How a missed roommate interview helped Raj Subramaniam begin his journey to becoming FedEx CEO

The early 1990s were a challenging time for job seekers in the United States as the country grappled with a recession that pushed unemployment above 7% and forced employers to slow hiring. Amid the difficult employment landscape, a chance opportunity changed the course of Raj Subramaniam’s career.

Today, Subramaniam serves as the Chief Executive Officer of FedEx, but his journey with the global logistics company began in an unexpected way—by stepping into a job interview that his roommate had decided to skip.

In 1991, while completing his MBA in marketing and finance at the University of Texas at Austin, the India-born executive was searching for career opportunities. By then, he had already built a strong academic foundation, earning engineering and science degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay and Syracuse University.

The turning point came when his roommate informed FedEx that he would not be attending a scheduled interview. Rather than letting the opportunity go to waste, Subramaniam contacted the recruiter himself and requested to be considered for the position instead.

That decision marked the beginning of a remarkable career. He joined FedEx at its global headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee, as an entry-level associate. His performance quickly earned recognition, leading to larger responsibilities and international assignments.

“Jobs were hard to come by, and my roommate at that time had decided to go back to India,” FedEx CEO was quoted as saying by Fortune in a podcast.

“When I was walking to the apartment, I heard him on the phone; he’s like, ‘No, I can’t do that,’ and he hung up the phone. I said, ‘What’s going on?’ He said, ‘That’s FedEx calling,’ and that it was for an interview. But he has obviously decided to leave the country,” Subramaniam said.

“I immediately picked up the phone and said, ‘Give me the number,’ and I called over and said, ‘You just talked to my roommate, but he doesn’t want to do the interview, but I am still here. Can I send you my resume?’ And they said, ‘Okay.” And the rest is history.”

Between 1996 and 2003, Subramaniam was based in Hong Kong, where he led marketing operations across the Asia-Pacific region. Reflecting on his career, he has often credited his steady rise to a willingness to embrace new challenges and accept opportunities whenever they arose.

Interestingly, he has said that becoming CEO was not initially part of his career plan. It was only after taking over as regional president of FedEx Canada in 2003 that he began to see the possibility of leading the company one day.

His ascent continued with a series of senior leadership roles, including Executive Vice President of Marketing and Communications at FedEx Corp. In 2019, he was elevated to President and Chief Operating Officer, overseeing the company's operations during the pandemic-driven surge in e-commerce demand.

Subramaniam further said: “Pretty much every job that I’ve gotten—maybe with the exception of one or so—was somebody [who] said, ‘Yep, I want you to do this’…[I] was given multiple opportunities, and I just took it.”

“It was a great learning experience, whether it’s living in different geographies or doing different jobs,” the FedEx CEO said.

In 2022, FedEx founder Frederick W. Smith appointed Subramaniam as the company's CEO, making him only the second chief executive in FedEx's more than five-decade history and marking the culmination of a career that began with a fortunate twist of fate.