Breakthrough Builders: Recent Episodes
Jesse Purewal
Breakthrough Builders is a show about people whose passions, perspectives, instincts, and ideas fuel some of the world’s most amazing products, brands, and experiences. It’s a tribute to those who have the audacity to imagine - and the persistence to build - breakthroughs.
Join Jesse Purewal as he hosts engaging, open conversations with accomplished leaders across the fields of technology, medicine, social impact, education, sports, public affairs, and society, revealing the personal influences and professional experiences that shape the way they imagine, innovate, and invent - so you can get the inspiration and insight you’re looking for as you build your own breakthroughs.
David Sandstrom has a really interesting way of thinking about brand. In terms of driving awareness and growth, he's clear about what he thinks brand can do—and what it can't do. In his talk with Jesse, David discusses how finding friction and identifying an enemy can help teams differentiate and deliver value in a space with lots of companies, but with very few true brands; why it's important to find creative ways to message your product so you don't bore your audience and add to the noise; why it's important, but sometimes really hard for marketing leaders to be customer driven, rather than CEO or boss driven; and the importance of discovering and acting on truth in marketing.
Guest Bio
David Sandstrom currently serves as Chief Marketing Officer at Klarna and is a member of the executive management team. Sandstrom joined Klarna in 2017 where he led the fintech company to an extensive brand transformation, from one of many financial institutions to a rethinking lifestyle brand.
During his time at Klarna, he has overseen several pioneering marketing campaigns that have attracted great attention internationally, working with high profile celebrities such as Lady Gaga and Snoop Dogg. Sandstrom was behind Klarna's 2021 Super Bowl Advertisement starring Maya Rudolph that was an immediate hit with the public and garnered over 13 million views on YouTube. Prior to joining Klarna, Sandstrom was the CEO of one of Sweden's foremost advertising agencies.
Helpful Links
klarna.com
David believes: ‘Virtual shopping’ can take over retail
David on The CMO Podcast
David on LinkedIn and Twitter
Whether you’re an early adopter or a skeptic of the metaverse and the technology enabling people to experience it—chances are it’s on your mind. And if you’re curious about where the metaverse is heading, there’s no better person to hear from than Brian Irving.
In his conversation with Jesse, Brian discusses how his distinctive combination of curiosity and a desire to do well by others led him down a marketing career path; why he thinks it's important for marketing leaders to have an appreciation of both craft and collaboration; how he balances an innate curiosity with the need to drive focus and pragmatism; the foundations of trust and respect that he believes the team at Reality Labs is built upon; the use cases he thinks will typify the early stage metaverse; and the role of marketing in telling a persuasive story about the possibilities for the future.
(2:13) Building curiosity and finding opportunity in Flint, Michigan
(7:02) Learning the tenets and importance of marketing craft at Apple
(9:02) Brokering healthy relationships between marketing and communications teams
(12:55) Why Brian joined Reality Labs, and thoughts on the metaverse’s early applications and long-term possibilities
(21:03) How Brian’s team is addressing the challenges of marketing the metaverse
(24:22) Targeting big outcomes, but celebrating small milestones
(26:17) The importance of saying yes to things that scare you
Guest Bio
Brian is the VP of Global Marketing for Meta's Reality Labs, where he leads the team responsible for marketing the company's AR/VR hardware and software products including Meta Quest, Meta Portal, Ray-Ban Stories, and Meta Horizon.
Prior to joining Meta in 2020, Brian was the Chief Marketing Officer at Eventbrite. Over the past two decades, he has led iPhone and iPod Marketing Communications at Apple, Global Marketing for the Google Play brand, and the launch of Airbnb’s repositioning from homes to trips as Global Marketing Director. Brian is no stranger to shepherding iconic brands, having spent the early part of his career at Levi Strauss & Co, GE and General Motors.
Helpful Links
Meta.com
Have VR gear? Check out Beat Saber (Brian recommends)
AdAge: Meet the Meta Reality Labs Marketer Branding the Metaverse
Brian on LinkedIn
Jacob Jaber describes Philz Coffee, the company he co-founded with his father, as a ‘people company serving coffee, not a coffee company serving people.’ This distinctively human approach is not just the engine driving the company’s remarkable growth; it’s also deeply reflected in Jacob’s perspectives on leadership, product experience, and brand strategy.
In his talk with Jesse, Jacob reflects on formative years with his father and describes how their efforts to build community through hospitality came to define the Philz experience for customers and employees. He breaks down the tenets of his own personal growth, including what he learned about leadership while serving as CEO during Philz’ expansion. Throughout, he lays out a blueprint for any leader looking to create and scale a more human business.
(2:18) Jacob describes the early days of working with his father
(5:41) On character, competence, and the mountains we choose to climb
(11:55) The makings of an authentic and energizing experience
(18:40) Why ‘good hospitality is often inconvenient to the giver’
(20:19) Leading humbly, but with a fresh outlook
(23:40) Bringing the Philz mantra of hustle and hospitality to new markets
Guest Bio
Jacob Jaber is Co-Founder and Chairman at Philz Coffee. Jacob and his father, Phil, built the business together. Jacob was most recently CEO of Philz successfully growing the business from one store and two employees to over 70 stores and 1,500 employees before transitioning to Chairman. Jacob is passionate about consumer experiences, community, people, product and business. In addition to Philz, Jacob is a renowned investor, advisor, and was listed on the Forbes 30 under 30 list in 2016.
Helpful Links
Philzcoffee.com
Peninsula Press: The Origin Story of Philz
Launching a partnership to feature local student artists
Jacob on LinkedIn and Twitter
Liz Jarvis-Shean grew up with an engrained love for public service—a devotion that was realized in her work for Candidate and President Barack Obama. When she eventually moved to the private sector, the motivation was less about what she was leaving behind, and more about what she was able to bring with her—her mission to effect change at scale through story.
In her talk with Jesse, Liz describes the importance of her family and their examples of public service early in her life; the formative impact of the time she spent in post-apartheid South Africa; the way she brought together facts, circumstance, vision, and persuasion to connect with citizen audiences on President Obama's team and Candidate Obama's team; the important parallels that she sees between the emotional connections we seek from people and the excitement we want from products; how she made the decision to move into the private sector and into tech; and her reflections on driving impact at scale at Tesla, Airbnb, and DoorDash.
(6:17) How time spent at Berkeley and studying abroad in South Africa drew Liz to storytelling
(10:08) Life as an opposition researcher on an historic presidential campaign trail
(14:26) Telling stories of ‘promises kept’ to make emotional connections with citizens
(20:28) Finding an opportunity to affect massive change in the private sector at Tesla
(23:32) Blending the inspirational, the aspirational, and the practical to make a compelling narrative
(27:19) Airbnb’s impact at scale, in her own words
(30:04) How DoorDash achieves its mission to empower local economies by being customer-obsessed, not competitor-focused
(35:46) Advice for organizations: ‘Don’t just tell your story better. Have a better story to tell.’
Guest Bio
Elizabeth Jarvis-Shean is Vice President of Communications and Policy at DoorDash, leading the company’s policy, government relations, social impact, public affairs, and global communications initiatives. Liz sits on DoorDash’s Executive Management Team. Previously, she oversaw Airbnb's global public affairs and corporate communications teams, and has managed strategic communications at pioneering companies, including Tesla Motors, healthcare technology startup Nuna, and data science firm, Civis Analytics.
Liz helped shape and drive research, rapid response and messaging for both of Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns and his White House, and held leadership positions at CNBC and political research consultancy IMS, Inc. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and valedictorian in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley.
Helpful Links
Liz describes DoorDash’s partnerships with food banks
Learn more about the WeDash program
Liz on Newcomer’s Dead Cat podcast
Liz on LinkedIn and Twitter
Rob Markey is the co-creator of the now-ubiquitous Net Promoter System—borrowing from Churchill, he refers to it as “the worst customer loyalty metric, except for all the others that have been tried.” But because of his accountability to clients and colleagues, Rob has higher expectations than many: Through 30+ years at Bain he’s passionately championed the sometimes-unfulfilled mission behind the system—to put the customer at the center of business decisions and operations, at scale.
In his conversation with Jesse, you'll hear about how Rob found his way to consulting; what he thinks makes him an effective client advisor and leader; how he helps senior executives find their voices and have those voices heard; how he gets leadership teams to make and stick to tough decisions; the structural barriers that keep companies from achieving true customer centricity; and the innovations in technology and operating models that are helping bring down those barriers. Along the way, he tells the “in the room where it happened” origin story of NPS, and presents his hypothesis on why NPS has had such staying power over the past two decades.
(2:31) Rob’s first impressions of consulting, and the circumstances and realizations that brought him into the field
(6:48) Rob describes his strengths and his approach to helping executives embrace customer centricity
(10:28) How staying focused on a larger mission has guided his long tenure at Bain
(14:15) The barriers to being customer-focused at scale, and how to overcome them
(20:20) Co-creating NPS, the “acid test of loyalty”
(23:50) What really makes someone a promoter, passive, or detractor?
(29:24) Why NPS is still at the center of CX efforts today
(35:42) Lightning Round: most memorable marathon and a brand that’s delighted him without fail
Guest Bio
Rob Markey is a Senior Partner at Bain & Company, where he has helped lead dozens of successful customer-centric transformations at large global companies over 30+ years at the firm. Rob leads the NPS Loyalty Forum, a group of approximately 35 senior executives from loyalty-leading companies around the world, such as The Vanguard Group, American Express, JetBlue, Telstra, TD Bank, LEGO, Progressive Insurance, PwC and Intuit.
Additionally, Rob is the creator of Bain’s approach to customer-centricity, the co-inventor of the Net Promoter System, and co-author of The Ultimate Question 2.0: How Net Promoter Companies Thrive in a Customer-Driven World, a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller.
Helpful Links
The Ultimate Question 2.0
Rob’s Net Promoter System Podcast
Rob writes for HBR: Are You Undervaluing Your Customers?
Qualtrics Blog: Your Ultimate Guide to Net Promoter Score
Rob on LinkedIn and Twitter
How do you turn a genuine desire for improving Diversity, Equity and Inclusion into actions that actually change systems, processes, and cultures for the better? In our episode with Kamala Avila-Salmon, the first Head of Inclusive Content at Lionsgate Motion Picture Group—you’ll find practical guidance from a luminary who’s helped to orchestrate change at scale and across industries.
