Ellen Kullman: The best advice I ever got

@FortuneMagazine May 22, 2012: 6:54 AM ET
Dupont CEO Ellen Kullman's best advice:

Dupont CEO Ellen Kullman: "Invest yourself in what you're building, and it will grow."

FORTUNE -- "My dad started and ran a landscaping business. He put me to work watering plants for my grandmother and for our house. His mantra was, 'If you don't water it, it's going to die.' That was the job I hated most: pouring water on those darn flowers. But my mother and my grandmother had the most beautiful gardens in town.

"When I got out in the world, my father's advice translated into investing yourself in what you're building in order for it to grow. In 1998, I was asked to start a safety business at DuPont. I wasn't given a lot of direction. I picked four other people in the company with different backgrounds to join me. On Friday afternoons, when we were dead tired and out of ideas, I used to bring the team together and 'water plants.' We'd talk about what was wrong, what was right, what was working, and what wasn't. We created a safety-consulting business that grew to a couple hundred million dollars in revenue in a few years and became the genesis of our safety and protection platform, which grew to about $5 billion. If you think about the things DuPont does today, that small group was the genesis of what is now a large focus of what we do."

Ellen Kullman

Age: 56

Job Experience: Business development manager at General Electric (GE, Fortune 500); former board member of General Motors (GM, Fortune 500); current board member of United Technologies (UTX, Fortune 500); member of President Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness

Claim to Fame: First woman to lead the 210-year-old DuPont (DD, Fortune 500); since she took the helm three years ago, DuPont has returned 141% compared with 67% for the S&P 500; co-chair of the National Academy of Engineering Committee on Changing the Conversation: From Research to Action; ranks fourth on Fortune's list of Most Powerful Women.

This story is from the May 21, 2012 issue of Fortune. To top of page

  • -->

    Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.