Skydeck: Recent Episodes
Harvard Business School
Author and producer Jeff Norton (MBA 2003) on how his show Geek Girl became a Netflix hit—and what it tells us about success in the streaming era
Baskits president and CEO Robin Kovitz (MBA 2007) on the tactics and the trials of her “acquisition entrepreneurship” journey
John Levy (MBA 1979) thinks his startup can make quantum computing an accessible superpower for business—and he is racing tech’s biggest names to make a long-promised future a reality
Adventurer Sunny Stroeer (MBA 2011) is always hunting for her limit. Would she find it while skiing 1,000 miles through the Alaskan wilderness?
Recipients of the 2024 Alumni Achievement Award share takeaways from early experiences in the working world
Recipients of the 2024 Alumni Achievement Award reflect on how their early life shaped them—personally and professionally
Born in Korea, Michael Kim (MBA 1990) spent his formative years in the US. As his novel ‘Offerings’ heads for the big screen, Asia’s “godfather of private equity” reflects on time, legacy, duty, and the unexpected connections between fiction and finance.
Cancer will impact nearly one in two people in their lifetime. Kathy Giusti (MBA 1985) has battled it twice—and has lessons for anyone in the fight.
Author Anne Morriss (MBA 2004) on how companies can tackle complex issues with essential speed
Insights from the dating world with professional matchmaker Rachel Greenwald (MBA 1993)
Newport News Mayor Phillip Jones, a Marine Corps veteran, on managing through a school shooting crisis—and what it takes to turnaround a city
Alumni reflect on the like-minded cofounders, life-changing professors, and lifelong partners they met on campus.
In this excerpt from the HBS podcast Climate Rising, Sanchali Pal (MBA 2018) discusses the business plan behind her sustainable spending app.
In a new book, Charles Conn (MBA 1990) offers problem-solving mindsets for uncertain times
Chris Marinak (MBA 2008), Chief Operations and Strategy Officer at Major League Baseball, on building and nurturing an organizational culture of innovation—and what his experience at MLB can teach any business leader. (Recorded live at Spring Reunions.)
Recipients of the 2023 Alumni Achievement Award offer their take on the tricky topic of managing personal and professional responsibilities
Recipients of the 2023 Alumni Achievement Award describe when things didn’t go according to plan—and how those painful experiences were ultimately a good thing
From the Bulletin: When she came back to Egypt five years ago, investor Amal Enan (MBA 2014) embraced the chaos—and found a path to impact her country’s future
In this excerpt from HBS's Managing the Future of Work podcast, Mallory Dwinal-Palisch (MBA 2015) offers a lesson plan for the American education system
This is the third and final episode of Clearing the Air, our mini-series on carbon capture. In this episode, we look at some of the potential uses for captured carbon—including a startup employing nature’s C02 recycling model—and the necessity of sweeping, speedy scaling.
This is the second episode of our Skydeck mini-series on carbon capture. In the first episode, we explored the scope of the problem—and the potential size of the business opportunity at this moment.
In this episode we’re headed to the Carbon Capture Inc.'s headquarters in Downtown Los Angeles, where the company's first prototype was built. And to Southwest Wyoming where the company is planning the first large-scale direct-air capture facility in the United States.
This is the first episode of "Clearing the Air", a three-part series focused on the business of carbon capture, a technology that could help address the climate change crisis by removing excess carbon dioxide right out of the atmosphere. The promise of this approach has launched a raft of companies that not only capture but also store and even reuse the carbon—creating an industry that has attracted several billion dollars of government and investor capital in just the last few years.
But the scope of the problem is massive and growing, which means that all of these promising new ideas need to launch and scale quickly.
This series will take you inside the world of carbon capture, guided by innovators and experts at the forefront of the movement who will help you understand what is possible.
HBS Executive Fellow Bill George and Chad Foster (PLDA 21, 2016), an author and motivational speaker, on the transformational power of crucibles
From the HBS Alumni Bulletin: Taylor Keen’s Sacred Seed project shows how a Native American approach to agriculture can protect the planet’s soil—one garden at a time.
Daisy Dowling (MBA 2002) helps working parents hit the reset button, post-COVID—and offers practical advice for moving forward on an even keel at home and in the office
Daisy Dowling (MBA 2002) helps working parents hit the reset button, post-COVID—and offers practical advice for moving forward on an even keel at home and in the office
2022 Alumni Achievement Award recipient Bob Wilson (MBA 1961, DBA 1963) on his journey from Depression-era Nebraska to a 2020 Nobel Prize
2022 Alumni Achievement Award recipient Bob Ryan (MBA 1970) had just stepped off his last board when he was called on for a different sort of service: revitalizing the oldest African American-owned business in north Minneapolis.
