Good morning. UPS continues to lean into a method positioning it for long-term development—one which required shrinking its decades-long partnership with Amazon.
The package-delivery large (No. 47 on the Fortune 500) beat Wall Road expectations for the third quarter, reporting on Tuesday $21.4 billion in income and adjusted EPS of $1.74, each properly above forecasts. It tasks about $24 billion in This autumn income, signaling momentum regardless of a uneven economic system. UPS inventory was up about 8% at market shut.
Refocusing the enterprise
Brian Dykes, CFO of UPS since July 2024, first joined the corporate as an intern in 1999. I spoke with Dykes about technique and his front-row perspective on the corporate’s evolution as a public enterprise.
“We’re transforming our U.S. operations to focus on the market segments where we can add the most value,” Dykes instructed me. Meaning shifting away from low-return, capital-intensive quantity and doubling down on higher-margin areas like small and midsized companies, well being care logistics, and B2B supply.
The latest UPS resolution to halve its Amazon supply quantity by late 2026—after practically 30 years of partnership—marks a significant strategic shift. “I’ve worked with Amazon for over a decade,” Dykes mentioned. “Over time, our strategies diverged, which caused us to step back and ask where we truly add value.”
Amazon constructed success facilities optimized for short-haul, last-mile supply, whereas the UPS community is designed for long-haul and sophisticated logistics. Amazon will stay a key buyer in areas the place UPS provides worth—like returns and worldwide providers, he mentioned.
At the same time as UPS winds down some Amazon quantity, the share it continues to deal with has grown, Dykes famous. “Amazon is so large—it’s not like the average customer,” he mentioned.
As a part of this realignment, UPS lower about 34,000 operational positions in 2025, largely by attrition and focused buyouts. Most cuts affected part-time roles, although the corporate additionally supplied voluntary packages to drivers, Dykes mentioned. As a part of its turnaround technique, the corporate additionally closed operations at 93 services and eradicated 14,000 administration jobs.
Does he suppose UPS is prepared for the vacation season? “Peak season is like our Super Bowl,” Dykes mentioned. As a result of UPS is dealing with much less of Amazon’s quantity, it doesn’t want as a lot additional capability or as many seasonal hires, he mentioned. UPS expects a 20% quantity enhance from Q3 to This autumn—roughly 4 million further packages a day—in keeping with latest years, Dykes mentioned.
Well being care as a development engine
In our dialog about technique, Dykes famous that UPS’s well being care focus predates the pandemic. He helped construct this vertical by focused acquisitions, citing chilly chain logistics (a temperature-controlled provide chain), high quality assurance, and regulatory oversight as differentiators, and leveraging automation and AI for effectivity.
“Since 2016, we’ve grown that business from kind of zero to a $10 billion business across UPS,” he mentioned. Well being care clients keep longer, develop quicker, and the margins are increased, Dykes mentioned, which he believes is a profitable components—even by financial or tariff disruptions.
I requested Dykes about his strategic work partnership with Carol Tomé, who has served as UPS CEO since 2020, and was beforehand CFO of Dwelling Depot for practically twenty years.
Dykes mentioned he advantages from Tomé’s management as a result of “she pushes our entire leadership team to be better.”
“Part of me taking the job,” he added, “was the understanding that sometimes I’d have to be the one to push back—and we have that healthy tension. But at the same time, she’s made me a much better executive than I was when I started.”
***Upcoming Occasion: Be a part of us for our subsequent Rising CFO webinar, Optimizing for a Human-Machine Workforce, introduced in partnership with Workday, on Nov. 13 from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. ET.
We’ll discover how main CFOs are rethinking the way forward for work within the age of agentic AI—together with when to deploy AI brokers to speed up automation, tips on how to stability ROI tradeoffs between human and digital expertise, and the upskilling methods CFOs are making use of to optimize their workforces for the long run.
Leaderboard
Adam S. Elinoff was appointed CFO of Agilent Applied sciences, Inc. (NYSE: A), efficient November 17. Elinoff has over twenty years of expertise in company finance, funding relations, and enterprise transformation. He joins the corporate from Amgen, the place he superior by a sequence of finance, technique and transformation management roles over a complete of 19 years, most just lately serving as vp of finance and treasurer.
Kathryn (Katie) Eskandarian was appointed CFO onPhase, a monetary automation and funds supplier. Eskandarian brings greater than twenty years of management in finance and operations. Earlier than becoming a member of onPhase, Eskandarian served as CFO at Visible Lease, the place she constructed the monetary and operational frameworks. Earlier in her profession, she held senior finance roles at iCIMS and Geller & Firm.
Massive Deal
OpenAI, initially a nonprofit, is shifting towards a for-profit construction by recapitalization and an expanded partnership with Microsoft. On Tuesday, OpenAI introduced that Microsoft helps the formation of a public profit company (PBC) and the recapitalization plan.
Going deeper
The 2025 Fortune 500 Europe record was launched this morning. Europe’s largest firm, German automotive producer Volkswagen (based in 1937), ranks No. 1.
Complete income for the five hundred rose 2.5% to $14.9 trillion, and market capitalization climbed 13.7% to $15.9 trillion. Earnings, nevertheless, slipped 5.1% to $978.2 billion.
The highest three sectors by income—finance (107 corporations, $3.5 trillion), power (71 corporations, $3 trillion), and motor autos and elements (23 corporations, $1.4 trillion)—are all being reshaped by digital know-how and, within the case of power, renewables. But the dominant gamers stay well-established incumbents reasonably than new disruptors.
The very best-ranking newcomer in finance is Italy’s CDP Group (No. 122, based in 1850). The highest pure-play renewables agency, wind-turbine producer Vestas (No. 226), was based in 1945.
Overheard
“The Hollywood model of work—specialized teams assembling for specific projects, then dissolving and reconfiguring for new ones—is a refreshing alternative to the rigid corporate structures inherited from the industrial era. For decades, this fluid approach seemed impractical for most businesses. Now, it is becoming feasible as AI handles the logistical complexities and knowledge management that once required permanent bureaucracies.”
—Ravi Kumar S, the CEO of Cognizant, writes in a Fortune opinion piece titled, “The Hollywood blueprint holds the key to reshaping organizations in the age of AI.”