In her talk with Jesse, Kamala describes the influence of black characters on TV early in her life; how she got curious, creative and scrappy to find jobs and create meaningful roles early in her career at spots like RCA and Bad Boy Entertainment; her practical and brave perspective on professional networking; how she pushed the music and television industries to adopt a more inclusive posture as the era of digital transformation took hold; the impact she had on both customer and employee experiences by widening representation in marketing at Google and Facebook; what she sees as the tenants of inclusive marketing; and where the entertainment industry needs to go from here on representation, inclusion, and equity.
(3:00) Kamala’s early years: drawing inspiration from representation
(06:45) Breaking through without direct connections in a ‘who you know’ industry
(11:47) Reflections from a disruptive time in the music business
(15:48) Back to business school & back to her first love: television
(17:16) Experiencing the intrapreneurial, energizing culture of Google
(21:17) Discovering her tenets of inclusive marketing
(25:38) Accepting the role of a lifetime with Lionsgate
(28:41) How transforming the workforce makes inclusion possible across systems, processes, and policies
Guest Bio
Kamala Avila-Salmon is the first-ever Head of Inclusive Content for the Lionsgate Motion Picture Group, where she develops and implements diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies to reflect a globally diverse audience in the studio’s film slate. After pursuing her BA and MBA from Harvard, she has worked across music, movies, TV, tech, and streaming entertainment, leading marketing campaigns for Janelle Monae, The Voice, and Red Table Talk, to name a few.
She is an outspoken voice on issues of race, racism, and anti-Blackness, working to diversify the powerful images and messages disseminated by Hollywood. She has penned several Medium articles on DEI in the workplace, and in the entertainment industry specifically; and she hosts the podcast, “From Woke to Work: The Anti-Racist Journey”, geared at helping people go from "woke" feelings to clear, effective action to advance racial justice.
Helpful Links
The Anti-Racism Funnel
From Woke to Work podcast
Referenced in episode: Work Rules by Laszlo Bock
Listen to Janelle Monae
Kamala on LinkedIn
Jenny Wood describes her career guidance as ‘common sense that’s rarely common practice.’ But through her creation and stewarding of the Own Your Career program at Google, she’s taught over 39,000 people and counting. And she’s now writing a highly anticipated book. So it’s safe to say that ‘common practice’ might not be that far away.
In her talk with Jesse, Jenny describes how 15 years at Google—where she grew from entry-level employee to operations executive—gave her the wisdom and experience to write a new playbook for any employee seeking to develop more confidence and chart their own journey to fulfillment. She touches on lessons she learned from resilient grandparents & industrious parents; her F-L-I-P method for knowing when it’s time to change roles; how to improve your approaches to networking and finding mentors; and ways to position yourself as a rockstar during organizational upheavals. No matter your industry or stage in life, Jenny’s advice is insightful, easy to remember and certain to transform how you think about your career.
(2:59) Lessons from a hard-working family
(5:05) Seeking growth from within during 15 years at Google
(8:11) Knowing when to F-L-I-P your role
(11:23) About the Own Your Career program
(13:10) Gifts and hooks: How to land an awesome mentor + new ways to network
(23:24) The keys to thriving during a reorganization at work
(29:18) On writing for an ‘everybody audience’
Guest Bio
Jenny Wood has grown from entry-level to an executive role at Google over her 15 years with the company, and she leads a large operations team that helps drive tens of billions of revenue per year. In 2021, she started a passion project within Google called Own Your Career. Through the program she founded, she’s trained 39,000 people on: acing a job search, building relationships, personal branding, effective email writing, landing the right mentor, maximizing workplace influence, and most importantly, increasing confidence.
A former Harvard Business Publishing writer, Jenny is now writing a book about going above and beyond to unapologetically achieve your goals. Jenny is an FAA-licensed private pilot, a daily hiker, an improv student, a tap dancer, and a zucchini bread connoisseur. She lives in Boulder, Colorado with her two young children and her husband, Jon.
Helpful Links
Itsjennywood.com
Jenny’s articles for Entrepreneur
Referenced in the episode: Build for Tomorrow by Jason Feifer (avail Sep 2022)
Jenny and Jon’s story in the New York Times
Jenny on LinkedIn
While practicing as an orthopedic surgeon, Justin Barad asked himself: With 1.1 million surgeons around the world, doing 310 million procedures a year—what if every single one of them was able to improve their performance by 200 or 300%?
In his talk with Jesse, Justin describes how his love of video games and his medical expertise led him to develop Osso VR, which combines virtual reality technology and training to give surgeons a faster, more accessible route to mastering some of the world’s most complex procedures. You’ll hear about the transformative impact that Osso VR is having on the world of medicine today. Justin also shares his thoughts on how art can and should influence science, why we need to rethink how we educate doctors in order to address a growing skills gap, and, for lighter fare—he reveals his favorite slice of pizza in the US.
(4:01) How Justin got hooked on video gaming
(7:23) Discovering that not all physicians take a single-minded approach to their work
(12:32) How Justin’s pathways into medicine and tech converged with the development of Osso VR
(20:28) Measuring the impact and improving the experience of Osso VR technology and training
(27:49) Why we might see more MBA + MDs in the near future
(30:59) How to pursue what you’re passionate about
(32:04) Exploring life journeys, and the search for the perfect pizza slice
Guest Bio
Justin is a board-eligible orthopedic surgeon with a Bioengineering degree from UC Berkeley, and an MD from UCLA. Originally interning to become a game developer at Activision-Blizzard, he co-founded Osso VR with a mission to improve patient safety and democratize access to modern surgical techniques.
Justin has spoken at multiple conferences including TEDMED, CES, Exponential Medicine, and Health 2.0. He also currently serves as a member of the Consumer Technology Association’s Health Technology Division Board of Directors. He currently resides in sunny Northern California with his two Great Danes. In his free time, you can find him enthusiastically singing karaoke and searching for the perfect slice of pizza.
Helpful Links
Ossovr.com
The Slice podcast
Justin’s TED appearance
Read about The Hospital for Sick Kids, where Justin received some life-changing advice
Justin’s favorite pizza spot: Rosie’s
Justin on LinkedIn and Twitter
Executive and entrepreneur Atif Rafiq suggests that, in his career, he’s often been at companies “too early.” For example, his foray into mobile applications actually pre-dated the iPhone. But is being ahead of your time ever really a bad thing? Atif certainly doesn’t think so—especially when it comes to rewriting the rules of leadership.
In his talk with Jesse, Atif reflects on his early roles as an executive at Audible (Amazon), as an entrepreneur at Covigna, and as the Chief Digital Officer at McDonald’s, a first-of-its-kind position for a Fortune 500 company. He describes the challenges of finding a balance between safety and profitability at MGM Resorts during the pandemic. And throughout the conversation, he reveals the most important things he’s learned about leadership (and the notions he’s left behind).
(4:23) How roles at Audible and Covigna taught Atif to ‘keep pivoting’ in new markets
(8:40) Focusing on the speed of learning at Amazon
(10:57) Helping McDonald’s reconnect with its heritage through new service models
(15:40) Why the role of the executive in problem solving is calibration
(19:09) Stewarding MGM Resorts through the pandemic
(20:53) It’s not just the decision: how you get there matters
(23:27) Authoring Re:Wire on LinkedIn to accelerate changes in how we lead
Guest Bio
Atif Rafiq is an executive, board member, social media influencer, and author. Atif has been part of the executive committee of 3 large cap global companies working directly for their CEOs and interacting with their boards on transformation and strategy. His C-suite roles at some of the world’s most recognized brands (McDonald’s, Volvo and MGM Resorts) followed a 15+ year career in Silicon Valley.
Helpful Links
The Re:Wire Newsletter, subscribed to by over 100,000
Future Forum Exec Spotlight: Moving away from command and control
One of Atif’s innovations: McDonald’s Rolls Out Table Service (from Business Insider)
Atif on LinkedIn and Twitter
Varun Parmar has spent decades as a product leader, helping to define successive waves of category and product innovation at companies like Adobe, Doculus, EMC, Box, and now, Miro. He’s gone from executive to entrepreneur and back again. During his journey, he has observed that “over time, every product either becomes better or worse. It never remains the same.”
It’s an important reminder to build with intention, even when you’re building fast and beating your head against the wall. And it’s one of the many subjects he discusses with Jesse in this episode of Breakthrough Builders. You’ll hear how he helped guide product strategy during Adobe’s successful transition to the cloud, how he developed his own guidelines for making headway in sectors with dominant players, the value he places on staying close to one’s craft, and why he’s confident that Miro will reach its ambitious goal to have 500 million users working together inclusively and seamlessly around the globe.
(2:42) Reflections from helping to lead the SaaS transition at Adobe
(7:06) The role of customer empathy in product design
(13:40) How to determine the right frequency for updates and releases
(15:33) Thriving in a hypercompetitive market: 3 learnings from ‘taking on’ Microsoft
(21:58) On the opportunity to join Miro and the ambition to forge a path toward effective, distributed work for all
(31:33) Advice for builders: Bet on people. Never let go of the craft. Declare the destination.
Guest Bio
Varun is the Chief Product Officer at Miro, the visual collaboration platform with 35M+ users. He has worked in leadership roles at companies with high-growth, category-defining and innovative products such as Adobe (#1 in the world for creative and digital publishing software), Box (#1 in the world for cloud content mgmt. software) and EMC (#1 in the world for storage software and systems). In addition he has deep domain expertise in the collaboration market, enterprise content management and business process & workflow management markets; having spent 20+ years building businesses, including managing cross-functional teams spanning product management, design, engineering, marketing, sales, corporate strategy and business development.
Helpful Links
Miro.com
Computer World: Miro looks to move beyond the whiteboard
Recent appearance: Lessons from uncharted growth territory
Varun on LinkedIn and Twitter
On this episode of the Breakthrough Builders Podcast, Jesse is joined by the writer Daniel H. Pink. Dan and Jesse have a far-reaching conversation that touches upon:
- The formative role of reading in Dan’s childhood, and the importance and randomness of having access to great libraries as a son of the State of Ohio (4:33)
- How Dan becomes so enthralled with a subject that he chooses to write a book on it (which he’s now done 7 times!) (6:35)
- The high regard in which Dan holds the structure of a book, and the high bar he sets for himself in continually revising his initial structural hypotheses as he writes (8:53)
- How Dan developed a writing style that’s intellectually coherent and wonderfully accessible (11:01)
- The importance of cross-disciplinary thinking in today’s world (14:08)
- How Dan asks the right questions in his research to obtain valuable and insightful responses (15:50)
- The importance of constantly pushing to get feedback from people who have “taste and judgment” – and who will also be radically candid with their feedback (18:06)
- The “wide diet” of reading that Dan recommends if one is interested in growing and improving as a writer (20:07)
- Reflections on the applicability of the theses of three of his books – A Whole New Mind (2005), Drive (2009), and The Power of Regret (2022) – to our world today (21:28)
- The distinction and relationship between “Big P” and “Little P” Purpose in our lives, and how Dan sees “Thinking as a form of Doing and Doing as a form of Thinking” (25:34)
- Regret as a specific case of the more general case of the need to embrace paradox in our lives (27:59)
Dan and Jesse also discuss Dan’s favorite Ohio sports memory, the authors he admires most, what he sees as his biggest professional breakthrough (hint: it’s not what you think), and his view on who really won the Toledo War.