2022 Alumni Achievement Award recipient Tosh Barron (MBA 1972) describes her experience as a pioneering woman in the board room, the elements of effective corporate governance, and what to look for when seeking a board role
Sal Khan’s ambition for Khan Academy: Empower billions of learners and provide a safety net for education systems around the world
In the first of a weekly series of Skydeck episodes honoring recipients of the 2022 Alumni Achievement Award, finance veteran Naina Lal Kidwai (MBA 1982) talks about her second act as chairman and founder of the India Sanitation Coalition, an organization coordinating business, government, and nonprofit efforts to improve India’s water quality and health outcomes.
Naveen Tewari, founder of InMobi and now Glance, is at the forefront of a growing trend of global consumer technology companies created in Asia—not just powered by it
How Walker & Dunlop CEO Willy Walker’s experience with anger management therapy transformed his life and career
Parsec Ventures CEO Richard Steel (OPM 45, 2014) has had a wide range of professional experiences, including everything from running both private and public companies to serving on nonprofit boards to advising the White House Business Council. Which means that he has spent a lot of time speaking with leaders in both business and government about the factors that are driving their organizations’ strategy. Over the last several years, there has been a dominant theme in those conversations: ESG. Environmental, Social, and Governance.
And Steel wasn’t just hearing it, he was seeing it. At some point, it felt like he would see a new story every day about companies that were grappling with climate change, racial justice, or diversity and inclusion. He was watching a sea change take place.
His recent book, Elevated Economics: How Conscious Consumers Will Fuel the Future of Business, is his effort to explain the implications of this watershed moment—and help readers understand what it takes to succeed in the new economy it has created.
In 2009, in the wake of the financial crisis, with ratings agencies weighing whether or not to downgrade its stock, GE CEO Jeff Immelt made the decision to cut the company's annual dividend for the first time since 1938. It was gutting for Immelt. He knew the financial impact such a move would have not just on the company, but also on its retirees—a group that notably included his own parents.
In this second part of our Skydeck conversation with Immelt, we talk about the trials of the financial crisis, the loneliness of life at the top, and what his post-GE career in education and venture capital have taught him about the future of global business.
When Jeff Immelt graduated from HBS in 1982, he had job offers from Morgan Stanley and Boston Consulting Group. But Immelt had spent his second year at HBS reflecting on his career path, and he decided that he was more interested in being an operator than an investor, accepting a position with a lower salary at GE.
His initial plan was to spend five years or so at GE learning how to manage. Ultimately though, he would go on to spend 35 years at the company, becoming CEO in 2001. He was so dedicated to GE that, at age 50, he got the company's logo tattooed on his leg.
Immelt, now venture partner at New Enterprise Associates and a lecturer at Stanford's Graduate School of Business, recounts his history at GE in his recent book, Hot Seat: What I Learned Leading a Great American Company. And in this first episode of a special two-part Skydeck interview with Immelt, we talk about his rise to CEO, the challenge of enacting change at a massive scale, and what his experience at GE can teach large organizations about overcoming barriers to innovation.
On May 31st, 2020, six days after the murder of George Floyd, Stephen Roger's daughter, Ariel sent him a text. In it, she told her dad that the Black community was suffering and that he needed to talk to them-- that he needed to address the community as if he were the President of the United States. His daughter's plea led him to record a podcast that did just that, urging the Black community to both keep up the fight and take care of themselves.
But Rogers also recorded a second podcast, this one addressing a white audience, telling them exactly what they could be doing to help support the Black community. The positive response to that episode led Rogers, a retired HBS professor, to write his recent book, A Letter to My White Friends and Colleagues: What You Can Do Right Now to Help the Black Community. And in this episode of Skydeck, Rogers and I talk about the makings of America's racial wealth gap, why he thinks it is a root cause of the nation's racial crisis, and the tangible steps necessary to help erase it.
This is Dan Morrell, host of Skydeck.
At the HBS reunions in 2019, the Skydeck team set up shop on Spangler lawn and asked alumni to share their secrets to a successful retirement.
John Teeling, DBA 1979, who has started a number of Irish whiskey distilleries, hadn’t intended to sit and offer his advice, but his companion had other ideas.
