requires resilience and fostering a culture of trust, workplace pros say.

Peter Beck doesn't sleep soundly and thinks paranoia is a "superpower."

The founder and CEO of the aerospace company Rocket Lab told CNBC in an interview that going home and sleeping soundly every night "just doesn't seem a tangible possibility."

He also described himself as a "chronic workaholic" and a "micromanager," and said he was "paranoid about everything, especially failure."

While some other leaders share Beck's views, workplace pros think it might be a recipe for burnout and stress.

Heather Lamb, a workplace well-being expert and author of "How Not to Be a People Pleaser," told Business Insider that while constantly being on your toes may feel like a way to stay sharp, this mentality "breeds a toxic work environment."

"Instead, constant stress and fear of falling short can inspire anxiety, self-doubt, and burnout that is damaging to productivity and well-being alike," she said.

A recipe for success?

Beck became the "newest space billionaire" in November, according to Forbes, with his 10% stake in Rocket Lab worth $970 million, and having accrued $65 million from selling shares.

The company is currently valued at $11.2 billion, according to CNBC.

Still, he is lagging behind other space entrepreneurs, including Elon Musk (worth $354 billion) with SpaceX and Jeff Bezos (worth $240 billion) with Blue Origin.

Rocket Lab's stock price surged to an all-time high at the end of November. While the company rivals Musk's SpaceX, Beck previously told BI he has no intention of colonizing Mars.

Instead, Rocket Lab focuses on building and managing rockets and satellites.

"Rocket Lab will never have the capital that Jeff and Elon have," Beck told Bloomberg News in an interview. "But all that means is you have to be a bit better at hustling, a little bit better at being innovative. You can't break the laws of physics no matter how much capital you've got."

Caution vs fear

Beck believes that his paranoia and micromanaging have helped his career.

In the short term, paranoia and a hyper-vigilant mindset can drive exceptional results, Edel Holliday-Quinn, a business psychologist who has worked in senior roles at Citi and PwC, told BI, especially in high-stakes industries like aerospace.

Breese Annable, a licensed clinical psychologist and career coach who has worked with many high-achieving professionals, also told BI that some level of alertness can be valuable for leaders.

"Anticipating challenges and planning for contingencies are facets of strategic thinking," she said. "However, when vigilance crosses into chronic hypervigilance, the psychological and relational costs outweigh the benefits."

Lamb told BI that leaders who are always anxious about the next misstep may lose sight of their own well-being.

"The world thrives on fear — yeah, people take pride in their work, for sure," she said. "Wanting to do good work is a fine goal. But if paranoia is at the heart of it, you are working to inhibit yourself rather than improve."

There's a difference between exercising caution and being immobilized with fear of failure, Lamb added.

"Realistic caution is the practice of thinking about the future, having contingency plans, and being mindful of all of the hurdles we face," she said. "But it's about managing those worries in a way that won't overwhelm you."

Negative impacts are individual and workplace-wide

Sleep deprivation significantly affects cognitive functioning, decision-making, and emotional regulation, Annable said, and if it is experienced long-term, it has been linked to higher risks of cardiovascular disease and weakened immune function.

Chronic stress can also have physiological effects by contributing to chronic illnesses like high blood pressure.

And it's not just the individual who is affected.

Worrying too much about the future can have a lasting impact on the workforce as well.

Leaders who are on edge and driven by failure are likely to be micromanagers, Holliday-Quinn said, which can create a toxic workplace culture.

"Research consistently shows that employees under micromanagers experience lower job satisfaction, decreased engagement, and higher turnover rates," Annable said. "This creates a ripple effect that can undermine long-term organizational success."

Over time, this can lead to high turnover and low employee happiness.

"Employees may feel disempowered, undervalued, and overly scrutinized," she said. "Which stifles creativity and collaboration."

True effective leadership, Holliday-Quinn said, requires "resilience, self-awareness, and the ability to foster a culture of trust, collaboration, and empowerment."

"These are the hallmarks of leaders who leave a lasting legacy," she said. "Not just in terms of success but in terms of the positive impact they have on their organizations and the people within them."

Beck didn't respond to a request for comment from BI.

• Some high-profile CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk have multimillion-dollar security details.
• Health insurance companies, by contrast, don't appear to spend as much on executive protection.
• The amount public companies allocate toward executive security and private travel varies widely.

The death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last week has brought a new level of attention to the question of executive protection.

Thompson's shooting outside a hotel in New York also highlights that executives who aren't as high-profile as someone like Elon Musk may not always have bodyguards with them.

That level of monitoring can be expensive, and the amount companies pay for executive security varies widely.

On the high end, Musk and other CEOs including Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Alphabet's Sundar Pichai, and Salesforce's Marc Benioff are known for having multimillion-dollar security packages.

Others, including JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon, Amazon's Andy Jassy, and Apple's Tim Cook, have more modest protection services worth hundreds of thousands of dollars — amounts that can further increase when factoring in costs associated with the use of private planes, a common CEO perk tied to security considerations.

Health insurance companies, including UnitedHealth Group, don't appear to spend as much on executive protection as some of the Big Tech giants.

However, the health insurance industry isn't an outlier. Companies in other fields, like retail, also have relatively modest security-specific compensation.

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon and McDonald's CEO Chris Kempczinski, for example, appear to have individual security expenses of less than $25,000 for 2023, according to company filings. When including the use of private aircraft, Walmart paid $192,848 for McMillon's personal use of the company jet, while McDonald's paid $319,301 for Kempczinski's usage in 2023.

Company-paid security costs are typically disclosed in annual corporate filings known as proxy statements. The documents include a breakdown of the salary, benefits, bonuses, and other perks to provide a dollar value of top executives' total compensation package, which must be approved by the board and shareholders.

Security services paid for by the company for the benefit of an individual executive are typically included in a category called "Other Compensation" along with perks like personal corporate jet usage, 401(k) matching, or tax preparation services. It's possible that some security costs may not be reported in proxy statements, particularly if they were paid for by the executives themselves and not reimbursed.