Guest Bio
Daniel H. Pink is the author of five New York Times bestsellers, including his latest, The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward. His other books include the New York Times bestsellers When and A Whole New Mind — as well as the #1 New York Times bestsellers Drive and To Sell is Human. Dan’s books have won multiple awards, have been translated into 42 languages, and have sold millions of copies around the world. He lives in Washington, DC, with his family.
Helpful Links
Dan’s official website and Twitter
TED Talk “The Puzzle of Motivation,” viewed over 28 million times
Dan on the Armchair Expert podcast with Dax Sheppard and Monica Padman - March 2022
Dan speaking about the 4 kinds of regret and what they teach us about ourselves (in light of his worldwide study on regret and his latest book)
The Worldwide Regret Study, insights from which formed the foundation of Dan’s latest book
The Schrödinger's cat thought experiment, which came up no fewer than three times in 30 minutes in Dan’s conversation with Jesse
As companies around the globe struggle to find a new normal way of working —questions abound: How do we manage people’s desire for flexibility with the imperative to keep colleagues connected? And how do we make sure that we don’t regress to work models that have historically excluded much-needed voices and perspectives?
Perhaps no one thinks more about questions like these than Atlassian’s Work Futurist, Dominic Price. For nearly ten years he’s been leading efforts at the enterprise tech company to create a flexible employee experience based on listening, not speculation. And in his talk with Jesse, Dominic describes ways to embed earnest empathy into your own ways of working. Listen for his advice on how to drive change from within your organization, his reflections on delivering his immensely popular TED talk, and instruction on how to do a Personal Moral Inventory that helps you achieve balance in your life.
(6:46) The foundations of earnest empathy
(11:28) How to build belonging with authentic leadership, not labels
(14:10) Reflections on the journey to becoming a work futurist and accomplished public speaker
(23:54) How to make change happen from inside an organization
(27:54) Exiting the pandemic: hopes and fears
(31:38) The nuance of purpose
(34:45) Using the Personal Moral Inventory as a tool for achieving balance
Guest Bio
Born to Joy in the harsh Manchester Winter of ‘77, Dominic Price has a career that has reached far and wide through Europe, US and Asia PAC. An accomplished TED speaker, Dom is proud to work at Atlassian, the home of the most intelligent t-shirt wearers in business. As the resident Work Futurist. Dom is Atlassian’s in-house “Team Doctor” helping Atlassian scale by being ruthlessly efficient and effective, and spends over half his time helping our customers navigate transformation, agility, leadership, and the future of work.
Dom has a deep passion for elite human performance, highly effective distributed teams, and building thriving businesses. He has previously been the GM Program Management for a global gaming company and a Director of Deloitte.
Helpful Links
Dom on TEDxSydney: What’s your happiness score? *viewed over 1.7m times
Dom Writes: Why you should swap resolutions for a Personal Moral Inventory
Also, might be time to spring clean your work habits
Thoughts on The Future of Work
Dom’s Website, LinkedIn and Twitter
David Meltzer believes that mistakes ‘promote and protect us’. It’s a hard-earned belief—his own story substantiates the idea that with the right mindset, no setback is permanent.
In his talk with Jesse, David describes his journey from humble beginnings in Ohio to becoming wildly successful and rubbing shoulders with sports legends as the CEO of Leigh Steinberg Sports. He also describes the undoing of that success—a downfall he recounts with inspiring vulnerability. He identifies the people, moments, and insights that helped him build back to a joyful life. Throughout the conversation, he shares profound ideas for how to become a fast learner, develop more empathy, find hidden reserves of gratitude, and reach your ultimate potential. And he and Jesse share a memory of an Ohio sports memory that any NBA fan will know well.
(4:21) The power of ‘starting today’ when addressing big problems
(8:17) David as a ten-year old: disadvantaged but ambitious
(10:02) Landing a lucrative job with Leigh Steinberg Sports
(11:35) Experiencing the compounding effect of bad behavior
(17:04) How telling the truth illuminated a path forward
(18:11) Advice for building a brand—the importance of frequency
Guest Bio
David Meltzer is the Co-Founder of Sports 1 Marketing and formerly served as CEO of the renowned Leigh (“Lee”) Steinberg Sports & Entertainment agency, which was the inspiration for the movie Jerry Maguire. David has been recognized by Variety Magazine as their Sports Humanitarian of the Year and awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor. He is also the Executive Producer of the Bloomberg and Apple TV series 2 Minute Drill and Office Hours.
His life’s mission is to empower OVER 1 BILLION people to be happy! This simple yet powerful mission has led him on an incredible journey to provide one thing...VALUE. As part of that mission, for the past 20 years, he’s been providing free weekly trainings to empower others to empower others to be happy.
Helpful Links
David’s website
Watch Season 1 of Office Hours
The Playbook podcast
David on LinkedIn and Twitter
From practicing, teaching and leading at The Cleveland Clinic to her new tenure as the Chief Medical Officer at Qualtrics, Dr. Adrienne Boissy has been one of the healthcare industry’s greatest champions for imbuing empathy into the patient experience.
In her talk with guest host Susan Haufe, she describes her journey as a builder: from navigating a childhood that often felt unsteady and unsafe, to becoming a neurologist, to finding her ultimate calling as an experience-minded executive working to transform healthcare. Throughout the episode she shares profound ideas about how to give yourself grace and overcome obstacles. And she leaves us with a look at the future of the healthcare industry, offering poignant ideas about how we can leverage technology to make the patient experience more humane and compassionate.
(05:07) Adrienne at 12: Who’s the person we would’ve met?
(08:28) Her healthcare journey, from researcher to chief experience officer
(14:53) How to take a ‘Failure Bow’ and move on
(19:01) Why everyone should think more about how they spend their time
(23:13) On the importance of gratitude
(32:14) Using technology to facilitate human connection and empathy in healthcare
(34:33) Post-interview conversation with Jesse and guest host Susan Haufe
Guest Bio
Dr. Adrienne Boissy
Adrienne Boissy, MD, MA, is the Chief Medical Officer at Qualtrics, where she shapes the strategic direction of patient and employee experience in the healthcare industry, including technology design, research, consulting and innovation in experience management. She is the former Chief Experience Officer of the Cleveland Clinic Health System and a current staff neurologist at the Cleveland Clinic Mellen Center for Multiple Sclerosis. A compelling speaker and thought leader, Dr. Boissy has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, NPR, The Washington Post, Forbes, and The Atlantic, among others.
Susan Haufe (Guest Host)
With 20 years of experience combining the tools, discipline, expertise, and passion to design and drive a customer-centric culture, Susan Haufe is known for organizational transformation built on brand promise, purpose, and values. She currently serves as the Chief Industry Advisor for Healthcare at Qualtrics. Prior to joining Qualtrics, Susan served as the inaugural Chief Experience Officer for Yale New Haven Health, developing the vision and roadmap to support the execution of critical initiatives, including centralizing patient experience functions across the health system.
Helpful Links
Learn more about Dr. Boissy’s role at Qualtrics
TED appearance: Can Empathy Help Us Heal Healthcare?
A useful exercise: Your Pie Chart of Happiness
Also check out: Our Breakthrough Builders episode with New York-Presbyterian Hospital’s Rick Evans
Dr. Boissy on LinkedIn
Maureen Farrell’s The Cult of We chronicles the rise and fall of WeWork—the once-transcendent real estate company founded by now-maligned magnate Adam Neumann. But whereas other works have focused almost entirely on Adam’s tragic character, her book takes a broader lens: exploring not just the man but the conditions and constructs that enabled him.
In her talk with Jesse, Maureen expounds on the story she wrote while also reflecting on her own journey as an author—why she chose to devote her first book to this subject, how she managed to complete it during the pandemic with co-author Eliot Brown, and the important role that persistence played in uncovering the riveting stories that make The Cult of We such a compelling and essential study of entrepreneurial audacity and institutional delusion.
(7:31) Establishing the scope of the story
(10:28) Key takeaways for readers
(13:04) Advice for aspiring authors
(15:17) Maureen reads a favorite excerpt from the book
(22:13) Lightning Round: Maureen’s recommended reads & more
Guest Bio
Maureen Farrell reports on business for the New York Times, covering big money and private capital. Prior to the Times she worked at the Wall Street Journal, where she was a recipient of the Newswomen's Club of New York's Nellie Bly Award. Farrell previously worked at Forbes, Debtwire, and Mergermarket, where she covered deals, bankruptcy, and startups. She is a graduate of Duke University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and is based in New York.
Helpful Links
- The Cult of We: WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion
- Latest NYT article: The New Financial Supermarkets
- Q&A with Maureen for Duke Arts
- Maureen on Twitter and LinkedIn
From apparel to handbags, Rebecca Minkoff’s designs are described as personifying ‘downtown romantic sensibility and Bohemian rocker style.’ It’s the kind of clarity you don’t achieve, especially in the highly competitive fashion industry, unless you’ve built and evolved your brand with the same care you’ve put into designing and launching your products.
In her talk with Jesse, Rebecca discusses her journey as a brand founder— from being the brand to needing to expand and articulate the brand’s product signatures and core values. She describes the inequities that led her to launch the Female Founder Collective and launch the Superwomen podcast. She talks about her efforts to normalize kindness and inclusion in the fashion industry, and she identifies her own secret sauce as a leader and mother for balancing vulnerability with indomitable spirit.
(3:27) Taking her brand from organic growth to purposeful expressions
(6:30) What was different about launching a fashion brand in 2005? And where is the industry headed now?
(9:37) Launching the Female Founder Collective
(14:12) Highlighting the importance of diversity and addressing the impact of the pandemic on women in the workplace
(19:57) Hosting the Superwomen podcast: opening up the conversation for vulnerability
(22:55) Lightning round: Get to know Rebecca and her secret sauce
Guest Bio
After developing an affinity for design while in the costume department in high school, Rebecca Minkoff moved to New York City at only 18 years old to pursue her dream of becoming a fashion designer. In 2001, Rebecca designed a version of the “I Love New York” t-shirt as part of a five-piece capsule collection. Today, Rebecca Minkoff is a global brand with a wide range of apparel, handbags, footwear, jewelry and accessories—playful and subtly edgy designs that integrate the elements of bohemian femininity with a little bit of rock ‘n’ roll.