JOHN TEELING: The reason you have me here is because my wife was listening to the request to come on and she says I’m not allowed to retire until I’m 94. You shouldn’t ask me about retirement, because I’ve done absolutely no planning for it other than financial. And I’d hope to be able to work as long as I’m enjoying it, which I think could be a few years yet.
In this episode of Skydeck, you’ll hear from some happy retirees about what makes for a successful exit from the working world—and a few more like Teeling, who chafe at the very notion. And while this episode of Skydeck was notably recorded in pre-pandemic times, we think the advice offered here remains relevant.
Three days before giving birth to her second daughter, Parul Somani (MBA 2009) felt a lump in her breast. Still unable to walk from her C-section, her husband wheeled her to the breast clinic for an ultrasound and biopsy. On her newborn’s one-week birthday, Somani learned she was in the early stages of a particularly invasive and aggressive form of cancer. Her maternity leave suddenly turned into a medical leave to accommodate 10-plus rounds of chemotherapy and multiple surgeries.
Five years later, officially in remission, Somani drew on the lessons learned during that difficult time to launch an inspirational speaker platform called Silver Linings in an effort to champion resilience, advocacy, and mental wellbeing. Somani believes that silver linings aren’t meant to just be “found” during the darkest of times, but can be created through mindset, intention, and sense of purpose. These are all learnable skills, she says, that can be used to build resilience and better navigate the uncertainty and challenges we all confront. In this episode of Skydeck, Somani talks to Associate Editor Julia Hanna about the moment of her diagnosis, an unexpected silver lining from her own experience, her career pivot, and how she sees her work evolving in the future.
Ed Hajim has had a legendary career in finance, including high-profile stints at E.F. Hutton and Lehman Brothers and 14 years leading Furman Selz.
But his success came against very high odds, which Ed chronicles in his recent book, On the Road Less Traveled: An Unlikely Journey from the Orphanage to the Boardroom.
While Ken Friedman (MBA 1983) was at HBS, he and a group of about a dozen friends would get together regularly to play cards. The group vowed to continue to do so after graduation, and would hold annual weekend get-togethers to catch up. It became a brotherhood, Friedman says. But almost fifteen years ago, one of the members of that group was diagnosed with cancer, ultimately passing away after a 15-month battle.
It was a wakeup call for Friedman. He’d had a successful career in investment banking and venture capital, which included being the founder and former president of the investment banking operation of Houlihan Lokey at the age of 28. Houlihan Lokey would go on to become a New York Stock Exchange public company.
But his friend’s death made the next big VC deal or M&A transaction seem much less important. Instead, Friedman reoriented his life, focusing more on philanthropy—and also getting back into one of his favorite childhood pursuits: motorcycle riding. Ultimately, this renewed passion for riding would become an historic mission to ride a motorcycle on all seven continents.
Friedman completed his mission in December of 2019, and in this episode of Skydeck, he and I talk about the challenges he faced during his epic journey—and why he believes that getting out of one’s comfort zone and tenacity are the keys to personal growth.
Niren Chaudhary (AMP 191) has spent most of his career in restaurants, working in leadership positions at Yum Brands and Krispy Kreme donuts before becoming the CEO of Panera Bread in May 2019.
In this episode of Skydeck, he speaks to Ranjay Gulati—his former college classmate and his eventual HBS executive education professor—about how Panera has faced the myriad challenges of the pandemic, the leadership values that guide him, and how a deep, personal loss became a pivotal part of his life and career.
Jacqui Adams is CEO of a communication strategy firm that she launched after more than two decades as an Emmy award–winning CBS news correspondent. Bonita Stewart is a VP at Google, overseeing the company's global partnerships with US publishers. Together, they're co-authors of A Blessing: Women of Color Teaming Up to Lead, Empower and Thrive. The book uses existing data, as well as the authors' own original research to offer what they call an optimistic playbook for progress.
And in this episode of Skydeck, Adams and Stewart speak with contributing host and fellow alum Chitra Nawbatt about the transformational opportunity that business has to engage women of color.
In 1963, Bob Rosenberg’s (MBA 1963) father asked him to become CEO of Universal Food Systems—which included a regional brand known as Dunkin’ Donuts. He was just 25 at the time. He recalls this moment in his new book, Around the Corner to Around the World: A Dozen Lessons I Learned Running Dunkin Donuts.“ Up until that point,” he writes, “the only thing I had managed were a couple of donut shops—replacing managers for their summer vacations—and a short stint supervising a cafeteria. My father’s request was breathtaking and anxiety-producing.”
