Postcards

How the power players do it - by Fortune senior editor at large Patricia Sellers

Power Shift: Fidelity execs move on

June 13, 2008: 5:00 PM ET

Fidelity's Abby Johnson

I see that Bob Reynolds, who quit Fidelity Investments last year knowing he would never inherit the CEO post from patriarch Ned Johnson, has landed at rival Putnam Investments as CEO. Good for Reynolds, but tough job ahead since Putnam is fighting fund redemptions and client defections.

Another former top exec at Fidelity who left, similarly frustrated, is Ellyn McColgan. Morgan Stanley (MS) CEO John Mack scooped her up and lured her from Boston to New York. McColgan is now president and COO of Morgan's Global Wealth Management Group. She's commandeering a workforce of 16,500.

Big gigs, both of them. Meanwhile at Fidelity, questions linger about whether Abby Johnson (right) will eventually take over from her father. The investment giant has kept the top job in the family ever since Ned's father founded the firm 62 years ago. Abby, 46, has expanded her reach at Fidelity since I wrote a story last August about the company's management churn and her apparent bout with cancer. She's now running Fidelity's largest division, Personal and Workplace Management.

Queried about Abby's condition today, Fidelity spokesperson Anne Crowley says, "Abby is in good health and is vigorously pursuing her job daily." Though she is extremely private and rarely seen around Boston, Ned's billionaire daughter spoke to 150 people at a Fidelity conference for clients earlier this week, Crowley says. And this past spring, Abby appeared at client events in Nashville and Orlando.

P.S. Who do you think is likely to head Fidelity after Ned Johnson?

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About This Author
Pattie Sellers
Patricia Sellers
Senior Editor at Large, Fortune
Executive Director of MPW/Live Content, Time Inc.

Fortune senior editor at large Pattie Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Marissa Mayer: Ready to Rumble at Yahoo," "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" "The $100 Billion Woman" (Melinda Gates), and "Remodeling Martha" (Martha Stewart). She has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women in Business" package every year since its launch in 1998. Pattie is Executive Director of the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business and beyond. She oversees MPW programs that enable women leaders to extend their influence and empower the next generation—such as Fortune MPW Entrepreneurs and the Fortune-U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership. Beyond her Fortune duties, she is also developing Live Content across Time Inc. Pattie grew up in Allentown, PA, graduated from the University of Virginia, and started at Fortune in 1984. Her blog, Postcards, is about how power players lead, manage others, and navigate their careers.

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