Joe Scarlett is the retired Chairman of Tractor Supply Company and Founder of the Scarlett Leadership Institute in middle Tennessee. Scarlett’s long retail career has evolved in recent years into a second career in leadership education.
In 2006, Joe and his family endowed the Scarlett Leadership Institute. The institute is passionately committed to improving business leadership skills with a strong emphasis on ethical behavior. Today, scores of companies participate in a variety of high quality leadership and management education programs. A broad range of business leaders are achieving the overarching goal of positive behavioral change.
Scarlett held leadership roles at Tractor Supply Company from 1979 until his retirement at the end of 2007. He played a key role in the initiative to return the company to profitability through improved customer service and focused product selection as part of a classic leveraged buyout in 1982. Joe also led the successful 1994 effort to take the company public and during his ten plus years as CEO, the company’s revenue quadrupled and the price of its stock increased ten-fold.
Tractor Supply Company was honored by Forbes as one of the “Best Managed Companies in America” and Scarlett was recognized as Ernst & Young’s Southeast Entrepreneur of the Year. Joe has also served for twenty years on the board of the nations largest retail trade organization including four as its chairman.
Joe and his family also founded The Scarlett Family Foundation whose mission is, ‘to provide educational support to middle Tennessee students of all ages’. Joe also serves as a board member of the Beacon Center of Tennessee.