UnitedHealth Group's filings don't specify any personal security costs for Thompson last year

It's not clear if Thompson had a security detail with him on the day of his death. Video footage obtained by the New York City Police Department appears to show him walking alone on his way into an "investor day" event in Manhattan.

Although he was CEO of UnitedHealthcare, Thompson was also an executive vice president of UnitedHealth Group, for which he received $21,187 in other compensation in 2023. That amount represented $14,850 in 401(k) matching and $6,337 in health insurance premiums, with no amount indicated for personal security.

The company has yet to release its annual proxy statement outlining 2024 expenses.

Looking further up the corporate ladder, Thompson's boss, UHG CEO Andrew Witty, also did not receive payment for personal security as part of his 2023 compensation package. However, the company did make corporate aircraft available for his use.

"Witty is required for personal security reasons to use corporate aircraft for all business travel and is encouraged to use corporate aircraft for all personal travel," the proxy statement says, adding that Witty did not make personal use of the company plane in 2023.

A UHG spokesperson told BI the company is "partnering with local law enforcement to ensure a safe work environment and reinforce security guidelines and building access policies."

CVS, which owns Aetna, does not disclose the compensation of Aetna's president. However, CVS did provide its former CEO Karen Lynch with $44,148 for "personal protection" in 2023, as well as $243,281 for personal use of the company jet and $106,086 for personal use of a company car. A CVS spokesperson declined to comment.

Cigna CEO David Cordani received $310,437 in "other compensation" in 2023, largely constituted of $178,704 in personal travel on the company aircraft. Roughly $95,000 in other costs were provided for residential security system monitoring and maintenance, as well as expanded personal liability coverage.

Proxy statements for Humana and Elevance (owner of Anthem) did not specify personal security costs, while Kaiser Permanente is a nonprofit and not subject to the same reporting requirements.

Musk-level security can cost millions

Former Secret Service agent Joseph LaSorsa, who now runs the private security firm LaSorsa & Associates, previously told BI that an around-the-clock detail can cost $100,000 a month and isn't always enough to stop a motivated attacker.

At those rates, the annual cost of protection could balloon to $1.2 million — comparable to the base salaries of UnitedHealth's executive officers.

In other words, company-provided personal security can be an expensive proposition, and typically reserved only for a small number of top leaders. Different executives may also have their own personal preference for the level of security they travel with.

"Protection is very much driven on what a executive really wants," said John Orloff, a former US Secret Service agent who now leads security risk consulting at Jensen Hughes.

Orloff told Business Insider that his firm typically works with corporate security departments to develop their executive protection strategies in response to relevant threats.

Musk, the world's wealthiest person, has spoken out about personal security concerns in recent years. He told Tesla shareholders at the annual shareholder meeting that "two homicidal maniacs" had threatened to kill him and things were "getting a little crazy these days."

Filings show Tesla paid a Musk-owned personal security company $2.4 million to protect him in 2023. However, the agreement is not structured as compensation for his services as CEO and is unusual among public companies (Tesla is fighting to reinstate Musk's 2018 compensation package after a Delaware judge ruled against it for the second time).

Musk travels with multiple bodyguards — sometimes as many as 20, according to a recent report. Employees at X, formerly Twitter, reported seeing his security follow him into the bathrooms at the company's headquarters.

While executives at health insurance companies may not be as recognizable as someone like Musk or Zuckerberg, Thompson's death could lead board members and CEOs to review executive protection costs in a different light. The matter could feature more prominently as compensation committees draft proposals for their companies' future annual meetings.

• Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol aims for a brewed cup of coffee to take less than 30 seconds to prepare.
• He told ABC that the coffee chain will be "hitting pause" on increasing prices for this fiscal year.
• Starbucks plans to enhance mobile orders and transparency around pricing, Niccol said.

Starbucks' new CEO, Brian Niccol, says he hopes customers will one day be able to get a brewed cup of coffee in less than 30 seconds.

In an interview with ABC's Good Morning America, the coffee boss said he wants to prioritize speed while also saying that there would be no more price rises for the time being.

Niccol's vision for what Starbucks will look like in five years' time includes a more efficient mobile order business with its own pick-up area.

"You're going to have an experience where when you walk in and you interact with the barista, it's going to be really quick for that brewed cup of coffee," he told ABC. "My hope is we can get you a brewed cup of coffee in less than 30 seconds."

Niccol joined Starbucks as its CEO in September after spending six years at the helm of Chipotle.

Unlike Chipotle, which announced menu price increases of about 2% on Wednesday, Niccol said: "The approach we've taken right now is we're going to hit the pause button on any pricing for this fiscal year."

"I still think there's an opportunity for us to simplify the pricing architecture right now — I don't love the fact that in our app right now, while you're doing this customization, it doesn't inform you what has happened to the price, so I want to get more transparent with the pricing," he said on GMA.

Niccol also said Starbucks would bring back some old staples like the Sharpies used to write names on cups and the coffee condiment bar.

The coffee chain CEO explained that they're investing in technology to provide more accurate times about when drinks will be ready for customers.

"We've got a lot of offerings that there's just one or two of these ordered a day," he said.

"The way I talk about it is, we're going to do fewer things, but we're going to do fewer things better."

• UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was killed by a gunman in New York City on Wednesday morning.
• Thompson worked at UnitedHealthcare for 20 years and was named its CEO in 2021.
• He grew up in Iowa and is survived by his wife and their two sons.

UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson died on December 4 after he was shot by a gunman in New York City in what the New York City Police Department called a "brazen, targeted attack." He was 50 years old.

The shooting took place at 6:46 a.m. outside a Hilton hotel in Midtown Manhattan, where Thompson was scheduled to speak at the company's investor conference.

A "person of interest," 26-year-old Luigi Mangione, was arrested in connection with Thompson's death in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on Monday.

UnitedHealth Group said in a statement that the company was "deeply saddened and shocked" by Thompson's death.

Here are five things to know about Thompson's life and career, and the homicide investigation.

Early life and education

Thompson attended South Hamilton High School in Jewell, Iowa, where he was named valedictorian. The school district released a statement memorializing him as "a star student, athlete, homecoming king, and a respected leader."

Thompson graduated from the University of Iowa in 1997 with a Bachelor's degree in business administration and accounting.