Over the next 35 years, Rosenberg would turn Dunkin' Donuts into a global icon—which last year sold to Inspire Brands for a stunning $11.3 billion. And in this episode of Skydeck, Rosenberg offers a frank assessment of family donut chain wars, details near-death takeover moments, and expounds on why a donut and a cup of coffee represent much more than a simple morning pick-me-up.
This is the third and final episode of “Out of the Valley,” a Skydeck mini-series that explores the past, present, and future of entrepreneurship. We started in the whaling capital of the world: New Bedford, Massachusetts in the 1800s, where we saw the roots of the venture capital industry. Then, of course, we found ourselves in Silicon Valley, where so many of the brands that shape our daily life got their start in humble garages.
Silicon Valley has been the global hub of tech innovation since the 1960s—but its most influential product might just be its model of entrepreneurship: disruptive, asset-light and capital-intensive businesses with a scale-at-all-cost mentality and no fear of failure.
But now something is threatening to disrupt the disruptors. Alex Lazarow (MBA 2010), author of Out-Innovate, calls it the “frontier market model.” Founded in places with limited resources and nascent entrepreneurial ecosystems, these startups have to be scrappier and leaner. And these limitations, Alex says, make businesses more sustainable.
In this episode, we ask entrepreneurs from frontier markets around the globe: What can Silicon Valley learn from your experiences? And what happens if the startup capital of the world ignores these lessons?
Welcome to the second episode of our Skydeck mini-series “Out of the Valley.” Today’s episode starts in Jakarta, Indonesia, in the late 2000s.
The city looked nothing like Silicon Valley in those days. There were very few VC-backed startups and not much of an entrepreneurial ecosystem. It was what author and venture capitalist Alex Lazarow would define as a “frontier market”—a place where entrepreneurs face significant constraints on funding, infrastructure, and talent. A place where the Silicon Valley model of moving fast and breaking things—an early Mark Zuckerberg mantra—just doesn’t work. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
It’s trendy to say that Silicon Valley is over—that this place and the philosophy that it became is past its apex, and all signs point to its impending collapse. That prophecy has become even more popular as the COVID-19 pandemic has made both the Valley’s products and its real estate prices seem ever more impractical.
But if those dire predictions come true, it might not be because of inflated valuations. It could be because Silicon Valley has lost its monopoly on its superpower: Innovation.
In this episode of Skydeck, we’re kicking off a three-part series called “Out of the Valley.” It will focus on the work of Alex Lazarow (MBA 2010), a venture capitalist and author of the book, Out-Innovate: How Global Entrepreneurs from Delhi to Detroit Are Rewriting the Rules of Silicon Valley. Over these next few episodes, we’ll explore the ideas at the heart of Alex’s book, detailing how entrepreneurs and ecosystems across the globe are challenging the Silicon Valley model—and explaining what these global startups can teach their peers in the Valley.
In this first episode, we’re going to examine why Silicon Valley is at risk of losing its startup crown and what that could mean for the future of innovation.
Earlier this year, as the coronavirus pandemic swept across the globe, the MBA Class of 2020 faced the daunting prospect of graduating into an economy battered by widespread shutdowns and hiring freezes. To offer some perspective, we reached out to alumni who had confronted similar challenges—including the OPEC crisis, the Vietnam War, the Financial Crisis of 2008—and we asked them how they made it through those difficult times. And in this special edition of Skydeck Voices, they share their stories and their advice.
In the wake of the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles in 1992, Willie Woods (MBA 1993) was part of a group of HBS students who traveled to the city with their Competition and Strategy professor Michael Porter. The group thought it would be a good opportunity to take some of Porter’s ideas about what makes a nation competitive and apply those on a city level. Two organizations spun out of that experience: The Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, a nonprofit focused on improving urban economies, and ICV Partners, a Black-owned private equity firm focused on companies in the lower middle market.
Willie Woods is cofounder, president, and managing director of ICV Partners, and in this episode of Skydeck, he talks to contributing host Chitra Nawbatt (GMP 6, 2009) about what it takes to make real change to the diversity of your organization.
In April of this year, Sanchali Pal launched Joro, an app that works like a fitbit for your carbon footprint. Joro assigns a carbon score to users’ credit card purchases and then connects users with offsets they can buy to mitigate their footprint. Part of Pal’s motivation for building Joro was that she wanted a tool that would not only allow her to better measure the impact of her lifestyle on climate change, but that would also give users a step-by-step path to make a difference in the face of what can seem like an overwhelming challenge.
