Kenneth I. Chenault, chairman and chief executive officer of the American Express Company, will deliver the 2001 Durland lecture Thursday, Oct. 17, at Cornell University.

This year Business Week named Chenault one of the top 25 managers of the year, andWorth magazine called him one of the top 50 CEOs in the United States. In 1999 U.S. News described him as one of the most visible, and talented, African American executives in the corporate world. And in 1998 Business Week dubbed him "a first-rate marketer" and "an established star" among the circle of African-American professionals who have achieved.

Chenault's talk, titled: "Global Leadership in Changing Times," will take place in the David L. Call Auditorium of Kennedy Hall at 5 p.m. and is free and open to the public. The annual Durland lecture is the most prestigious invitational talk at Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management and is introduced by Cornell President Hunter Rawlings.

Chenault built his reputation by working his way up through AmEx's Travel Related Services (TRS) division. He helped reinvent TRS after its cardholder service faltered badly in the late 1980s and early 1990s, edged out by Visa and MasterCard. As president of TRS's consumer card group, he cut operating costs radically and transformed four units into a single, leanly staffed one. The TRS division now generates two-thirds of AmEx's revenues and most of its profit, according to Business Week.

In 1997 Chenault was made president and chief operating officer of AmEx and was identified by then CEO Harvey Golub as a possible successor. The two worked in partnership until early this year, when Golub stepped down and Chenault moved up.

A graduate of Bowdoin College (magna cum laude, majoring in history) and Harvard Law School, Chenault joined American Express in 1981 in strategic planning after stints in law, with Rogers and Wells in New York City, and in management consulting, with Bain and Co. in Boston. His rising-star potential was visible early on to Bain co-founder Ralph Willard, who told Business Week : "Ken had CEO written all over him." While on Cornell's campus, Chenault will meet informally with minority and other students and will take part in a roundtable discussion with faculty at the Johnson School.

The Johnson School's Durland Memorial Lecture series, which brings distinguished executives from the fields of business, finance and investment management to Cornell annually, was initiated by Roy H. Park, the late chairman of Park Communications Inc., and a small group of donors in 1983 to honor former Cornell Treasurer Lewis H. Durland.