In September of 2018, she established the Female Founder Collective, a network of businesses led by women that invests in women’s financial power across the socio-economic spectrum by enabling and empowering female-owned businesses.
Helpful Links
- Rebeccaminkoff.com
- Femalefoundercollective.com
- CNBC: How Rebecca Minkoff Started Her Business with $10,000 and an Appetite for Risk
- Rebecca’s podcast: Superwomen
- Rebecca on LinkedIn and Twitter
Rachel Tipograph implores aspiring founders to: “Know what your superpower is, and how you can align it to a problem you want to solve.” It’s a playbook she’s lived out—as she leaned on her own particular brand of fearlessness to embrace ‘crazy’ marketing ideas as Gap’s youngest-ever Global Digital Director; to found MikMak to help businesses e-commerce-enable all their digital channels; and to use her influence as an investor to champion diversity, equity and inclusion at the founder and executive levels.
In her talk with Jesse, Rachel reflects on her early years as a student, intern, and self-identified member of the ‘digerati’. She describes how being born into a family of small-business owners spawned an entrepreneurial spirit, but also deep reflections on the inequities that have historically accompanied lines of succession. She identifies the forward-thinking insights that led to the founding of MikMak. She outlines the criteria that guide her personal investments. And she leaves us with a look at the future of media, commerce, and the workplace experience.
(2:59) From NYU, to saying goodbye to Hollywood internships
(6:07) Digital Directing at Gap: Sans-scrutiny, try crazy things
(10:40) When not everyone had a voice in the family business
(13:35) Not a female founder. A founder.
(17:11) Diversity at MikMak: the progress and the challenges
(19:04) The deepening intersection of media and commerce
(24:54) The future of of the workplace experience
Guest Bio
Rachel Tipograph is the Founder and CEO of MikMak, a global eCommerce enablement and analytics platform for multichannel brands. MikMak has earned recognition for its workplace culture and DE&I efforts as a “Fastest Growing Company in America” and “Best Place to Work” by Inc Magazine, “#10 Startup in the United States” by LinkedIn, “Breakthrough Brand” by Interbrand and “Nineteen Technologies Underpin AI And Analytics For Retail” by Forrester.
Rachel has also been recognized as a thought leader by leading media publications including Forbes (“30 under 30 Who Are Changing The World”), Fast Company ("The Most Creative People in Business") AdAge ("The Most Creative People of The Year"), Adweek ("The Young Influentials Shaping Business and Culture") and many more.
Helpful Links
MikMak’s website
Rachel’s podcast: Brave Commerce
Crunchbase: MikMak secures $10M Series A
Appearance on Forbes: Building An E-commerce Presence That Sells
Rachel on LinkedIn and Twitter
Matt Kalish saw an opportunity to bring avid sports fans like himself closer to the sports they follow. And out of that opportunity came DraftKings, the ubiquitous platform that has been a leading player in the growth of fantasy sports gaming.
In his talk with Jesse, Matt describes the conditions, insights, and strategic moves that positioned DraftKings for success. He discusses his early years as an entrepreneur and gaming enthusiast, the importance of product-led growth, and the innovations that DraftKings is bringing to the fan experience across sports leagues; all while offering advice on how to build in line with your own purpose.
(4:42) Matt’s early years before venturing into corporate America
(9:43) Discovering how to build products for “skin-in-the-game” fans
(13:16) Scaling from Daily Fantasy to other offers and experiences
(18:28) Using customer data to push advertisers, networks, and leagues to embrace experiential innovation
(21:46) Turning competency and passion into opportunity
(27:00) Keeping the customer at the center of everything
Guest Bio
Matt Kalish is President of DraftKings North America. Kalish co-founded DraftKings in 2012 and is accountable for all North America revenue, bringing together all marketing, operations, and related analytics functions.
Kalish has led his team to go beyond the industry standards by finding ways to improve DraftKings’ customers’ game experience by introducing more sports and ways to play, driving DraftKings towards offering the most comprehensive platform for skin-in-the-game sports fans available in the US. Moreover, he maintains a strong focus on DraftKings’ consumer protections to ensure the company maintains high standards of integrity and responsibility.
Helpful Links
DraftKings website
Matt’s podcast with Gary Vaynerchuk: Props & Drops
Forbes: The First Five Years of DraftKings
The Verge: DraftKings signs up real NFL players to use in ‘gamified NFT collections’
About DraftKings’ commitment to responsible gaming
Matt on LinkedIn and Twitter
Perhaps no food and drink company has reinvented itself so expertly over the years, or refined and ended its brand to be more vibrant, more culturally relevant and more inclusive as has Pepsi. Head of US Cola Marketing Todd Kaplan has been the architect of many of those bold moves and transformational ideas.
In his talk with Jesse, Todd describes his journey to becoming a steward of one of the world’s largest and most culturally connected consumer brands. He recounts his experience working with the Olympics at Visa. He tells the story of the Pepsi Max Field of Dreams project that often seemed impossible, but ultimately came to life in vivid detail for one grateful fan and an enthralled public. He reflects on launching Pepsi’s LIFEWATR and Bubly brands with core insights about the consumer. Throughout, Todd cites instances where moving with purpose and persistence helped turn audacious dreams into breakthrough brand experiences.
(4:07) Todd describes his early years in sports marketing and formative work with the Olympics
(10:02) Seizing the opportunity to make connections at Pepsi
(12:15) If you build it…(The Pepsi Max Field of Dreams project)
(16:57) Embracing and understanding the consumer’s mindset
(19:39) Branding with purpose: the ins and outs
(22:59) Launching LIFEWATR to refresh consumers and support the arts
(26:26) How to react when people say ‘no’ to an idea you believe in
Guest Bio
Todd Kaplan is the Vice President of Marketing at Pepsi where he is responsible for leading PepsiCo’s flagship brand. Since Fall 2018, Kaplan has brought a challenger mindset and culture-forward perspective that has been foundational to turning around and re-energizing the Pepsi brand. Under his leadership, the Pepsi brand has delivered twelve consecutive quarters of positive sales growth (and counting), along with significant increases in brand equity and all-time highs in creative effectiveness. Todd was recently named one of the “Top 25 Most Innovative CMO’s” in the world by Business Insider.
Helpful Links
The Drum article: Pepsi’s VP of Marketing says “start backwards” to create ads fit for modern culture
Meet the LIFEWATR Artists
With Gary Vaynerchuk: The Strategy Behind Pepsi's “Challenger” Brand Approach
Todd on LinkedIn and Twitter
During this 40th episode of Breakthrough Builders, host Jesse Purewal reflects on the 39 episodes produced thus far. It’s part year-in-review, part host-tells-all as he sits down with Studio Pod Media’s TJ Bonaventura and the team behind the show for an enlightening conversation about storytelling with empathy, favorite moments with guests, and everything in between (there’s even some hockey talk).
(0:57) Describing the show’s origins and evolution
(8:45) Jesse identifies four main themes of the show so far w/ episode reflections
(15:14) The importance of empathy: why we all need to be continuously understood, and re-understood
(17:08) Looking ahead to 2022
(17:57) Favorite pods, the Dream Guest, & more: Jesse answers a lightning round of questions from the Breakthrough Builders team
Referenced Episodes
Building with Purpose: Robert Chatwani
The Spirit of Possibility: Gurdeep Pall
Creating Customer Love: Sheila Vashee
Embarking on Purpose: Lakshmi Shenoy
Authoring Encouragement: Sean Taylor
Discovering Vulnerability: Brad Balukjian
Inclusive Inventor: Jenny Fleiss
Faith in the Future: Rob LoCascio
Four-time-startup-founder Chris Gladwin is a Chicago guy, and he’s spent much of his career bucking the notion that game-changing tech solutions can only be nurtured to market maturity on the coasts. But if you ask him, it’s not lightning-in-a-bottle moments that have propelled his journey; it’s the idea that successful companies are built in increments, over what he calls “person centuries,” by constantly lending an ear to your customers and earnestly addressing their concerns and needs.
In his talk with Jesse, Chris talks about his journey as an IT customer and deliverer of user-friendly enterprise solutions. He describes why IT systems are becoming more complex, and why the need for adept IT talent isn’t likely to lessen any time soon. He reveals the ambitious plan behind P33, the organization he started to transform Chicago into a tech hub. He describes in detail how businesses can listen to the customer at scale. And he leaves us with a look at the future of data analysis - a future he’s helping to write as CEO of Ocient.
(2:51) How Chris’s early journey as a customer of IT products prepared him to build consumer-friendly solutions
(8:19) The rapidly accelerating complexity of IT systems and data ownership
(12:40) “We know what works” -- how to prepare more people to work in IT
(14:56) The allure of Chicago, and why Chris started P33 to help transform it
(21:17) Building organizations that know how to listen at scale
(25:36) Looking ahead: We can analyze more data than ever, but what will we do with it?
Guest Bio
Chris Gladwin is the CEO and Co-Founder of Ocient, the Chicago-based company enabling rapid analysis and management of the world’s largest datasets. In 2004, Chris founded Cleversafe, which became the largest and most strategic object storage vendor in the world (according to IDC). The technology he started generated over 1,000 patents granted or filed.
Prior to Cleversafe, Chris was the Founder and CEO of startups MusicNow and Cruise Technologies, and led product strategy for Zenith Data Systems. He started his career at Martin Marietta, and holds a mechanical engineering degree from MIT.
Helpful Links
Ocient’s website
P33 Chicago: The organization Chris started to turn Chicago into a major tech hub by 2033
Article on Chris in the Chicago Tribune
Chris on LinkedIn
Episode features: Royalty Free Music "Chicago Nights" Prod. by Danya Vodovoz
You’ve probably heard about NFTs. You may have even googled, “What is an NFT?” and learned a thing or two about the emerging marketplace commodity known as the Non-Fungible Token. But if you want to really lift the veil on NFTs, including how and when they can and should be used as part of a successful, customer-centric growth strategy, you’re in the right place.
Avery Akkineni is the President of VaynerNFT, and she understands the value and potential of NFTs better than most. In her talk with Jesse, she describes her journey to becoming a leading voice in the space. She reflects on the night-and-day experience of going from Google, the world’s biggest data aggregator, to the decentralized world of crypto and blockchain technology. She describes what makes a successful NFT strategy—for artists, musicians, celebrities, and brands. And she shares her learnings from working with VaynerMedia’s clients around the world and standing up its presence in the Asia-Pacific region. Whether you’re a customer-centric growth marketer who wants to stay on the cutting edge, an NFT-curious consumer, or anywhere in between, our talk with Avery will get you up to speed quickly on the builders’ new currency of creation.
