Greg Brown, the chairman and CEO of Motorola Solutions, will receive the Yale Legend in Leadership Award at the Yale CEO Caucus, which will take place in Washington, D.C. on September 17. The award, conferred by the unanimous vote of Yale representatives and past award winners, will be presented by Albert Bourla, chairman and CEO of Pfizer, Glenn Fogel, President and CEO of Booking Holdings, and Marc Benioff, Founder, Chair, and CEO of Salesforce.
Summit organizer Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, senior associate dean for leadership studies at the Yale School of Management, commented:
“I am pleased to recognize Greg Brown as our Yale Legend in Leadership Award winner, following our recognition of Greg as the Fortune Magazine CEO of the Year.
“Nobody deserves this honor more than Greg. He has transformed an iconic American company, reinventing Motorola Solutions as a safety and security technology powerhouse.
“When Greg took over as CEO of Motorola in 2008 after years of control by the Galvin family, he arrived at a particularly tenuous moment. The company was struggling in its legacy cell phone and network businesses, having seen its erstwhile dominance in those franchises evaporate as new competitors such as Apple, Nokia, and BlackBerry entered the scene. It was unfamiliar territory for the company: after all, Motorola literally invented the world’s first handheld mobile phone in 1973.
“Over the last 18 years and counting, Greg has pulled off a remarkable repositioning of Motorola, jettisoning its cell phone and network businesses while building out an industry-leading public safety and enterprise security business from virtually scratch. He led more than 50 acquisitions since the company split in 2011, more than quadrupling the company’s total addressable market.
“Motorola Solutions is now a leading supplier of public safety technology to police departments and emergency response systems around the world, including the software underlying most 911 infrastructure across the U.S.; and is making rapid progress in the video security market and advancing AI built for public safety as well. This pivot from the consumer sector to public safety and enterprise security has paid off enormously: not only was Motorola Solutions stock up 50% last year, Greg has achieved over 1,500% (and counting) total shareholder returns during his tenure. Greg is truly a legend in his own time, and one of the most admired, visionary chief executives of our age.”
Brown is in his 18th year as CEO of Motorola and Motorola Solutions. During Brown’s tenure, he has made over 50 acquisitions and achieved total shareholder return of over 1,500%. Today this almost 100-year-old global company is a leader in mission-critical communications, command center software, and video security.
Under Brown’s leadership, Motorola Solutions has been named number one in its category on Fortune’s Most Admired list; named as one of the World’s Top Companies for Women by Forbes and one of the World’s Best Companies by Time Magazine; named to Newsweek’s Most Trustworthy Companies list; named to Investor’s Business Daily’s 100 Best ESG Companies; and is considered one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company.
Brown was named the number-one underrecognized standout CEO of 2024 by Fortune. He was also named one of the top CEOs in America by Barron’s in 2023. He currently serves as co- chair of The Prium and is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame National Advisory Board. He is also a member of the Business Council and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Brown served as Midwest chairman of the Navy Seal Foundation. He also served as chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and chairman of the Board of Governors at Rutgers University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and an honorary doctorate in humane letters.
The Yale Legend in Leadership Award was created 35 years ago to honor current and former CEOs who serve as living legends to inspire chief executives across industries, sectors, and nations.
Past recipients include: Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia; Glenn Fogel, CEO of Booking Holdings; Tim Cook, CEO of Apple; Larry Fink, chair and CEO of BlackRock; James Quincey, chair and CEO of Coca-Cola; Marc Benioff, chair and CEO of Salesforce; Mike Sievert, CEO of T-Mobile; Ajay Banga, president of the World Bank; Arvind Krishna, chair and CEO of IBM; Steven Spielberg, filmmaker and chair of Amblin Partners; Darius Adamczyk, CEO of Honeywell; Volodymyr Zelenskyy, president of Ukraine; Doug Parker, chairman of American Airlines; Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer; Alex Gorsky, CEO of Johnson & Johnson; Lynn Good, CEO of Duke Energy; Lisa Su, CEO of AMD; Anthony Fauci, director of the NIAID; Doug McMillon, CEO of Walmart; Arne Sorenson, CEO of Marriott International; Andrew J. Young, mayor of Atlanta (1982-1990) and ambassador to the United Nations (1977-1979); Brian C. Cornell, chair and CEO of Target Corporation; Ivan G. Seidenberg, chair and CEO of Verizon Communications; Ken Frazier, chair and CEO of Merck & Co.; Randall L. Stephenson, Chairman and CEO of AT&T; Colin Powell, four-star U.S. Army general, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989–1993), and secretary of state (2001-2005); Virginia M. “Ginni” Rometty, chairman, president, and CEO of IBM; Janet Yellen, United States secretary of the treasury; Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever PLC; Mary T. Barra, chairman and CEO of General Motors Company; Brian Moynihan, chairman and CEO of Bank of America; David M. Rubenstein, co-founder and co- executive chairman of the Carlyle Group; Leonard S. Schleifer, president and CEO of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals; George D. Yancopoulos, president and chief scientific officer of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals; Brian Roberts, CEO of Comcast; Marillyn Hewson, CEO of Lockheed Martin; Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase; and Ken Chenault, chair and CEO of American Express.
The Caucus theme is “Trading Places: Understanding the Rules on Where to Invest During Periods of Extreme Uncertainty.”
Our leadership partners include AlixPartners, Gladstone Place Partners, McKinsey and Company, Pfizer, Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg, and TD Securities.