Accounting career

Thompson worked at the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, or PwC, from 1997 to 2004 as a manager in the firm's audit and transaction advisory services groups, according to his LinkedIn profile.

CEO of UnitedHealthcare

Thompson worked at UnitedHealthcare for 20 years, joining as a director on UnitedHealth Group's corporate development team in 2004. He rose through the ranks, becoming the CEO of the company's Medicare and retirement business in 2017 and of its government programs in 2019.

He was named CEO of UnitedHealthcare in 2021.

Thompson was one of four UnitedHealthcare executives named in a lawsuit filed by the City of Hollywood Firefighters' Pension Fund in May regarding allegations of insider trading. The suit alleges that Thompson sold $15 million of his shares in company stock before news of the Department of Justice's antitrust investigation into UnitedHealth became public, tanking its shareholder value.

UnitedHealthcare did not respond to a request for comment.

Shooting in New York City

Thompson was shot on Wednesday morning outside a Hilton hotel in New York City, where he was scheduled to speak at UnitedHealth Group's investor conference.

New York City Police Department commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a press conference on Wednesday that the shooting "does not appear to be a random act of violence."

"We are deeply saddened and shocked at the passing of our dear friend and colleague Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare," the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

The statement continued: "Brian was a highly respected colleague and friend to all who worked with him. We are working closely with the New York Police Department and ask for your patience and understanding during this difficult time. Our hearts go out to Brian's family and all who were close to him."

At a press conference on Monday, the New York Police Department named Luigi Mangione as a "person of interest" in the shooting.

Mangione was arrested on firearms charges at a Pennsylvania McDonald's after an employee recognized him from surveillance images shared by authorities, police said.

Mangione was found to be in possession of a firearm and a suppressor that were "both consistent with the weapon used" in the shooting, the NYPD said.

Wife and family

Thompson is survived by his wife, Paulette Thompson, and their two sons. The couple lived in separate homes in Maple Grove, Minnesota, The Wall Street Journal reported.

"We are shattered to hear about the senseless killing of our beloved Brian," Paulette Thompson told Minnesota affiliate Fox 9. "Brian was an incredibly loving, generous, talented man who truly lived life to the fullest and touched so many lives. Most importantly, Brian was an incredibly loving father to our two sons and will be greatly missed. We appreciate your well wishes and request complete privacy as our family moves through this difficult time."

Paulette Thompson told NBC News that her husband had received "some threats" but that she didn't know the details.

• Latvia's airBaltic has been heavily impacted by the war in Ukraine, its CEO Martin Gauss said.
• He told Business Insider it plans to be the first airline back into Ukraine when the conflict ends.
• Gauss led airBaltic out of bankruptcy and has spearheaded plans for an IPO next year.

AirBaltic plans to be the first airline to restart flights to Ukraine in the event of a peace agreement, CEO Martin Gauss told Business Insider.

The Latvian flag carrier also has bases in Estonia and Lithuania. All three countries border Russia and are NATO and the European Union members.

"What I think is an upside now is a potential peace because that's not priced in for us," Gauss said in a Monday interview in London.

"That would be a huge upside as we were the last airline out of Ukraine and would be the first one in," he added.

Gauss told BI that the start of the war impacted airBaltic "very heavily" due to missing passenger flows from Ukraine and Russia.

However, he added that tourism to the Baltic countries was no longer suffering as fears had eased about them being invaded by Russia, too.

AirBaltic has still been hampered by airspace restrictions.

"The overflying restrictions are still there and everything which goes southeast is, for us, a detour — circumnavigating the airspace," Gauss said.

The airline has more than 70 destinations — including Cyprus, Turkey, and Dubai — where the fastest route from Latvia would involve flying over Ukraine.

Finding alternative routes isn't simple. Gauss explained how flying south from the Baltics, there's only a "small corridor" between Belarus and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

"Once that is too busy, we need to fly over Sweden into the south," Gauss added. "So there's an impact on the cost side."

AirBaltic's turnaround

Gauss started his career as a pilot in 1992 with Deutsche BA, then a low-cost subsidiary of British Airways. He then entered management training with the airline and worked his way up.

After developing a reputation for turning around airlines, he was headhunted for airBaltic in 2011. The airline had gone bankrupt, but the Latvian government agreed to invest more capital.

"I had to come up, in a couple of weeks, with suggestions of what you could do with a technically bankrupt airline," Gauss told BI.

"What makes it so special was that in 2012 […] we had to make a decision for the future aircraft fleet," he added. "And we took a decision to go for an aircraft type which didn't exist at the time — an A220."

In 2016, AirBaltic became the launch operator of the Airbus A220. It's a smaller jet with a capacity of 150, but it can still fly farther than the regional aircraft it competes with, such as the Embraer E195.

Today, airBaltic is the largest operator of the type with 48 A220s — with plans to double that by 2030. Based on order books, Gauss said, "We are the only airline which can double in size in Europe in the next five years."

Gauss has also promoted new technologies in his time at the helm. AirBaltic accepted bitcoin as payment back in 2014 and has minted NFTs that generate airline loyalty points.

It's also set to be the first airline in Europe to use Elon Musk's Starlink internet as soon as it's certified by the continent's aviation regulators.

Gauss is pleased with the success of his business model, with preparations underway for an IPO.

"It was intended to do it earliest in the second half of this year, which we canceled because of the market situation, so we said, first opportunity is first half of 2025 for an IPO."

• As the CEO of the fashion company Tapestry, Joanne Crevoiserat helms Coach and Kate Spade's ships.
• The chief shared some leadership and career advice in a "Leadership Next" interview.
• Her North Star is an "insatiable curiosity about the consumer."

As the CEO of the fashion company Tapestry, Joanne Crevoiserat steers popular brands like Coach, Kate Spade, and Stuart Weitzman.

In an interview with Fortune's "Leadership Next," which was released on Wednesday, Crevoiserat gave host Diane Brady her leadership, business, and career advice.

Here are three nuggets of wisdom from the chief.

1. Have 'insatiable curiosity' about the customer

Crevoiserat's first top was to have "insatiable curiosity about the consumer."