(3:33) Avery describes the start of her crypto journey and lessons learned from early stints at Target and Google
(6:44) Why there’s a push among creators to “cut out the middleman”
(10:37) NFT lightning round: Avery gives you the basics
(18:55) Advice for brands on developing successful NFT strategies
(26:00) How to personally become NFT-proficient
(29:08) Lessons learned from building abroad in Singapore and elsewhere
Guest Bio
Avery Akkineni serves as the president of VaynerNFT. She leads the company’s mission to build long-term strategic NFT projects for the world’s leading intellectual property owners, serving brands, celebrities, athletes and associations.
Avery previously led VaynerMedia’s expansion into APAC, growing a team from 0 to 150+, opening offices in Singapore, Bangkok, Tokyo, and Sydney. Prior to joining Vayner, she spent six years working at Google, in both Silicon Valley and New York City.
Helpful Links
VaynerNFT website
Why NFTs Are a Big Deal, explained
VaynerNFT launches with Budweiser as flagship client
Avery’s appearance on NFT Now podcast
Avery on LinkedIn and Twitter
Referenced in episode: Jesse’s conversation with Adobe’s Scott Belsky
Bruce Smith peered into the future and saw a different path for rowing—one that transcended old perceptions of the sport: that rowing on water is for the rich, and rowing in the gym is for Type A personalities with something to prove. And that vision led him to create Hydrow, an immersive in-home rowing experience unlike anything that the world had seen before.
In his talk with Jesse, Bruce describes his entrepreneurial journey, starting with setting up shop in Boston and how the city proved to be both a fitting backdrop and a powerful catalyst for early growth. He gives an insider’s look at rowing culture and how it led him to pursue a more inclusive path. He breaks down his company’s process for designing machinery, software, and content synchronously. He advocates for rowing’s holistic health benefits. And he offers a peek into how Hydrow was able to develop its now-patented approach for broadcasting content live from the water. Throughout, it’s an inspiring look at how an insider disrupted the status quo to bring a beautiful human experience to everyone.
(3:28) Launching Hydrow in Boston
(6:21) Why in-home rowing needed, and deserved, a deeper connection to on-water rowing
(8:50) “The best things in life should not be reserved for elites.”
(15:45) Building the machine, software, and content in parallel
(22:32) Ripples of the future: what lies ahead for live outdoor reality
(27:16) Navigating a successful omni-channel strategy
(31:11) Safeguarding the mission to create the most beautiful human experience
Guest Bio
Bruce Smith is a lifelong entrepreneur and an accomplished rower and coach. A former Head of the Charles winner, Bruce coached the US Lightweight Eight to a Bronze medal at the 2015 World Rowing Championships. He is the former Executive Director of Community Rowing – Boston. He holds a BA in English Literature and Theory from McGill University.
Helpful Links
Hydrow.com
Commercial: The Best Indoor Rowing Machine Experience
Bruce’s interview with Forbes
The mental fitness boost of rowing
Bruce on LinkedIn
Also check out: Jesse’s conversation with Steve Schwartz, Founder of The Art of Tea
Geetha Murali, CEO of Room to Read, talks with Jesse about her work in ending illiteracy and gender inequality, the importance of consistent skill building in one’s career, reflections on a career shift, and her vision for the future of education. Geetha shares how her mom refused a marriage at 13, leaving home to become a nurse and move to the United States. Geetha shares how her mother’s determination and father’s affable serenity helped shape her growth and values in ways that helped her become an effective builder. She shares insights into how education changes and benefits children, and their communities, including success stories she has helped build at Room to Read.
Geetha shares practical insights on how she collaborates with local leaders, governments, and schools to create sustainable change, and about how Room to Read has scaled with the goal of impacting 40 million children by 2025. She shares her transition from statistician to non-profit leader to CEO and her thoughts on how to have a positive impact no matter where you work. She shares her secrets to success, including how she views the importance of education and relationships.
How does education influence your success and the success of the people you care about? How do relationships and cooperation factor into your success? How do you plan your career to include meaningful impact? How do you rethink your strategy to scale into the future?
(6:28) How Geetha learned the value of education from her mother’s trailblazing journey
(16:08) Geetha describes moving beyond achieving goals, to fulfilling her purpose
(24:05) How Room to Read grew to impact 40 million children worldwide
(33:05) The central role that reading plays in developing empathy
(34:44) Advice for anyone pursuing a career in the nonprofit sector
(38:51) Jesse asks: Which influential people do you want to meet through your work?
Guest Bio
Dr. Geetha Murali is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Room to Read, an organization that believes World Change Starts with Educated Children.® Room to Read is creating a world free from illiteracy and gender inequality by helping children in low-income communities develop literacy skills and a habit of reading, and by supporting girls to build skills to succeed in school and negotiate key life decisions. The organization collaborates with governments and other partner organizations to deliver positive outcomes for children at scale. Room to Read has benefitted more than 18 million children across 16 countries and 37,000 communities and aims to reach 40 million children by 2025.
As Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Geetha oversees Room to Read’s global operations, which include programmatic work in 16 countries, a global network of investors and volunteer chapters, and a worldwide staff of approximately 1,600 employees.
Geetha on Twitter: https://twitter.com/gkmurali
Room to Read Website: https://www.roomtoread.org/
Helpful Links
So Good They Can’t Ignore You, a book recommended by Geetha that was seminal to her early in her role as Room to Read’s CEO
“How to Citizen” podcast by Baratunde Thurston
Room to Read success story of Kamla
BBC World Radio interview on COVID-19 impact on girls’ education
Geetha op-ed on the power of books on our mind
“Six Terrific Book Ideas for Getting Girls into Tech” interview with Geetha Murali and Youtube CEO Susan Wojcicki in Wired Magazine
Geetha’s background and story, shared by the Shakti Collaborative
Michelle Obama & Julia Roberts meet with Room to Read kids in Vietnam
Award from the Library of Congress for Room to Read’s special response to COVID-19
One of the defining characteristics of this age of business is ambiguity. And to face that ambiguity with courage, we need to heed both ambitious visions of the future and the hard-earned lessons of the past. And you couldn’t ask for a better source of prescient ideas and valuable lessons than LivePerson CEO & Founder Rob LoCascio. He’s the rare tech entrepreneur who really may have seen it all.
In his talk with Jesse, Rob discusses the ups and downs of his 25-year journey, revealing how he managed through the dot-com bubble, the Great Recession, and now, a global pandemic. He reflects on his company’s invention of cloud-based web chat for business, achieved decades before the cloud as we know it came into existence. Rob offers thoughts on the future of conversational commerce, and reveals how LivePerson is now building AI tools that can hold remarkably natural and confidence-inspiring conversations with customers. Finally, he attests to the power that blockchain technology can offer to workers, and describes how he’s leading with empathy in support of employees. Throughout, Rob’s depiction of what he calls his “beautiful journey” is refreshingly frank, earnestly offered, and packed with useful advice and encouragement for entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs alike.
(4:01) Why the entrepreneurial journey is full of setbacks and unknowns, but worth it
(8:54) Inventing the cloud, decades before the cloud
(13:24) How LivePerson builds chatbots that can hold more natural & personalized conversations with customers
(21:55) The rise and democratizing potential of blockchain tech for workers
(26:25) How conversational commerce can actually decentralize commerce—for good
(28:12) To college or not to college?
Guest Bio
Rob LoCascio has served as LivePerson’s Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors since the company’s inception in November 1995. Additionally, he founded the charity Feeding NYC, hosts the podcast Over The Wall and is a frequent contributor to Inc., and other publications. Rob was named a New York City Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year finalist in 2001 and 2008, and was the winner of the 2015 Smart CEO Circle of Excellence Award.
Helpful Links
Rob’s podcast: Over the Wall
Inc. article: Four things to consider before turning your business over to bots (Rob authored)
Announcing the launch of Conversational Marketplaces
Rob’s charity: Feeding NYC
Rob on LinkedIn and Twitter
Jenny Fleiss is co-founder of category creator Rent The Runway, but in some ways, that’s an understatement of the time and energy she put in to revolutionize the designer fashion industry—and forever change old ideas of Who Gets to Wear What.
In her talk with Jesse, Jenny recounts the detailed logistics work and core insights it took to drive growth at Rent The Runway, with lessons learned for aspiring founders. She describes how she now brings her entrepreneurial experience to bear as an investor, emphasizing inclusivity and the growing importance of shared wins. Jenny outlines a format that digital commerce businesses can follow to create personalized experiences at scale. And she offers advice for parents on how to inspire entrepreneurship from an early age. All told, Jenny’s story highlights the transformational power of building in oneself – and others – the confidence to excel.
(3:13) How Jenny’s experience as an entrepreneur led her to join Volition Capital this year
(8:32) Assessing the state of digital commerce—global challenges & innovations
(11:47) Jenny’s POV on the three pillars of personalization-at-scale
(16:56) Launching Rent The Runway with an unprecedented dive into logistics and a crucial market insight
(23:29) How Jenny linked up with RTR co-founder Jenn Hyman, along with her tips for finding co-founders
(29:23) Changing the VC funding landscape and increasing opportunities for women-run businesses
(31:23) Lessons for parents on teaching and encouraging entrepreneurship
Guest Bio
Jenny Fleiss joined Volition Capital in 2021 as the company’s first Venture Partner, where she focuses on next-generation consumer brands. She is an entrepreneur and intrapreneur, founding two scaled digitally native businesses from scratch: Rent the Runway and Jetblack. During her time at Rent the Runway, Jenny wore many different hats, serving as President, Head of Logistics, and Head of Business Development.
Jenny has been honored with numerous recognitions including Inc. Magazine’s “30 Under 30”; Fortune Magazine’s “40 Under 40” and “Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs”; and Fast Company’s “Most Influential Women in Technology.”
Helpful Links
Rent the Runway
Volition Capital
Fast Company: Inside Rent The Runway’s Secret Dry-Cleaning Empire
Harvard Business Review: Women-Led Startups Received Just 2.3% of VC Funding
Jenny on LinkedIn and Twitter
Jessica Kleiman is a PR & comms veteran, a published author, and a principal contributor to one of the greatest brand stories of the new millennium.
In her talk with Jesse, Jessica takes us on her journey from 90s media rooms to directing communications at Peloton, where she helped blend content with technology to turn living rooms around the globe into supercharged exercise studios and cherished virtual meeting places. She describes how, throughout her career, she leveraged a background in literature and love of story to bring an editor’s eye and human openness to the oft-sanitized world of PR, and how she managed to write her first book in the months after becoming a mother.
