Travel's high-energy heiress in high demand

MINNETONKA, Minn. -- On a recent spring morning, Carlson Cos. CEO Marilyn Carlson Nelson picks up her office telephone for a 10 a.m. conference call.

"Hello, Shimon. How are you?" she says to Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres, smiling into the phone.

She'd been talking recently to Peres about possible investments in tourist hotels in Israel, Jordan and Palestine. As head of a Minnesota-based hospitality conglomerate that does business in more than 150 countries, she regularly consults with world leaders, heads of state, royalty and CEOs.

As one of the few female leaders in the mostly male-dominated travel and tourism industry, the high-energy heiress is in high demand. Industry conferences want her to speak. Politicians at every level seek her campaign support. Diplomats and world leaders want her help in solving economic development and human-rights problems.

Her influence reflects the sprawling reach of her privately held business empire, which she inherited from her father and owns jointly with her sister.

Carlson Cos. says it amassed record revenue of $34.4 billion last year. Company brands include Radisson Hotels, casual dining chain TGI Friday's, Regent Seven Seas Cruises and business-travel agency Carlson Wagonlit Travel.

Those far-flung travel and hospitality businesses put Nelson in charge of the USA's third-largest privately held company after Koch Industries and Cargill, according to the Cox Family Enterprise Center, which studies family-owned businesses.

Carlson Cos. also ranks as the largest private company with a female CEO, the center says. Nelson owns the company with her sister, Barbara Carlson Gage, who is president of the family's foundation. With $1.4 billion in estimated net worth each, the sisters are tied at No. 562 on Forbes' most recent list of world billionaires.

Nelson, 66, could have chosen a very different life -- one as a pampered, jet-setting billionaire preoccupied with family, philanthropies, Pilates and occasional jaunts through Parisian houses of couture. But the Smith College alumna had grown up discussing Gold Bond trading stamps, the Carlson family's original business, and a life of leisure never appealed.

She grew even more determined to make each day count when one of her four children, daughter Juliet, died in an automobile accident during her first year at Smith College in 1985. Her husband, Glen Nelson, retired vice chairman at medical device maker Medtronic, marvels at his wife's "remarkable level of productivity" and says she's invigorated by the various tasks she takes on.

He often accompanies her on overseas trips, typically on a corporate jet.

"Marilyn believes passionately in the importance of the issues she takes on," he says.

Marilyn Carlson Nelson worked briefly as a securities analyst in Minneapolis after graduating from Smith before joining then-named Gold Bond Stamp. She later took time off to raise three daughters and one son. She also plunged herself into local civic issues, even helping to attract Super Bowl XXVI to icy Minneapolis in 1992. Around the same time, her children fully grown, she returned full time to the family business, Carlson Cos., and began moving up the ranks.

Her father, the late Curtis Carlson, once a soap salesman for Procter & Gamble, started Gold Bond trading stamps in 1938 with a $55 loan from his landlord. In the 1960s, he began buying hotels and later travel agencies and restaurant chains.

Curtis Carlson still firmly controlled the company when Marilyn returned in the early 1990s. But he was preparing for transition to younger leadership. He briefly installed her brother-in-law as CEO but then reclaimed the top position. For a period, Marilyn was not high on his list of potential CEOs.

In 1998, the year before he died at age 84, Curtis finally gave up control and named his daughter CEO. The transfer of power came at the company's glitzy 60th anniversary bash in Las Vegas with former president George Bush attending.

If Nelson harbors any resentment against a man known for dealing harshly with her, she doesn't show it. In a 1997 USA TODAY interview, she acknowledged that her father was hard to please and, on occasion, had brought her to tears in executive meetings. She spoke kindly of her father then and did so again in a recent interview. She admitted that "my dad certainly liked to control things" but politely credited him with "a masterful transition."

Faithful to the vision

Today, as Nelson runs Carlson Cos., she remains faithful to her father's vision of keeping the business in the family. Her son, Curtis Nelson, has risen to be president at Carlson Cos.

"It's almost like these businesses are our children," says Nelson, a grandmother of nine.

Within a year of taking the top job, the petite CEO used her position to change the corporate culture. She launched a companywide initiative that has produced on-site day care, promotion of more women, adoption benefits for employees and more opportunities for employees to work from home.

"We're trying to build in flexibility for parents, not just for women," Nelson says.