She said that understanding the customer goes beyond survey data and involves "going a step deeper into the consumer's closet, into their home, and talking to them about what matters to them."

Doing this ensures that the brand can build more relevant products and experiences for their consumers, she told Fortune.

2. Don't be afraid to take side steps in your career

Her second piece of advice was to enjoy the career journey.

"Relationship building, understanding the end-to-end business is not always the intended outcome of a specific job," Crevoiserat said to Fortune. "It's not on your job responsibility list, but it helps you build your career."

She also careers aren't always going to be linear.

Crevoiserat has held top jobs in several retail companies, including Walmart, Kohl's, and Abercrombie & Fitch. She became Tapestry's CEO in 2020 after working as the company's finance chief for a year.

"I've taken a few side steps in my career and people have said, 'Trust me on this,' and you have to have a little trust. But it has worked out," Crevoiserat said.

She added, "And I do see the benefit of taking those side steps and being able to have a bigger picture and better perspective on business overall.

3. Inspiration strikes outside the office walls

Crevoiserat said that being "outdoors and moving" is essential.

"I get a lot of inspiration from being in the natural world, whether it be a walk along the Hudson or a hike in the mountains," the leader said.

She said that staying inside a building all day makes it "hard to be inspired if all you're seeing are the same four walls over and over again."

She draws inspiration and energy from walking, running, hiking, and visiting museums in New York City, she added.

In the interview, Crevoiserat and Brady also discussed the potential impact of President-elect Donald Trump's proposed tariffs on foreign imports and Tapestry's recently halted merger with fashion brand Capri.

Tapestry announced in August 2023 that it would buy Capri for $8.5 billion. Under the proposed merger, six high-end fashion brands would operate under one umbrella: Capri's Versace, Jimmy Choo, and Michael Kors, along with Tapestry's Coach, Stuart Weitzman, and Kate Spade.

But in October, a New York federal judge blocked the merger, saying it would "substantially lessen competition in the market for accessible-luxury handbags."

Tapestry's stock price is up 73% this year.

Representatives for Tapestry didn't respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Walmart's chief, Doug McMillon, got his wine sent to him by drone.
• He lives in one of the areas in the US in which Walmart offers drone deliveries.
• He said Walmart's future looked like "urgent deliveries happening in a really fast time."

Walmart's CEO Doug McMillon gets his groceries in style.

Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Global Consumer and Retail Conference in New York on Tuesday, the head of the country's largest supermarket chain said he got wine delivered by drone right to his front door.

He said he ordered the drone delivery when his wife Shelley realized she didn't have a key ingredient in the kitchen.

"A few weeks ago, Shelley's making Chicken Marsala, and she said out loud, 'I forgot the cooking wine,' which meant I was supposed to get up off the couch and stop watching football and go get Marsala cooking wine," McMillon said.

"But what we had was a drone delivery in less than 15 minutes that dropped it right at my front door, and that was pretty cool," said McMillon, who lives in Bentonville, Arkansas, where Walmart is headquartered.

"I think our future looks like big baskets moving slowly at a value and urgent deliveries happening in a really fast time in a variety of ways," McMillon said.

Walmart launched drone deliveries in six states in 2022 but was forced to scale back in recent years.

In August, DroneUp, Walmart's drone delivery partner, told Axios that drone deliveries were not economically sustainable for smaller, low-cost packages. They closed 18 Walmart delivery hubs in Phoenix, Salt Lake City, and Tampa. The retailer currently offers drone deliveries in three locations in the US — Bentonville, Dallas, and Virginia Beach.

Walmart aims to have the largest drone delivery footprint of any retailer in the country. In January, it expanded its drone delivery radius to serve 1.8 million additional households in the Dallas-Forth Worth area.

Drone deliveries cost $12.99 per trip for Walmart+ members and $19.99 per delivery for non-members.

McMillon's comments come as Walmart reported strong third-quarter earnings in November, beating analyst expectations.

It saw comparable US sales growth of 5.3% year over year and reported an operating income growth of 8.2%.

Walmart representatives didn't respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Intel is reportedly considering Lip-Bu Tan and Matt Murphy for CEO after Pat Gelsinger's exit.
• Gelsinger's departure follows Intel's struggles in the global chip market and stock decline.
• Murphy leads Marvell, while Tan is a former Intel board member.

The contest to become Intel's new CEO is on — and two possible candidates' names have already leaked.

The American chipmaker is considering at least two people from outside the company to replace former CEO Pat Gelsinger, who abruptly retired on Sunday. Candidates include former board member Lip-Bu Tan and Marvell Technology CEO Matt Murphy, Bloomberg and Reuters reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

After a clash over Gelsinger's plan to gain ground against rival chipmaker Nvidia, Intel's board gave the CEO the option to retire or step down, Bloomberg reported. Gelsinger, who joined the role three years back, has been temporarily replaced by co-CEOs: David Zinsner, who has been Intel's chief financial officer for nearly three years, and Michelle Johnston Holthaus, the new CEO of product.

His departure follows Intel's yearlong struggle to keep up with the global chip race. Intel has seen its share price drop almost 50% this year as it has faced multiple challenges, including billions in losses, sweeping layoffs, and buyouts.

Gelsinger's plans to revitalize the company included ambitions to build more factories in the US and Europe to scale its production capacity. He also wanted the company to design its own line of AI chips, named Gaudi, to take on Nvidia.

However, these efforts have proven expensive and have produced poor results. Last month, Gelsinger said the company was set to miss its target of $500 million in 2024 sales for Gaudi 3 due to software-related issues.

One board member and one outsider

The two CEO contenders reported so far have strong chipmaking backgrounds.

Semiconductor veteran Tan served on Intel's board between 2022 and this year, where he was on the mergers and acquisitions committee. He left the board in August, citing "demands on his time."

Tan is currently the chairman of Walden International, a venture capital firm. His prior board seats include SoftBank Group and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

Murphy, meanwhile, does not have a public prior connection to Intel. He is the CEO of Marvell, an American semiconductor manufacturer that produces chips for data centers and service providers. He worked in sales and marketing for circuits producer Analog Devices for over two decades before joining Marvell and has served on the boards of eBay and the Global Semiconductor Alliance.