Increasingly, the stories a brand tells are an integral part of how people experience a brand—Jessica’s advice is invaluable for any builder seeking to build a passionate following with authentic and empathetic content.
(4:32) Reflections on having a mother who was an executive; the pros and cons
(8:11) What media companies were like two decades ago, versus what they’re like now
(13:59) Bringing together a passion for content with deep acumen in PR and comms at Peloton
(18:26) How Peleton led out as a category creator
(20:40) The power of community and how it can be amplified authentically
(24:29) Advice for PR pros on communicating with humanity & empathy
(32:48) How Jessica wrote a book as a working mom; advice for any aspiring author with too little time
Guest Bio
Jessica Kleiman is Senior Vice President, Global Communications at Peloton, the leading interactive fitness platform, where she oversees the brand’s public relations, corporate communications, internal communications and social media initiatives.
Before Peloton, she spent two years leading consumer communications at Instagram and over a decade at Hearst Magazines, where she managed PR efforts for 20 U.S. media brands. Jessica also led PR and IR for The Knot, Inc., the nation’s leading wedding website and media company, and helped take the company public.
Helpful Links
Peloton Founder John Foley on How I Built This (ref’d at 17:28)
Hollywood Reporter article: The Hollywoodization of Peloton
Jessica’s book: Be Your Own Best Publicist
Q&A with author Kate White (ref’d at 33:56)
Jessica on LinkedIn and Twitter
Hey everybody, it’s Jesse. Thanks so much for listening to Breakthrough Builders.
I know it’s been a second since we dropped our last episode. That’s because the team here has been preparing to share a series of recent conversations I’ve had with some really incredible guests. Starting next week, we’re back to dropping shows on Wednesdays with the start of Season Five of Breakthrough Builders. The theme of this season is Building Experiences at the intersection of Technology & Purpose. Over the next few weeks, you’ll hear from CEOs, Founders, and other top executives at some wildly cool brands like Rent the Runway, Peloton, Bonobos, VaynerMedia, LivePerson, Hydrow, and more.
My conversations this season will be with Builders who are challenging the status quo to put interesting, innovative, and really important things into the world. Products, services, and especially experiences that make a difference in people’s lives, and that are rooted in a shared sense of purpose between company and customer.
Before we ‘round the bend into this next series of conversations, I wanted to take a moment to hype up and get you hyped up about our next 2 Guests!
On Wednesday, November 3rd, you’ll hear my conversation with Jessica Kleiman, Senior Vice President of Global Communications at Peloton. Jessica and I talked about the work she and her team have been doing to build and cast Peloton as a new kind of company that’s purposefully and wonderfully blurring the lines between fitness, community, and entertainment.
Then, on Wednesday, November 10th, you’ll hear my conversation with Rent the Runway Co-Founder Jenny Fleiss. Jenny has had a hand in creating some of the most inspiring and inclusive innovations at the intersection of fashion and technology over the past decade. The lessons she learned, starting and then running logistics for Rent the Runway, are a must-listen for any Builder with the ambition to build breakthrough experiences and create emotional connections with customers.
Keep sharing your input on the show, as well as any suggestions for Guests you would like me to have on! You can reach us on our website, over at breakthrough-builders.com, that’s breakthrough-hyphen-builders-dot-com, or on Qualtrics’ socials, @Qualtrics. You can also hit me up on Twitter @jesse underscore purewal.
Again, thanks for taking the time to subscribe to the show, and for leaving a rating and a review. And if you like the show, please, tell a friend!
Looking forward to having you again next week, on Breakthrough Builders.
(3:29) Recognizing the devastating impacts of climate change
(6:24) How Kim ended up in the food industry, and why making better & tastier plant-based meat became her primary pursuit
(11:59) Going beyond the old staples: Cooking up delicious new products with a breakthrough ingredient
(13:59) On serving a public who increasingly wants to eat less meat
(15:57) Building a brand that’s for everyone in order to drive global impact
(20:48) Encouraging diversity of thought and perspectives on the Prime Roots team
Prime Roots CEO & Co-Founder Kim Le is on a mission to combat climate change on a global scale—one meatless meal at a time. And her approach is remarkably authentic: Like the vast majority of Americans, she wants to eat less meat, and decrease her environmental impact in the process. But she also wants better plant-based meat to enjoy. And that’s why the company she started is developing and delivering delicious new products that taste amazing, appeal to everyone, and aren’t made with over-processed, bland ingredients.
In her talk with Jesse, Kim discusses her journey to becoming a disruptive force in the food industry. You’ll hear how climate change became a problem she couldn’t ignore, and how she formed her belief that the omnivores and flexitarians among us have truly enormous power to stave off the emerging crisis. Throughout the discussion Kim describes the importance of building an authentic brand, how she’s encouraging diverse perspectives as a leader, and the power of storytelling. It’s an intriguing look into the mindset and motivations of a builder who’s made it her mission to help tackle one of the biggest existential problems of our time.
Guest Bio
Kim Le is the CEO & Co-Founder of Prime Roots. She’s a scientist-entrepreneur-foodie and life-long learner determined to make positive changes in our global food system. Kim has been working in management within the food industry (retail, food service, investing) for over ten years and is determined to bring delicious, sustainable, and nutritious foods to the masses and increase accessibility and equity in our food system. She’s a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley.
Helpful Links
Try it yourself! Order via the Prime Roots website
Forbes article: Bacon Without The Oink Is The Next Plant-Based Frontier
Also featured in Fast Company, Business Insider, & more
Kim on LinkedIn and Twitter
(4:12) Brad describes the origins of his passion for baseball, and the contrarian criteria he used to identify his heroes
(8:37) Art and science, connecting: How the premise of The Wax Pack was linked to Brad’s study of Tahitian bugs, and the parallels Brad sees more broadly between science and journalism
(15:46) Refusing to be taken out of the game (as a character in his own book)
(19:30) Journalism as therapy, and discovering the power of embracing vulnerability
(22:59) How to write the telling details
(27:26) Some of Brad’s favorite (and surprising) moments from his time on the road with retired players: Rick Sutcliffe, Don Carman, Rance Mulliniks, and others
(32:10) Giving yourself the freedom to let go of expectations
In 2020, Brad Balukjian’s first book The Wax Pack reached #7 on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list and was named one of NPR's Best Books of the Year. The book was formulated on a breakthrough premise, evident by its universal reception––lifelong baseball lovers and the merely curious followed Brad as he tracked down all the players in a single pack of 1986 Topps baseball cards, drawing unexpected connections between their lives and his own in the process.
In his talk with Jesse, Brad dishes on his unconventional journey to becoming a celebrated chronicler of the remarkably human 'afterlives' of uniquely talented athletes. You’ll hear about the early connections he made between the scientific method and journalism, how he’s currently embracing what he calls a 'hybrid career,' and of course: scores of anecdotes and special insights from his time on the road with retired major league ballplayers.
Guest Bio
Brad Balukjian teaches natural history at Merritt College in Oakland, California. He is pursuing a hybrid career of teaching, writing, and research to get the word out that science is accessible and (gasp!) fun.
Brad, a Filipino-American, studied journalism and island biogeography (yes, that's a thing) at Duke University and earned his Ph.D. in Environmental Science from UC Berkeley.
Helpful Links
Waxpackbook.com
Brad’s past work for Rolling Stone, National Geographic, and more
An interview with Brad on MLB.com
Brad on LinkedIn and Twitter
(02:24) How the journey started: trips to the library, and an up-and-down primary school experience
(08:23) Studying at Cambridge, gravitating to fellowship over scrutinous scholarship
(15:23) Some of Sean’s inspirations, featuring a reciting of Robert Graves’ poem, Flying Crooked
(17:45) Advice for writers on how to nurture ideas into form
(20:40) Describing the mechanics and joy of working with illustrators
(22:53) Thoughts on the value of physical books in a screen-obsessed world
(24:34) Why independent bookstores and libraries need our support now more than ever
(31:19) Sean reads from his latest book, How to Be Cooler than Cool
The builders we interview on this show frequently cite the encouragement they received at an early age to explore their passions and find their purpose. And that’s exactly the kind of human encouragement you’ll find in the charming, award-winning children’s books authored by Sean Taylor– stories that include Hoot Owl: Master of Disguise, the recently published How to Be Cooler than Cool, and over 60 others.
In his talk with Jesse, Sean offers advice for aspiring writers, as well as any builder with aspirations to write their own story and forge a unique path in life. You’ll hear why he opted out of the strictly scientific approach to literature that was prevalent during his time at Cambridge; how he found fellowship and honed his storytelling in London as a member of a group called The Basement Writers; and how he found his ultimate calling to write stories for children. Along the way Sean recites poems that have guided him, shares the methods that inspire him, and affirms the virtues of a mantra that you’ll find woven into many of his works: in all things, be yourself.
Guest Bio
All about Sean, in his own words.
Helpful Links
How to Be Cooler than Cool
Sean’s website
IndieBound.org: Find an independent bookseller near you
(02:41) Brennan describes Frontline Ventures’ mission and his role there
(04:17) The mistakes companies typically make when moving into Europe
(09:18) How Brennan taught himself to code and found his calling as a builder
(11:13) Working at Google in the early days, and getting the opportunity to lead efforts in London and Dublin
(15:11) Observations from Google Europe, including why the best companies are always reinventing themselves
(21:02) Leading social network Yammer through its acquisition by, and learning from the practices of, Microsoft
(26:44) Discovering vulnerability as an essential leadership trait
(29:13) Technology innovations that excite Brennan and his team
In a recent article for TechCrunch, Frontline Ventures partner Brennan O’Donnell described the burgeoning opportunity that European markets offer to U.S companies, particularly in tech, pointing out that EMEA now represents 38% of the world’s GDP and is the world’s second-largest B2B software market. But in order to capitalize on the opportunity, CEOs would be wise to learn from thought leaders like Brennan, who have been through the rigor of scaling high-growth companies in Europe and seen the potential pitfalls.
In this episode, Brennan talks to Jesse about the most common mistakes he's seen brands make when expanding into Europe, what it was like to lead growth at Google Europe, reflections on guiding Yammer through its acquisition by Microsoft, how he's learned to embrace vulnerability as an essential leadership trait, and the emerging technologies he's most excited about as an investor.
Guest Bio
Based in Silicon Valley, Brennan O’Donnell has over 20 years of experience building technology businesses and scaling global teams. As a partner with Frontline Ventures, he invests in growth stage startups with a focus on helping them expand into Europe. The fund’s portfolio includes companies such as TripActions, Lattice, Clearbanc and Attentive.