Two years ago, she became the first CEO of a large American company to sign a global anti-trafficking code of conduct sponsored by a United Nations-backed advocacy network called End Child Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking (ECPAT). Signers promise to train their employees to watch for suspicious activity and agree to warn customers of the penalties for sexual contact with minors in foreign countries. So far, other large U.S. travel companies have shied away from signing.

"It was a bold move," says Ambassador John Miller, the U.S. diplomat who deals with human trafficking. "This is a woman with incredible drive and conscience."

Outgoing and splashy

Nelson shuns typical business attire in favor of vivid colors, unusual fabrics -- even leather -- and outsized accessories. She's notorious for pulling off splashy stunts, such as Rollerblading into an employee meeting and flying in an F-16 fighter jet. And she's immensely outgoing at conventions or high-profile parties, eagerly embracing new and old acquaintances alike. Yet, in interviews, she's not forthcoming about her private life, preferring to keep the focus on business.

She has led the U.S. tourism industry's biggest trade group, the Travel Industry Association. Four years ago, President Bush tapped Nelson, a longtime Republican, to head the National Women's Business Council, a federal advisory panel. She's served on the board of ExxonMobil for 15 years and co-chaired the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in 2004, becoming the second woman to do so after former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. She gives an average of four speeches a month, many of them overseas.

Nelson relishes her many roles. Twelve-hour days aren't unusual. She has two assistants to manage her schedule and a full-time speechwriter. Not on her payroll: chauffeurs. She drives herself.

Her recent schedule has been particularly demanding. Last month, she went to Asia and Australia, in 12 days visiting seven countries. She leaves for Shanghai next week. With much of the company's growth coming from Asia, Nelson goes to meet with potential clients, government officials and business partners.

Public speaking

This particular morning, Nelson chats with Peres, whom she met a few years earlier at a small dinner during a Davos summit. She says he later asked her to consider building a hotel in the region, saying that "it's terrorism or tourism." She's since visited the area twice, meeting once with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. She's moving slowly on Peres' request, well aware of risks. The Radisson SAS in Amman, Jordan, was one of three hotels that suicide bombers attacked in November, killing 60 people.

The experience left a mark on Nelson. "It made me more committed than ever to be a force. We know how important it is for the free flow of ideas to have a safer, more secure world," she says. "We want to be part of the solution."

Later, Nelson drives herself to the Minneapolis convention center to deliver the keynote address to about 1,500 corporate supply managers. Extensive public speaking has led to certain pre-speech routines.

Before being introduced to others at the podium, she goes backstage. Her speechwriter, Doug Cody, says she likes to introduce herself to the person who will run her speech through the teleprompter, offering her thanks. It makes her feel more secure that they will keep pace if she goes off on a tangent. On this day, the visit takes longer than usual because the person was the daughter of a former Carlson employee.

"I feel better," Nelson says upon her return to the podium.

She finds more reassurance upon noticing black curtains behind the podium. Nelson wore a white knit skirt and white-leather couture jacket. "I'm glad I wore white," she says. "When there's a black screen behind you, sometimes you just blend right in."

In her wide-ranging, 40-minute speech, Nelson laughs at notions that globalization will be short-lived. She quotes Gandhi, advising people "to be the change you want to see in the world." She also encourages the audience to get their companies more attuned to ethics and to steer more corporate spending to female- and minority-owned companies.

When Nelson finishes, Joanne Kerr, director of supplier diversity for AT&T, stands and applauds. "Her leadership for corporate social responsibility and for women's business is felt throughout the world and throughout corporations," Kerr tells a reporter while waiting in line to meet Nelson. Eventually, after signing autographs, Nelson thanks her, embraces her and gives Kerr her personal e-mail address.

After a long meeting about employee health care, Nelson drives herself to the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, named for her family. For two years, she's been doing a series of television interview shows that air on local public television. This one features Nelson chatting with another female CEO about business and personal life. This week's guest: Susan Engel, CEO of the Lenox Group, the company known for its light-up Christmas villages.

Off-camera, she and Engel take time to meet privately with a dozen female business students in the audience and answer their questions.

The two banter about their busy lives for half an hour before heading to the auditorium for the taping. Nelson steers the conversation in a way that seems to affirm her own life's path.

"When you are a CEO, it is very hard to really ever unplug" from business, Nelson says.

"Yes, very hard," Engel agrees.

Says Nelson: "It's worth some of the sacrifice. That's what people forget -- that there's a wonderful payoff."

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