Marvell gained over 10% in after-hours trading on Tuesday after forecasting fourth-quarter revenue above estimates as it benefits from strong artificial intelligence chip demand. Its stock is up 59% this year.

"As the chairman and CEO of this company, I'm 100% focused on Marvell," Murphy, who has been in the position for eight years, said on Tuesday in an earnings call, when asked about being offered other opportunities.

Marvell has an $83 billion market capitalization and about 6,500 employees, as of 2024. Intel has a $97 billion market cap and about 131,000 employees, according to its website.

Representatives of Intel, Murphy, and Tan did not respond to requests sent outside business hours.

• Kyle Leahy, the CEO of Glossier, took over the beauty company amid weak sales and layoffs.
• Leahy told Inc. Magazine listening to customers on three key issues helped her turn the brand around.
• By offering customers more selection and wider distribution, Glossier is profitable and expanding, she said.

Kyle Leahy, the new CEO of Glossier, described her secret for overhauling the cult-favorite beauty company's strategy and driving up profits after several years of turmoil for the brand: listen closely to your customers.

Leahy took over as chief executive of Glossier in May 2022, stepping into the role previously held by the company's founder, Emily Weiss. The transition came as the billion-dollar beauty brand's sales were plunging, forcing staff cuts.

With Weiss shifting to become the company's executive chair focused primarily on product, Leahy aimed to preserve the image of the baby pink brand while overhauling its strategy, she said in a recent interview with Inc. Magazine.

Leahy explained why listening to the brand's customers on three key issues has been key to her success.

First, customers wanted more new products — so she said Glossier overhauled 90% of their product team. Customers will also tell you when they liked an old version of a product better, Leahy added, so the brand restored the original formula for its Balm Dotcom lip balm in May this year.

"I often say to our team, if you step back and you look at the brand, it's up and to the right, but when you zoom in, it's always a bunch of up-and-down volatility," Leahy told the magazine. "We tried to relaunch it with the humility and transparency of, 'We made a mistake, and that's OK.' Brands are going to make mistakes."

Customers also wanted to buy Glossier products at familiar, ubiquitous beauty retailers like Sephora and Ulta, so the brand became available in 650 third-party stores in North America.

And finally, their loyal buyers — who The National Retail Federation reported have propelled Glossier to become the top-searched beauty brand within Sephora — also wanted to be able to get Glossier products overseas, so the company expanded international distribution.

Earlier this year, Glossier's viral "You" perfume spread wildly across TikTok and caused sales to jump by 10 times, Business Insider previously reported.

In the last three years, the brand's sales have increased by 80%, the chief executive said, and brought the company back from what Redditors once described as its "flop era."

Representatives for Glossier did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Some of Silicon Valley's biggest names are in their tech bro era.
• It wasn't always like this — many Big Tech CEOs have shed more nerdy personas from their startup days.
• Here's a look at tech's most influential executives then and now.

Mark Zuckerberg isn't the only tech CEO whose style evolved over the years.

Other Big Tech leaders have significantly changed up their looks since starting their companies; some are nearly unrecognizable (remember the Jeff-Bezos-is-jacked memes?)

Here's a look at the style transformations of some of tech's biggest names:

Jeff Bezos

Bezos founded Amazon from his garage in Bellevue, Washington, in 1994. Decades later, gone are the photoshoots where he's posing with a softcover while looking bookish.

Now, he's gained pounds of muscle and changed his clothing style. He attributes his new look partly to working out with a celebrity personal trainer and changing his diet.

Mark Zuckerberg

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook from his dorm room at Harvard in 2004.

Zuck, who famously wore the same thing every day to save brainpower for more important decisions, has said goodbye to that era. Instead, Zuck can now be seen sporting graphic tees and chain necklaces.

Like Bezos, he's also gotten more fit. Part of Zuckerberg's physical transformation stems from hobbies like Brazilian jiu-jitsu and MMA fighting.

Michael Dell

Dell is another member of the college dropouts-turned-tech founders club. He started his company while still enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin.

While you probably won't catch him rocking a t-shirt to a professional event, he's appeared to prefer to drop the glasses since then.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin

Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google in 1998. They met as students at Stanford and built Google from a garage they rented from the late Susan Wojcicki, who was later YouTube's CEO.

Elon Musk

The photo at left shows Musk in 1999, around the time the "PayPal mafia" was formed.

Musk has said he doesn't care for exercise and "almost never" works out, though he's credited fasting and the weight loss drug Wegovy with his appearance today.

Bill Gates

Gates and the late Paul Allen cofounded Microsoft from a garage in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1975.

Gates left Microsoft's board in 2020 and today spends more of his time focused on the philanthropic foundation he started with his now-ex-wife, Melinda French Gates.

Half a century later, he's still rocking glasses — with some different frames.

Jack Dorsey

Twitter was founded in 2006. Cofounder Jack Dorsey has been seen with a full beard pretty regularly since departing as CEO and focusing his efforts more on cryptocurrency at Block, formerly Square.

Richard Branson

Richard Branson started the Virgin brand in 1970 with a mail-order record business.

At 73 years old today, Branson's day-to-day life still features plenty of exercise, from tennis and cycling to kite-surfing. As such, he's usually sporting a tan.

Jack Ma

Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma disappeared from public view in 2020 after criticizing China's financial regulation system.

He resurfaced in Thailand in 2022 and has been teaching as a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo.

Anne Wojcicki

Anne Wojcicki cofounded genetic testing company 23andMe in 2006. She is the younger sister of late former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki.

Whitney Wolfe Herd

Whitney Wolfe Herd co-founded Tinder before founding Bumble in 2014. She stepped down as CEO of the dating app last year.

Herd became the youngest self-made female billionaire in the world on the heels of Bumble's IPO.

The entrepreneur currently serves as executive chairman on Bumble's board of directors.

Evan Spiegel

Evan Spiegel co-founded Snap, which owns services like Snapchat, in 2011. The company's success made him the world's youngest billionaire in 2015, when he was 25.