Before moving into venture capital, Brennan spent nearly a decade at Google, where he held multiple go-to-market leadership roles in the US and EMEA, building teams across both the Cloud and Ads businesses. After Google, he went on to hold c-level and executive roles in several early stage and high growth SaaS startups, including Yammer (acquired by Microsoft), SurveyMonkey (IPO), Euclid (acquired by WeWork) and most recently Airtable. He is a graduate of Northwestern University.
Helpful Links
Frontline Ventures website
TechCrunch: Proactive CEOs should prioritize European expansion
The Irish Times: Frontline Ventures targets US tech companies with new $80m fund
Brennan on LinkedIn and Twitter
[6m41s] Izabel describes the wrongful imprisonment of her father in Brazil, and the impact it had on her and her family
[9m13] The legacy of her mother’s warrior spirit, resilience, and love
[13m40s] Why Izabel puts storytelling at the heart of Salt & Light Coalition’s curriculum and its efforts to build empathy and trust
[17m40s] The importance of non-judgment as a culture value
[19m15s] Izabel describes the healing program that thrivers participate in during their first six months at Salt & Light
[22m26s] The story of Salt & Light’s founding, including an unexpected insight gained when teaching yoga at Cook County Jail
[26m20s] The intentionality of building an all-female Board of Directors, and the necessity of maintaining a diverse staff
[27m56s] The coalition’s heralded successes, including 80% workforce placement after graduation
[30m04s] How Salt & Light adapted and developed a more flexible format during the pandemic
While teaching yoga at Illinois’ Cook County Jail, Dr. Izabel Olson discovered a startling insight: over 70% of female inmates had been victims of trafficking. And when she looked around at the resources available in the Chicago area to trafficking victims, she found that there was a substantial gap in programs that offered rehabilitative services. Shortly afterward, she embarked on founding Salt & Light Coalition to fill the need.
In her talk with Jesse, Dr. Olson describes how she came to understand the conditions that enable trafficking in part through the lens of her own lived experience; how she built Salt & Light on the cultural foundations of empathy and non-judgment; the profound effect that Salt & Light has had on the lives of its graduates; and lessons learned from trying to keep the coalition’s critical support network open and available during the pandemic. Izabel’s story is an inspiring journey of love and understanding and a powerful reminder to build toward our life’s purpose with both an open mind and open heart.
Guest Bio
Dr. Izabel Olson is the founder and CEO of Salt and Light Coalition, a grassroots organization breaking the cycle of human trafficking through mind-body restoration and workforce development. Dr. Olson is dedicated to the empowerment of women, especially survivors of human trafficking as they reframe their traumatic experiences and find success in the workplace and throughout society. Prior to establishing Salt and Light Coalition, Dr. Olson was a researcher at Northwestern University, where she earned her Ph.D. in the Learning Sciences.
Helpful Links
Salt & Light Coalition
Interview: Preying on the Vulnerable: Half of Trafficked Women and Girls Are Immigrants
Q&A with Voyage Chicago
Dr. Izabel Olson on Twitter
Also check out our conversation with Dr. Gheeta Murali, CEO of Room to Read
[3m04s] What sparked Alex’s interest in finance and economics and led him to launch his career at Intuit
[6m36s] The origins of Alex’s interest in human-centered product design
[12m24s] How the opportunity to work for Asana meshed with Alex’s drive to bring clarity to the product development process
[16m42s] Advice on how to apply human-centered design and develop customer empathy as a product builder
[20m45s] How Asana is working to solve the pain points associated with hybrid work
[27m21s] Why it’s so important to unify brand experience, product experience, and culture
[32m53s] Reflections on Asana’s IPO, and how the company used its own platform to pull it off for Asana, by Asana, on Asana
[34m32s] The importance of not wasting time on decisions that are easy to reverse
[36m20s] Alex’s thoughts on leading with curiosity
In today’s fractured world of work, Asana develops products that bring connectedness to teams and business processes using a human-centered design approach that prioritizes observing and understanding. And at the center of that process is their Head of Product, Alex Hood.
In his talk with Jesse, Alex illuminates the principles he’s developed over a career that spans tenures at Intuit, TubeMogul, and Asana. While reflecting on leading key initiatives like the development of Quickbooks at Intuit, Alex gives his advice on how to build customer empathy at scale, how to make the right product decisions while in hypergrowth, how to lead with curiosity, and much more.
Guest Bio
As Head of Product, Alex leads Asana’s product strategy, planning, and the management of the entire product organization, which includes product management, design, and user research. Prior to Asana, Alex was a VP of Product Management at Intuit and led QuickBooks Online. Alex was also the VP of Product at TubeMogul, which is now Adobe’s Advertising Cloud and has held positions at the Nasdaq Stock Market. Alex has an MBA from UC Berkeley.
Helpful Links
Alex’s appearance on the CIO Classified Podcast
Seven insights for building hypergrowth products (from Asana blog)
Forbes article: You spend 60% of your job on ‘work about work”
Alex on LinkedIn and Twitter
[2m23s] The parallels and synergies Scott sees between the product development and writing processes
[6m45s] Why Scott decided to go "all in" on advancing creative meritocracy in his career
[11m03s] The opportunity Scott sees for our world to get to true creative meritocracy
[13m26s] A framework Scott counsels organizations leaders to use when recognizing and rewarding creatives
[16m56s] Scott's perspective on thinking at the "Edge of Reason" as an essential ingredient to innovating product, advancing culture, and improving diversity
[25m36s] How Scott helped drive Adobe's business and technology transformation, including his reflection on the amazing journey of bringing Behance into the company whose Photoshop software he tinkered with as a kid
[30m07s] Scott's view on the brand portfolio strategy at Adobe, including the Adobe master brand, the Creative Cloud brand, and the signature application (product) brands
[33m53s] Scott's perspective on the product culture at Adobe
[35m34s] Scott's view on the most promising broad-based technology innovations coming our way over the next 5-10 years
[37m58s] Scott and Jesse discuss the future of work, and the changing psychology, operating models, and use cases of working physically together
[40m56s] Scott offers his perspective on the future of NFT technology and the linkages between NFT, digital (art)ifacts, and creative meritocracy
[44m02s] How Scott chooses people and organizations to partner with as an investor and advisor
===============
How can companies sustain product and brand innovation in the face of constant challenges? And how can they nurture creative collaboration in our new world of work while providing employees the space and autonomy to do the best work of their lives?
Perhaps no one is better suited to answer these questions than Scott Belsky, bestselling author and Chief Product Officer at Adobe. In his 2018 book The Messy Middle, Scott laid out the methods that enable people to find their way through the most difficult phases of bold projects and new ventures. In his talk with Jesse, Scott describes why it’s critical to make product decisions at “The Edge of Reason,” and discusses how his ability to bring to life a vision for the future of creative collaboration would turn out to make him a key contributor to Adobe’s well-chronicled transition to the Cloud.
Along with his reflections on what it was like to ultimately assume the next phase of growth for products he had used and revered since his early years, Scott discusses his motivations for founding Behance; the parallels he discovered between the processes of writing books and of developing software products; his transformative ideas on product culture; and even his beliefs about the future of NFT technology to continue to unlock creative democratization. Time and again, he offers us timeless guidance on how to gain confidence from doubt and nurture our ability to create without limits.
Guest Bio
Scott Belsky is an executive, entrepreneur, author, and investor (and all-around product obsessive). He currently serves as Adobe's Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President, Creative Cloud. Scott's passion is to make the creative world more productive, connected, and adaptive to new technologies. Scott co-founded Behance in 2006, and served as CEO until Adobe acquired Behance in 2012.
Alongside his role at Adobe, Scott actively advises and invests in businesses that cross the intersection of technology and design - and help empower people. He works closely with a number of venture capital firms including Benchmark and Homebrew, and is an early advisor and investor in Pinterest, Uber, sweetgreen, Carta, Cheddar, Flexport, Airtable, and Periscope (now part of Twitter) as well as several others in the early stages.
Helpful Links
Scott’s books: The Messy Middle (2018) and Making Ideas Happen (2010)
Inc.: What it Takes to Keep Your Business Ahead of the Pace of Innovation
Medium: The Furry Lisa, CryptoArt, & The New Economy Of Digital Creativity
Scott on LinkedIn and Twitter
Loved this talk with Scott? Check out our conversation with Cisco’s Jeetu Patel
Next week, we’re starting in on Season Four of Breakthrough Builders. The Theme of Season Four is Product Builders & Storytellers.
You’ll hear Jesse's conversations with people like Alex Hood at Asana and Brennan O’Donnell at Frontline Ventures - who’ve driven wildly cool, deeply impactful, and radically inclusive product-led growth and innovation. You’ll hear fun dialogues with people who write for a living. Renowned children’s author Sean Taylor and trailblazing writer Brad Balukjian, to name a few. And you’ll hear from some Builders who are both Product Leaders AND Authors, like Scott Belsky, founder of Behance and 99U, author of two incredible books about the creative process, and now, Head of Product at Adobe.
This 8-episode season will take us from mid-July to mid-September. On Wednesday, July 21, we’ll drop Episode One of the season, with the aforementioned Scott Belsky.
Robert shares how his parents and early childhood experiences influenced his entrepreneurial drive and his desire to be a builder. He recounts the influence of mentors early in his career who helped him explore his skills and values, the decision to move to Silicon Valley to start a venture early in his career, a deeply authentic commitment to philanthropic efforts spurred by tragic circumstances, an intensely personal personal decision to leave eBay, and his perspectives on the future of marketing and brand as the CMO of Atlassian.
How can you discover and articulate your purpose? How can you make difficult career decisions? How can you incorporate your values into the professional decisions you make? How can you be a better marketer, mentor, and leader? Robert shares his perspective and insights on finding a sense of purpose and making purpose the driving influence in career decisions.
Guest Bio:
Robert is a marketing executive with a passion for building early-stage and large-scale consumer platforms. Deep experience in driving revenue growth through performance marketing and consumer branding.
“I believe that technology serves as a force for positive change in society. My passion is building businesses that foster human connections, create hope, and expand opportunity. I lead with empathy, and focus on attracting, retaining, and growing great talent and world-class teams.”
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chatwani
Twitter: @chatwani
Building Blocks:
Reflect on, and write down, what you love and your “why.” Robert suggested that it’s a worthy exercise to take out a piece of paper and write down your reflections on two things: what you love most, and your reason for being. It won’t be easy, and it might take some time. But, speaking from experience, it’s worth it! It helps provide a ton of clarity on how to think about prioritizing your time, effort, and energy. Plus, it will help simplify your life and will help make you more memorable, distinctive, and compelling to others. Check out the Simon Sinek TED talk on this topic, and Brian Solis’ book Lifescale, to get started.