In this episode of Skydeck, associate editor Jen Flint talks to Pal about the pandemic’s impact on both her business and on global carbon emissions, and the insight it can offer us about tackling climate change.
In mid-June, weeks after protests against racial injustice spread globally, the Leadership Now Project—founded in 2017 by HBS alumni to fix American democracy—released the Business for Racial Equity Pledge. Spearheaded by six Black HBS alumni, the pledge asks business leaders to promise that they will pursue anti-racist initiatives in the areas of policing reform; safe ballot access and civic participation; and economic inclusion.
Among the alumni authors of the pledge is Lisa Lewin (MBA 2003), a Leadership Now steering committee member, ed tech veteran, and current cofounder and managing partner of Ethical Ventures, a management consultancy dedicated to social enterprises. In its first month, the Business for Racial Equity Pledge was signed by more than 1,000 people—half of which are either CEOs or senior-level executives.
In this episode of Skydeck, Lewin speaks with contributor April White about the impetus behind the pledge, what success might look like, and why she remains optimistic that real change is possible.
Angela Ruggiero is cofounder and CEO of the market research firm the Sports Innovation Lab, and when we spoke in May, it was the week after the Bundesliga—Germany’s premier soccer league—began to play without fans in the stands. Outside, that is, of some cardboard facsimiles of fans that were purchased as part of a pandemic relief program.
It’s an imperfect—albeit necessary—set up for fans. And Ruggiero, who is a four-time women’s hockey Olympian and gold medalist, knows it’s also not an ideal situation for athletes, who feed off of a crowd’s energy.
But for the sports leagues and the related startups that can survive this transition period—and not all of them will—it could provide an opportunity to assess and invest in the kinds of infrastructure and tech upgrades, Ruggiero says, that will make live sports both safer and more engaging on the other side.
Artist and activist Madame Gandhi got her big break in the music industry when she was invited to join the group MIA on their world tour—which launched at the same time as her first semester at HBS began. She decided she could do both, which mostly meant going to class during the week and touring on the weekends. But there was one week in November when Gandhi had to fly back and forth between Boston and New York every day—she’d be in class until noon, then on a 2 o’clock flight back to LaGuardia in time for an evening show, then 5 am back at Logan, stopping only for a coffee at Spangler before rushing to class. That was also the week she had her first cold call.
But somehow, she says, she made it to her EC year. By then she had a taste for touring and decided to use the privilege of her education to elevate feminine voices in the music industry. Gandhi has released two albums of her own since graduating from HBS and is working on her third. She is also a public speaker and a 2020 TED Fellow—work that, like her music, celebrates gender liberation. She talks to associate editor Jen Flint in this episode of Skydeck about what it’s like to be an artist, navigating a world without live performances, and working alone in quarantine.
The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting Era of Zoom has physically changed the way we work. But according to Rachel Greenwald (MBA 1993), some of the core tenets of interpersonal communication that were important in the office remain just as important in our new digital workspaces—we just need to adjust our techniques.
Greenwald is a matchmaker, New York Times-bestselling author, and a business communication consultant, and in this episode of Skydeck, she tells contributor April White about the parallels between the business world and the dating world, the important difference between talking and connecting, and why this crisis has already fundamentally changed the way we communicate.
Sheryl WuDunn (MBA 1986) is the author of several books with her husband, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, most of which have focused on poverty in developing countries. But in the Pulitzer Prize-winning duo’s latest book,Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope, they turn their lens on working-class communities in the United States—communities that have been decimated by job loss and drug addiction.
In this episode of Skydeck, contributor April White speaks to WuDunn about what led to the fragile economic conditions of blue-collar America, what solutions are being developed to address those issues, and how the current COVID-19 crisis has revealed how much the country depends on its working class.
Ayr Muir always had an interest in the environment. After HBS, he thought he’d find a job in wind power—until a friend gave him an alarming UN report detailing livestock’s impact on CO2 emissions. With the average American consuming 3.1 servings of meat daily, Muir realized that food was a place he could make a difference. In 2008 he started Clover Food Lab with the goal of making vegetables irresistible for people who love to eat meat. Now a chain of more than a dozen fast-casual restaurants in the Boston area, Clover serves an always-changing, all-vegetarian menu to a 90 percent non-vegetarian customer base. In this episode of Skydeck, associate editor Julia Hanna takes listeners behind the scenes at a Clover food development meeting and talks to Muir about Brussel sprouts, the lack of transparency in the food industry, and the iterative process that created Clover’s different look and feel.
