Power Couple: Meet the Sister CEOs

Denise Morrison, Campbell Soup Co.'s next chief executive, has long enjoyed useful career advice from younger sister Maggie Wilderotter. She happens to be CEO of publicly traded Frontier Communications Corp.

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Matthew Healey for The Wall Street Journal

Frontier Communications CEO Maggie Wilderotter, left, with older sister Denise Morrison, who will become Campbell Soup CEO on Aug. 1.

Ms. Morrison, 57 years old, takes command of the food giant on Aug. 1, marking the first time that two sisters will run big U.S. public companies, according to Catalyst Inc., a nonprofit women's research group.
They are also among a surprising number of siblings with powerful corporate posts outside of family-controlled firms. About 20 sets of siblings hold or recently held executive spots at companies including MasterCard Inc., Lowe's Cos., Terex Corp. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (See chart.)
Thirteen months apart, the sisters are the eldest of four daughters, all of whom became executives. Their father, an AT&T Inc. executive, talked to the girls about setting profit-margin goals while they were still in grade school. Their mother taught them that ambition is a part of femininity.

Siblings on Top

A surprising number of siblings hold powerful corporate posts outside family-controlled firms.

• Ron DeFeo, CEO of Terex Corp., and brother Neil DeFeo, chairman and former CEO of Sun Products Corp.
• Michael and Jim Esposito, senior executives at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Brother John Esposito is a senior executive at Morgan Stanley.
• Russ Fradin, CEO of SunGard Data Systems Inc., and brother Roger Fradin, a senior executive at Honeywell International Inc.
• Evan Greenberg, CEO of ACE Ltd., and brother Jeff Greenberg, CEO of Aquiline Capital Partners LLC and former CEO of Marsh McLennan Cos.
• Ajay Banga, CEO of MasterCard Inc., and brother Vindi Banga, an operating partner at Clayton, Dubilier Rice and a former senior executive at Unilever PLC
• Larry Stone, former president and COO of Lowe's Cos. and brother Steve Stone, a senior vice president of MicroStrategy Inc.

Source: WSJ reporting

They listened well. Ms. Wilderotter has run Frontier, a regional telecom company, since 2004. Ms. Morrison joined Campbell in 2003, after working for several food-industry behemoths. She was its top North American soup official before being named last fall as CEO Doug Conant's successor.
The sisters helped each other throughout their careers, says Ms. Wilderotter. For instance, Ms. Wilderotter coached Ms. Morrison on landing her first corporate board seat. "I told her, 'Start smaller. Don't go for a Fortune 500 board right out of the gate,''' Ms. Wilderotter recalls.
Early on, while a finance manager for a cable TV services start-up in the 1980s, Ms. Wilderotter sought Denise's guidance before taking over the marketing department because her sibling then was a Nestle SA marketing executive. "She took me through how to do (a marketing plan) on a shoestring, " Ms. Wilderotter says. Her employer soon won a dominant market share.
The sisters have taken frequent six-miles walks since Campbell's announcement last fall, strolling quickly through neighborhoods near their homes in Princeton, N.J., and Darien, Conn. During those power walks, Ms. Wilderotter says she urged her sister to use different approaches in communicating with Campbell directors during her first year as CEO: monthly emails about business results, calls about key decisions such as geographic expansion and face-to-face sessions for personal feedback. She also recently introduced Ms. Morrison to investment bankers savvy about takeovers.
But when siblings land at the same company, trouble can arise. Former Xerox Corp. CEO Anne Mulcahy supervised her older brother Thomas J. Dolan for nearly six years—even writing his performance reviews—after advancing to the corner office in 2001. Mr. Dolan headed a major unit, responsible for nearly a third of the company's revenue at the time, and feared he would have to resign. "It would have been tough if he walked out the door," says Ms. Mulcahy, now 58 years old.

Wealth, Education Play Role in Producing Super Siblings

It's unclear why some families produce multiple high-achievers.
Certain child-rearing tactics may play a role, especially when parents promote the idea "that everyone can be good at something" rather than pigeonholing youngsters, says Dalton Conley, social sciences dean at New York University and author of a 2004 book on successful siblings.
However, socioeconomic standing is probably what matters most, according to Mr. Conley's research, which included 175 interviews with 75 U.S. families.
The children of wealthy, welleducated white parents with few offspring and intact marriages have a better chance for success, Mr. Conley says.
He believes race affects the outcome even among otherwise similar families because whites have more extensive social connections and blacks still face discrimination.
An individual from a family of modest means likely will "be the only one who makes it up the ladder," because his or her parents spend their scarce funds "on the one kid who shows promise and ability," Mr. Conley continues.
—Joann S. Lublin

During meetings, "Anne was tougher on me than anyone else," Mr. Dolan, now 67 years old, says.
"It was almost a disadvantage being my brother," says Ms. Mulcahy. "There probably was a negative bias."
The Xerox leader even criticized him in private. While Mr. Dolan was running a different unit, the siblings decided to spend a weekend together in Vero Beach, Fla. Mr. Dolan says they were sipping wine on the corporate jet headed there when his sister demanded, "Get this division moving faster.''
Mr. Dolan got a new boss in spring 2007, when Xerox named a separate president, Ursula Burns. She succeeded Ms. Mulcahy as CEO in July 2009. He retired at the end of that year.
In May 2010, Mr. Dolan attended a Xerox dinner honoring his sister. They hugged each other and simultaneously exclaimed, "We did it!'' He says the comment celebrated the survival of their sibling relationship. "That was important.''
Larry Stone, who retired last month as president at Lowe's, helped his younger brother Steve land a job at the big retail chain almost two decades ago. He rose to chief information officer in 2003. Still, he disliked being known as "Larry Stone's little brother," he says.
"We locked horns many times," says Larry, who turns 60 on Monday. In 2006, for instance, they clashed over the sluggish introduction of a computerized system for special-order sales.
Steve says their mother asked why he worked weekends. "Your oldest son is kicking my butt because these systems aren't what he wants," he told her.
Larry says she chastised him for being too hard on her youngest son. "He's my brother. But when we're at the company, he's just another employee," Larry says he told her.
In March, Steve Stone became a senior vice president of MicroStrategy Inc., a business intelligence software concern in Tysons Corner, Va. Close-knit successful siblings represent "a great resource," the 49-year-old executive says. "They know you better than anybody else."
Other executives find successful siblings assist them with tough career decisions. Ronald DeFeo's older twin brothers already were senior executives when they discouraged his 1992 acceptance of a top management role at Terex, a troubled maker of construction equipment. "They didn't want to see me make a bad choice," he says. "I felt at 40, I could handle a mistake."