Complete Story
10/02/2015
Forbes profiles James Kennedy, chair of Cox Communications
A FEW YEARS BACK JIM KENNEDY wanted to commemorate his grandfather James M. Cox, founder of Cox Enterprises , the $17-billion-in-sales telecom and media conglomerate still owned and run by his descendants. He settled on a life-size bronze statue, showing him midstride with a straw boater in hand and rimless glasses on his nose.
Almost immediately after the statue was placed in the headquarters lobby, a small group of Kennedy’s confidants began suggesting he remove it. He pondered whether it had the right scale.
The problem lay in the Cox governing principles: business conducted with modesty, soft-spoken conservatism and a humble acknowledgment of limits. “You can’t get a swelled head,” Kennedy says. The edict apparently applies to statues, too. The offending sculpture will be removed.
Kennedy, currently the company’s chairman, has long chosen to exemplify this down-home thinking himself–in small ways (he drives a Prius) and in larger ones (he almost never talks to the media, FORBES being his first interview in over a decade). He is nearly invisible to outsiders, especially after a recent cancer battle. “Create noise, and then it’s a good time for people to take shots at you,” says Kennedy, 67, raspy-voiced. “We’ve purposely kept a very guarded shell around us. I think it’s served us well.”