Eric Schultz was working as an executive chairman for a tech company, and on his way home from a fundraising presentation at a venture firm when he had an epiphany.
A longtime executive with a personal interest in history, he had been struggling with how to frame a new book he was working on about the history of innovation in America. But sitting around a makeshift bar with some of the other executives who had just laid out rosy scenarios and hockey-stick returns to potential investors, the truth came out. One of the executives was running out of cash. Another had a new competitor they didn’t have a few months prior. One had lost her star software developer to a rival. This, Schultz thought, was the perfect framing: Take all of the historical entrepreneurs he was focusing on for his book, and put them in a bar. Let them trade stories, tell jokes, share insights, and see what commonalities these icons could find over a few pints.
The result is Schultz’s new book, Innovation on Tap: Stories of Entrepreneurship from the Cotton Gin to Broadway's Hamilton, and on this episode of Skydeck, he and I discuss what two artists separated by more than a century can teach us about innovation, and why it’s important for business leaders to reflect on history. —Dan Morrell
Fifty years ago, as a senior at Abington High School in suburban Philadelphia, Stephen Schwarzman got waitlisted Harvard College. So he found the number for Harvard’s dean of admissions and called him up to plead his case directly. When told by the dean that no one would be admitted from the waiting list that fall, Schwarzman told him that he was making a mistake. It was all for naught, but this chutzpah was a bit of a hallmark: A year earlier, Schwarzman spearheaded a successful effort to get Anthony and the Imperials—then one of the most popular musical acts in the country—to play at Abington High School.
Today, Schwarzman is chairman, CEO, and co-founder of Blackstone, and the founder of the Schwarzman Scholars, a graduate fellowship program housed at the new Schwarzman College in Tsinghua University in Beijing. He has just written a new book, What It Takes: Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence, and in this episode of Skydeck, Schwarzman and I discuss the origins of his audacity, his path to success, and what he’s learned from the low points.
Amy Jen Su is managing director at executive coaching form Paravis Partners, and she’s been hearing some consistent themes in the trenches these days. Increasingly, her clients tell her, they are facing a serious time crunch while, at the same time, their organizations are becoming more global and complex. And these pressures, coupled with internal pressures to succeed, leave these executives feeling like they are getting in their own way.
This chorus of executive worries led Su to write her new book, The Leader You Want to Be: Five Essential Principles for Bringing Out Your Best Self. Those principles are what she calls her five Ps: Purpose, process, people, presence, and peace. And in this episode of Skydeck, contributor April White talks to Su about how she developed those principles—and why real improvement requires a holistic approach, not just a lifestyle hack.
How the CEO of a Chicago charter school network picked up the pieces after a leadership crisis
Space entrepreneur and investor Laetitia Garriott de Cayeux on how to search the skies for profits
Patrick McGinnis, who coined the term “fear of missing out,” on how it increasingly drives our personal and professional lives—and how we can manage it
Denise Murrell traded finance for fine arts—and cast a critical new eye on iconic paintings
Radical Candor author Kim Scott on what effective feedback really looks like—and why it will make you a better boss
Rich Horgan is on an urgent mission to save his brother—and he might just revolutionize drug development along the way
Today’s story is a break from our typical in-depth interview format. Today, we’re going to tell a story. It’s a story that starts with a tragic plane crash in 1944 outside a small town in the hills of Northern Italy and ends 73 years later in that same small town with celebration and a sense of closure.
Alumni share stories, strategies, and lessons learned from their first jobs—from golf club caddy to lobster shack waitress.
McDonald’s executive Kristy Cunningham, who helped lead the company’s wildly successful all-day breakfast initiative, talks about what the global icon learned from the experience—and what it taught her about herself
Insights from Diane Hessan, who spent a year in conversation with 400 American voters from across the political spectrum
Scott O’Neil, CEO of the group that owns the Philadelphia 76ers, on why his office thrived in the face of historic losing
Author and radio host Roben Farzad talks about his new book, Hotel Scarface, and the lasting allure of 1980s Miami
Former energy executive Jules Kortenhorst (MBA 1986) reflects on how global political shifts—and a long walk in the South African bush—ultimately led him to become CEO of the Rocky Mountain Institute, a global think tank focused on sustainability
Katherine Switz (MBA 2000) gives a candid interview about how her experience with bipolar disorder encouraged her to form the Stability Network, an advocacy and support group for working professionals
Journalist and author Gayle Tzemach Lemmon (MBA 2006) shares the stories behind her two New York Times bestselling books, The Dressmaker Of Khair Khana and Ashley’s War.