While he'll often suit up or don a tux when attending a more formal event with his wife, Miranda Kerr, he's often seen in a white or black t-shirt and jeans.

Reed Hastings

Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph cofounded Netflix in 1997 as a DVD-by-mail service provider before it would become the streaming giant it is today. Hastings gave up the CEO title in January 2023, though he still serves as board chairman.

More recently, you can catch him in snowboarding attire after he bought a ski mountain in Utah.

Sam Altman

Altman is best known as the CEO of ChatGPT maker OpenAI, but his first startup was Loopt, a mobile service that allowed for real-time location sharing with friends.

The picture at left shows him in those days, circa 2006. In 2008, he was sporting two polo shirts with a double-popped collar on stage at Apple's WWDC conference. 15 years later, however, he's worn a tuxedo to the White House while continuing to keep it casual during interviews with more casual looks too.

• Disney CEO Bob Iger says diet and exercise are critical to doing his job well.
• Iger said he wakes up early and works out because it gets his mind and body ready for the day ahead.
• He said that exercising gives him energy and helps him to motivate others.

Disney may be known for its magic, but there's nothing mystical about one of CEO Bob Iger's tips for excelling as a leader: diet and exercise.

Iger, 73, wakes up early and works out for about an hour "for sanity and vanity purposes," he told a recent episode of the "In Good Company" podcast.

Exercising clears his head and prepares him for the day ahead, Iger said. "Staying in shape, having stamina is critical for me, and that's eating well and exercising and just taking care of my body and my mind. I could not do this job if I were not in some form of physical and mental health."

Disney is one of the biggest US companies with $90 billion-plus in annual revenues and a market value north of $200 billion.

Iger first served as CEO between 2005 and 2020, spearheading the acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and 21st Century Fox's entertainment assets. He returned to lead the company in late 2022.

He's widely credited with turning Disney into a hitmaking machine that monetizes successes like "Frozen" across movies, TV shows, theme parks, resorts, cruises, toys, clothes, and video games.

Iger, who is known to rise at 4.15 a.m., said that getting up early vitalizes him and "a great leader has to be an energetic leader."

The Disney chief emphasized he's not a machine and doesn't always come bouncing into the office.

"Look, I'm a human being, so if I'm really tired from global travel and long hours and who knows what, I'm not afraid to show that to my people, because I think that's a way of being relatable," he said. "They feel that too — it's human nature. Sometimes you feel overworked and tired."

But Iger said that "for the most part, you've got to bring your energy to your job every moment of the day, meaning every waking hour, because it's motivating," he said. "Energy is motivating."

Iger is far from the only CEO to prioritize health and fitness. Apple's Tim Cook also wakes before dawn to work out for an hour most days, while Meta's Mark Zuckerberg has taken up martial arts in recent years.

On the other hand, Warren Buffett, the 94-year-old CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, famously enjoys Coca-Cola, McDonald's, and other junk food.

• CEOs are often known for their unique morning routines for optimizing productivity.
• These routines include activities like meditation and early wake-up times.
• One CEO said he likes to spend two hours reading newspapers after he wakes up.

When your daily work schedule involves running a company, starting off your morning right is crucial for many leaders.

From hour-long meditations to 4 a.m. waking times, we examined the morning routines of the CEOs of some of the world's biggest businesses.

Mark Zuckerberg

Like his fitness routine, there's a good chance Mark Zuckerberg's morning habits have evolved over time. But in an old Facebook Live Q&A, the Meta CEO said he wakes up at 8 a.m. and immediately checks Facebook, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp on his phone.

His social media browsing usually lasts only a few minutes, he said at the time, though it sometimes stretches out longer depending on the day.

"It's a pretty sad situation, to be honest," he said. "I have contacts, and I can't see very well. And before I put my contacts in, I often look to see what is going on Facebook."

Zuckerberg then usually follows up his screen time with gym time. Although he used to work out at least three times a week, usually running, he told Joe Rogan in 2022 that he didn't like how running gave him time to "think a lot."

Instead, he wanted to find something "that's both super engaging physically but also intellectually" where he is unable to focus on anything else.

"MMA is the perfect thing because if you stop paying attention for one second, you're going to end up on the bottom," Zuckerberg said.

The Facebook founder said on Lex Fridman's podcast in 2023 that he did three to four jiu-jitsu and MMA sessions weekly, along with strength and conditioning work and mobility training.

Tim Cook

The Apple CEO likes to start his morning as early as 4 a.m. to 5 a.m. and spends his first waking hour on emails.

Cook is "pretty religious" about reading a lot of emails from customers and employees, he said in a 2023 episode of "Dua Lipa: At Your Service."

"The customers are telling me things that they love about us or things that they want changed about us. Employees are giving me ideas," he said. "But it's a way to stay grounded in terms of what the community is feeling, and I love it."

Cook then said that he spends an hour at the gym, usually doing strength training.

"I've got somebody to really push me to do things I don't want to do, and I do no work during that period of time at all," he said. "I never check my phone."

Although it's unclear if he eats breakfast daily, he reportedly "dug into scrambled egg whites, sugar-free cereal, unsweetened almond milk, and bacon" during a 2017 interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin, a columnist at The New York Times.

Sam Altman

OpenAI's chief executive wrote in a 2018 blog post that the first few hours of the morning are his "most productive time of the day," so he makes sure to keep those periods free of meetings.

Altman said in the blog post that he rarely eats breakfast, instead opting for a big shot of espresso after waking up. As a result, he said he gets around 15 hours of fasting.

Evan Spiegel

Another early riser, the Snap CEO wakes up at 5 a.m. for some alone time, Spiegel said in a 2018 interview that appeared in the Entrepreneurship Handbook.

"I get up really early, because that's the only time that's 'Evan Time' for me, when people aren't really awake yet," he said. "I get a couple hours between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. to do whatever I wanna do."

Earlier this year, Snap told Business Insider that Spiegel likes to check the app and his email after waking up and then drinks a double espresso. Then, he goes to the gym for 45 minutes or meditates.

Spiegel told Vogue Australia in 2022 that his wife, Australian model Miranda Kerr, got him "hooked on Kriya meditation," which he called "life-changing."

