Chairman and Chief Executive Officer BellSouth Corporation – Atlanta, Georgia
John L. Clendenin is Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of BellSouth, the largest of the Regional Bell telecommunications companies, and one of the twenty-five largest U.S. public companies. A native of El Paso, Texas, Mr. Clendenin is a 1955 graduate of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and served as a pilot in the US Air Force Strategic Air Command. He began his telephone career with the Illinois Bell Telephone Company and subsequently moved to the Pacific Northwest Bell Telephone Company in Seattle and to the American Telephone and Telegraph Company in New York. He was elected President of Southern Bell in April 1981 and became Chief Executive Officer of BellSouth on January 1, 1984. BellSouth owns Southern Bel, South Central Bell, BellSouth Services and BellSouth Enterprises. He is a member of the boards of Capital Holding Corporation, The Kroger Company, Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc., Wachovia Corporation and the New York Stock Exchange. He is a past Chairman of both the US Chamber of Commerce and the National Alliance of Business; serves on the National Executive Board of the Boy Scouts of America, the National Executive Board of Junior Achievement and the National Board of Governors of the United Way of America. He is a Trustee of the Conference Board and the Committee for Economic Development, and a member of the Policy Committee of the Business Roundtable. He has served as a board member and officer of a number of other civic, educational and cultural organizations. “Northwood University represents the free enterprise system of democracy that is now the envy of the whole world.”
