‘Will you be my best friend?’ How Lumen’s Kate Johnson turned a breakfast into a CEO partnership
Source: Fortune ·
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In today’s CEO Daily: EY CEO Janet Truncale and Lumen CEO Kate Johnson on the importance of friendship The big leadership story: OpenAI finds a secret recording device The markets: More selling pressure in Asia Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune. Good morning. Kate Johnson’s friendship with EY global chair and CEO Janet Truncale began when the Lumen Technologies CEO spotted Truncale eating breakfast alone at a Business Roundtable event a few years ago. “I sat down next to her and I said, ‘Will you be my best friend?’” Johnson told me yesterday on stage at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit. “I was looking for connection so I could have a better day.” Truncale, then new to the top job at EY, immediately agreed and recalled Johnson showing her where to grab her name tag to mark her spot on the table as “everybody rushes in to put their name tag somewhere early.” The camaraderie morphed into friendship, and changed how Truncale approaches such gatherings. “In the…