Kerr, founder of Kora Organics, has also reportedly put Spiegel on the brand's brand's turmeric brightening and exfoliating mask.

"He doesn't use it as an actual mask; he keeps it in the shower and uses it as an exfoliant," Kerr told New Beauty in 2019.

She added, "What he loves about it is that it has peppermint oil in it, so it's so invigorating. He says he can't be without it because it's his little boost of aromatherapy in the morning! It gives him energy!"

Jeff Bezos

The former Amazon CEO seems to have a slightly more relaxed start to his day and said he likes to "putter in the morning," Axios reported in 2018.

"So I like to read the newspaper," he said. "I like to have coffee. I like have breakfast with my kids before they go to school."

He and his fiancé, Lauren Sánchez, have a no-phone rule during the mornings and share a "magic moment" before the kids wake up, Sánchez told People.

The two also try to journal together, she said in 2023 interview with Vogue, though admits that they're "not quite there" yet and do it three times a week. They also enjoy coffee together, with Bezos drinking his morning brew in a self-heating Ember mug.

The billionaire then likes to get in some gym time almost every day. On a good day, Bezos said in a Lex Fridman podcast that he does 30 minutes of cardio and 45 minutes of weightlifting or some kind of resistance training.

"I have a trainer who you know I love who pushes me," Bezos said in the podcast. "Which is really helpful."

Bezos then sets his first meeting at 10 a.m. and said he likes to do his "high-IQ meetings" before noon, according to Axios.

"Like anything that's going to be really mentally challenging, that's a 10 o'clock meeting," he said. "And by 5 p.m., I'm like, 'I can't think about that today. Let's try this again tomorrow at 10 a.m.'"

Peter Warwick

The Scholastic CEO previously told BI that he wakes up between 5:30 a.m. and 6 a.m., drinks coffee, checks emails, and scans the news to start his day.

For world, political, and business news, Warwick turns to The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Financial Times. He also likes to keep up with the English Premier League as an Arsenal fan, so he'll check up on The Guardian, The London Times, and the Daily Telegraph to keep up with his team.

At 7 a.m., Warwick and his wife will do some "vigorous" walking or jobbing along The High Line or Hudson River Park — a ritual that the two have done nearly every morning for over a decade.

Warwick then leaves for work at 8:30 a.m., opting to walk 25 minutes to and from his office in SoHo, barring bad weather or late nights. By around 9 a.m., he gets an avocado toast and skinny latte from Cliffords, Scholastic HQ's rooftop café and coffee bar, to enjoy at his desk while going through emails.

Marc Benioff

The Salesforce CEO likes to start his day by meditating for 30 to 60 minutes to manage his stress.

A big fan of the wellness practice, Benioff has worked with monks and nuns from Plum Village in France, even hosting them at his home in 2015.

"I am very interested in keeping a clear head," he said in a 2005 interview with SFGate. "So I enjoy meditation, which I've been doing for over a decade — probably to help relieve the stress I was going through when I was working at Oracle."

He has extended his love of the practice to his employees by having meditation rooms on every floor at a Salesforce building in San Francisco, an idea he said was inspired by the Plum Village monks.

Peter Beck

CEO of space company Rocket Lab, Peter Beck, previously told BI that he starts his day between 4:30 and 5 a.m. in New Zealand by immediately going through emails.

He also completely forgoes breakfast and coffee.

"I can't drink coffee," Beck said. "It completely knocks me out and puts me to sleep."

But sometimes, his mornings can start hours before his already early schedule depending on his company's projects — which can have sporadic timing as a rocket business.

"The rocket launches when the rocket needs to launch," Beck said. "So if that's 2 a.m. in the morning, it's 2 a.m. in the morning."

Bob Iger

When the Disney CEO gets up at 4:15 a.m., he tries to avoid looking at his phone until after his morning exercise routine.

Iger said at a summit hosted by Vanity Fair in 2018 that he tries to exercise and think before he reads.

"Because if I read, it throws me off, it's distracting," he said. "I'm immediately thinking about usually someone else's thoughts instead of my own."

Iger added that he likes being alone with his own thoughts and said that it gives him "an opportunity to not just replenish but to organize, and it's important."

To further protect from distractions, Iger said he works out in a darkened room with the TV on mute, which he watches while his own music plays.

Jack Dorsey

Jack Dorsey, the cofounder of Block and X, formerly Twitter, used to wake up at around 5 a.m. and start his day with 30 minutes of meditation and then a series of seven-minute workouts, he said in a 2015 live chat.

Although he had built a very consistent routine during his time running Twitter, Dorsey said in a 2018 podcast interview with Ben Greenfield that he now wakes up at 6:15 a.m. and begins with an hour of meditation and then a cup of coffee.

"I'll say that my routine today is completely different than my routine three years ago but I feel like I have a lot of it dialed in based on what I'm currently experiencing in terms of stress and just what I have to do every day," Dorsey told Greenfield.

Jaimie Dimon

The JPMorgan CEO starts his morning at 5 a.m. and spends two hours reading five newspapers, analyst and internal bank reports, and even speech transcripts, The Wall Street Journal reported.

He then exercises for 45 minutes, doing aerobics, light weights, or stretches. Despite his voracious appetite for reading, Dimon said he tends not to be hungry in the morning.

• Jay Jandrain is the CEO of Butterball.
• His family celebrates Thanksgiving with lots of food and two different types of turkey.
• Jandrain prepares his holiday feast himself — with some help from his wife, he told BI.

The CEO of Butterball — perhaps the biggest name in turkeys — spends all year preparing for the biggest day for turkeys.

But on Thanksgiving itself, the day is reserved for family — complete with two Butterball turkeys he cooks himself, he told Business Insider.

CEO Jay Jandrain has been in the turkey business for 35 years. He says he has a passion for poultry that runs in his blood. Jandrain told BI that his father was in the turkey business, too, so it's a family affair.

And like most Americans, he says he'll be celebrating Thanksgiving with a house full of family.

Jandrain says he's become somewhat of an expert host over the years, and he's expecting his parents, in-laws, and all three of his children to celebrate with him and his wife at their home in North Carolina on Thursday.

Like most families, he says, he grew up with "obviously having a turkey on the table" during the holidays. It was an extra big deal because his dad was in the turkey business.

"So that's always been a big part of how we celebrate the holidays," he says.

So how does the CEO of Butterball prepare the main course on Turkey Day?

Jandrain says the turkey is the star of his family's Thanksgiving table. He's in charge of cooking — a tradition he learned from his parents, he says.

Jandrain's mother even told his wife, when they got married, to "never learn to cook." Now, he — like his father did — handles all the cooking while his wife takes care of the "prep stuff," as he calls it.

He says he appreciates all the different ways to cook a Thanksgiving turkey — and changes it up sometimes. But the most time-tested version of turkey — oven-roasted — is king at the family dinner table, he says. There's "always one in the oven," he says.

And this year, Jandrain says he also has plans to grill one bird.

His favorite holiday dish, other than turkey, is a classic Thanksgiving stuffing, and he says his family often makes "way more food than we're going to eat."

"My wife always tells me to pare it down. But you know, everybody's always got their favorite side," Jandrain said.

And to top off the bounty, his must-have dessert is a twist on a Thanksgiving classic. Jandrain says the feast isn't complete without pumpkin cheesecake.

As for Butterball, it begins prepping for the holiday season a year in advance, and its "fresh" turkey season begins in October. During the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, plant employees work seven days a week to be ready for the big day, Jandrain says.

The name "Butterball" first appeared in a 1940 trademark registered to Ada Walker of Ohio. It's unclear exactly what inspired Walker's trademark, attorney Boston David Kluft wrote in a LinkedIn post on the mystery of the name.

On Walker's application for a trademark, she asked for the Butterball name to be affixed to "Live and Dressed" poultry, as well as "Sandwiches, Eggs and Fresh Vegetables."

When poultry worker Leo Peters purchased the trademark in 1951, his Butterball turkeys took off in popularity. The first-ever Butterball-branded turkey was introduced in 1954, according to the company.

Now — under new ownership — the company operates in five states across the US, and it's headquartered in Garner, North Carolina. It's a privately-held company, co-owned by Seaboard Corporation and Maxwell Farms since 2010.

As the CEO, Jandrain — who was appointed to the role on an interim basis in 2018 and permanently in 2019 — becomes somewhat of celebrity to those who want to learn more about the company and its famous turkeys. (He's been with the company since 2002.)

And when in doubt, Jandrain says, call the Butterball Turkey Talk Line to speak to one of the turkey experts for guidance.

Correction: November 27, 2023 — Jay Jandrain has been CEO of Butterball on a permanent basis since 2019; he was appointed on an interim basis in 2018.

An earlier version of this story was published November 23, 2023.

• Katrin Kaurov started modeling at 14 and began making money at a very young age.
• She then founded a fintech company, Frich, to help younger generations better handle their money.
• Now that she's a CEO, she relies on her experience as a model when building a brand and pitching.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with former model Katrin Kaurov. At 28, she is now CEO and cofounder of the social finance app Frich. It has been edited for length and clarity.

My cofounder and I received a lot of pushback when we started Frich. She was 22, and I was 24. Everyone thought we couldn't create it because neither of us had a background in finance or had worked in a bank for 20 years. I was a former model.

But we built Frich because most people in their 20s have no clue what to do with their money, and there is such a big lack of transparency. Everything you see on Instagram — like lavish trips and dinners with friends — seems like everyone else has their lives together financially, and you're the only one whose card is getting declined.

We realized that Gen Z craves truth and wants to know what other people around them are doing with their money. That's why I built Frich, a community of 400,000 Gen Zers. Users can anonymously see what people like them are doing with money. Once they see how they compare to others, we give users access to see what tools they are using to get ahead.

It helps that I really understand our audience because I lived this: I was anxious about money as a teen model. Sometimes, coming from a non-traditional background really plays in your favor.

I made a lot of money at a young age as a model

When I was 14, I started working mostly full-time as a model. I was being constantly shipped around and having to be financially independent at 14.

Modeling is a lot like being an athlete. You make your best money when you're really young, and no one teaches you what to do with that money at that age. You get paid in different currencies, and usually, in cash. You never know what to expect next.

I remember one of my first really big paychecks when I was 15, and I had no clue what to do with that money. I got it in cash after a two-month contract. I kept it in my drawer until I realized I could invest it and do better things with it. Learning things like that took a while, and I wish there was someone guiding me along the way.

That eventually led me to start Frich because I realized it's not just models who go through the same process. Students and recent grads go through the same experience — probably 10 years later than models.

I learned how to build a brand while modeling

As a model, there's so much pressure, and you have to know how to sell. Every day when you go to a casting, you've got to look your best, and you've got to find a way to stand out from the other 150 models who are there. Everyone's trying really hard, but only one person gets the job.

Sometimes, an agency will ask you to change your personality, depending on the client — whether you've got to be the "cool girl" or the "fun girl." You're almost acting a role, which is very similar to what I do now with certain investors. When I'm talking to a very serious banking investor, I'm different than when I'm talking to someone who was the founder of Bumble. So, learning how to sell myself as a model was huge for me.

Also, in the later years of my career, social media became really popular. Clients would book models if they saw you're working a lot on Instagram. So you have to keep up the image, and it's very similar to being a founder now; if I don't post about it, then people start to wonder what's going on.

When you brand yourself, it's all about making yourself look exciting. When we first started Frich, we realized that money needs to be exciting and cool.

Ignorance makes you jump all in without fear

When I moved to New York, I already knew I wanted to do something else. One day, I pulled up a Forbes article about the most successful entrepreneurs in New York, and I DMed all of them on Instagram, asking if they wanted to meet me for a coffee. One of them said yes. I built close relationships with other female founders, who then became my mentors, and they introduced me to investors down the line.

We then watched every Y Combinator video on YouTube and learned everything there is to learn about building a startup.

Thinking back, I think ignorance was bliss. We didn't realize how hard it was going to be. We had no money. I quit my job, and my cofounder had just graduated.

We went all in, which, looking back, was objectively insane. But it all worked out.