If you’d like to share, get it out there on social with the Hashtag #BreakthroughBuilders. Or, if you’d prefer to not share it publicly, go ahead and email it to me at jesse@breakthrough-builders.com. I’d love hearing from you and learning from what you built.
Helpful Links:
The seminal Simon Sinek TED talk on Starting with Why
Reflections from Robert on his story at the Atlassian Work Life Blog
Robert’s Author Page on the Atlassian Work Life Blog
2-minute interview with Robert speaking about Atlassian at TieCON 2019
Robert quoted on marketing’s role in driving brand-led growth at CMO.com
Daniel Pink on Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose here (article) and here (video)
Creating a CMO Transformation Agenda: Thought Leadership from Prophet here
Four Priorities for CMOs to Reimagine and Rignite Marketing: Thought Leadership from Prophet here
Research Reference:
Qualtrics' 2021 Labor Shortage Study: https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/labor-shortage-study/
With games like its played-the-world-over League of Legends, Riot Games has a history of developing entertaining, rich worlds for highly devoted and skilled players. Now, Jason Bunge has joined Riot as the company’s first CMO, and he’s focusing on building a brand unlike any yet seen in gaming.
In his talk with Jesse, Jason describes his journey from advertising to tech to gaming, with stops along the way at Saatchi & Saatchi, Microsoft, EA, and now, Riot Games. He discusses how he believes Riot uniquely hybridized product and culture, and how he’s helping push the brand into new creative territory— maintaining Disney-like ambition—without abandoning the legendary player centricity Riot Games is known and beloved for. Jason talks about the importance of versatility and adaptability in his career; the role of emotion in B2B marketing; the experience of building Microsoft 365 into a cloud platform; the respective roles of the game brand, studio brand, and publisher brand; his role in building engagement and community at EA; and his advice for incoming CMOs.
Guest Bio
Jason Bunge joined Riot Games as its first Chief Marketing Officer in 2020. He oversees the Global Marketing organization, which carries the torch for marketing and publishing excellence across all the company’s games, products, and player experiences and includes overseeing strategy and execution for brand, creative, channels, and community communications globally.
Prior to Riot Games, Jason held leadership roles at Electronic Arts, Trulia (Zillow Group), Skype, Microsoft and Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising. Most recently at EA, Jason led the company’s games portfolio, including the record-setting launches of Apex Legends, the SIMs, and that franchise’s first TV series, as well as partnering with Lucasfilm on the successful suite of Star Wars games. Jason graduated with a BS from Boston College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Helpful Links
Riot Games
Forbes Article: In a World Let Loose, Video Game Makers are Doubling Down
Jason’s hiring announcement
Jason on LinkedIn
Despite her years of experience consulting for venerable brands, and her celebrated successes leading business development at 1871 in her native Chicago, Lakshmi Shenoy describes herself as a “Starter CEO,” with a propensity to come to the table with as much acknowledgement of the things she doesn’t know, as the things she does. And it’s that growth mindset that makes her, and the organization she leads, Embarc Collective, perfect partners for aspiring entrepreneurs in the fast-growing tech hub of Tampa, Florida.
In her talk with Jesse, Lakshmi discusses the extraordinarily creative paths she’s taken—from her first scrappy campaigns to save the earth’s rainforests, to turning a sociology degree into a coveted advertising role at Leo Burnett, to finding ways to keep Chicago’s graduating business talent from breezing out of the Windy City. You’ll hear why she left Chicago to come to Tampa Bay at the invitation of Jeff Vinik, and learn the unique approaches she’s taking now as she helps put Tampa on the map as a rising hub for top entrepreneurs in tech.
Guest Bio
Lakshmi Shenoy is the CEO of Embarc Collective, where she leads the mission to make Tampa Bay a prime destination for diverse startup talent. Before moving to Tampa, Lakshmi lived in Chicago and served as the Vice President of Strategy & Business Development at 1871, the top university-affiliated business incubator in the world.
Prior to 1871, Lakshmi focused on growth strategies for a variety of businesses through previous roles at Prophet Brand Strategy, Time Inc., Procter & Gamble, and Leo Burnett. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in sociology from the University of Chicago, and a Masters of Business Administration from Harvard Business School. Lakshmi was recognized in 2017 as one of Chicago’s “20 Rising Brand Stars” by Ad Age.
Helpful Links
Embarc Collective website
Lakshmi on St. Pete X podcast
Article: Jeff Vinik’s Embarc Collective innovation hub opens in Tampa
Lakshmi on LinkedIn and Twitter
If you ask Jeetu Patel about the nature of success, he’ll tell you that “no one is entirely self-made.” And he’ll be quick to point out all the times that friends and mentors sustained, encouraged, and inspired him as he grew into positions of leadership at innovative companies like Doculabs, EMC, Box, and now, Cisco—where, as SVP and GM of Security and Collaboration, he’s taking on the mission to transform the company around SaaS offerings that break down geographical barriers and improve access to opportunity for people around the world.
But as we often highlight on Breakthrough Builders, opportunity has a strong tendency to gravitate toward grit and curiosity—personal characteristics that are as much a part of Jeetu’s story as his gratitude. In his talk with Jesse, hear how Jeetu pursued a new family legacy in the US after leaving unsafe conditions in his childhood home of Mumbai, India. You’ll hear how he first became a business owner with a loan secured more by passion than means, why he left that role after seventeen years for a position where he was expected to learn as much as lead, and how his unique path prepared him to harmonize the often-competing disciplines of privacy and product development at Cisco. Throughout the episode, Jeetu offers a compelling case for why unheard voices need to be amplified, why titles should stay out of the room when product ideas are being debated, and why empathy is now the ultimate driver of business success.
Guest Bio
Jeetu Patel is Cisco’s Senior Vice President and General Manager of Security and Collaboration. He leverages a diverse set of capabilities to lead the strategy and development for these businesses while helping to redefine Cisco's SaaS business and strategy around differentiated products that diverge in the way they’re conceived, built, priced, packaged and sold.
Prior to joining Cisco, Jeetu was the Chief Product Officer (CPO) and Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) at Box, a role he pioneered. He transformed Box from a single product application to a multi-product platform used by 100K customers representing 69% of the Fortune 500. Before joining Box, Jeetu was General Manager and Chief Executive of EMC’s newly acquired Syncplicity business unit and President of Doculabs, a research and advisory firm co-owned by Forrester Research.
Helpful Links
Dec 2020: Cisco Announces All-New Webex Features
10 Lessons on How to Scale Your Product
Referenced in episode:
Radical Candor by Kim Scott
Management in 10 Words by Terry Leahy
Jeetu on LinkedIn and Twitter
Hey, it’s Jesse. Thanks for tuning into Season 3 of Breakthrough Builders!
In case you didn’t notice, we’ve made a few changes to the experience of the show - you’ve probably taken note of some new intro and outro music. That’s just one of the many cool things that’s happened because of our partnership with StudioPod Media in San Francisco. They’ve joined up with the team here at Breakthrough Builders to do editing, production, and music. Thanks to TJ, Julian, Katie, and Deanna for partnering up with me and Todd to make the show happen.
So, we’re now 5 episodes into our 8-episode Season 3. Before we round the bend into the final lap of Season 3 conversations, I wanted to take a minute to tell you about and hype up our next 3 Guests!
Our guest on May 26 will be Jeetu Patel, who runs the Security and Collaboration businesses at Cisco. He’s got an incredible story about emigrating to the US from India, remaining at one company for 17 years, then going on to product and strategy leadership roles at EMC, Box, and Cisco. He’s a great leader and an even better human being, he’s accomplished, he’s humble, he’s reflective, and he’s got an incredibly human story to tell.
We’re off the week of the Memorial Day Holiday in the US. Then, on June 9th, you’ll hear my conversation with Lakshmi Shenoy, the CEO of Embarc Collective, a Tampa-Florida based organization founded in 2018 at the nexus of technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Lakshmi moved to Tampa from Chicago, where she led strategy at innovation incubator 1871, after meeting and being persuaded by the vision of Jeff Vinink for the future growth of Tampa. Lakshmi talked to me about how she brings together creative energy from her days at Leo Burnett, brand acumen from her time at P&G, Time, and Prophet Brand Strategy, and the startup gusto she honed working with the community at 1871. And she explained how exciting it is to be a CEO and an entrepreneur for and with entrepreneurs in a region that’s experiencing the early waves of transformative growth.
And, for our last episode of Season 3, on June 16th, I talk to Alex Hood, the Chief Product Officer at team-based work management platform Asana. We haven’t recorded that conversation yet but Alex is someone I’ve known for a while and you can trust me that it’ll be a great one. Alex has been a product person his entire career - at Nasdaq, Intuit, TubeMogul, and now Asana - and if there’s anybody who can tell the story of what it’s like to build and thrive in a career in product management, it’s Alex.
Keep sharing your input on the show, your reactions to the episodes, and of course, any suggestions for Guests you want to hear on the show! Contact us through our website, over at breakthrough-builders.com, that’s breakthrough-hyphen-builders-dot-com.
Again, thanks so much for taking the time to follow or subscribe to the show, and if you’re on Apple Podcasts, to leave a rating and a review. If you’ve already done it, thank you! And if you like the show, please, tell your friends!
Looking forward to having you again next week, on Breakthrough Builders.
Natalie Sunderland believes the primary job of a marketer is to create growth. It’s a simple but powerful conviction that’s helped her land and thrive in high-impact roles throughout her career at some of the largest, most venerable brands in the Financial Services industry.
In her talk with Jesse, Natalie describes her lifelong journey as a marketer that began with producing public television programs in her native Ontario. She describes the experience of leading legendary product teams at American Express, the challenges of re-building Citigroup’s brand after the Great Recession, and the strenuous and unexpected role of leading Castlight Health to its IPO in 2014. Ultimately, she leaves us with a look at the changing role of the CMO as businesses continue to build and re-center their brands around consumer experiences.
Guest Bio
Natalie Sunderland is the global CMO of Addepar, a leading fintech platform for wealth management. She is a noted enterprise SaaS marketer with a track record of building iconic brands, creating new categories and accelerating growth. Prior to joining Addepar, she served as Vice President of Marketing at A.I. leader Qventus as well as Castlight Health, leading both companies through periods of hyper-growth. Prior to that, she held leadership roles at American Express, Citigroup, and Ameriprise Financial. Natalie is from Canada and holds a degree from Queen’s University.
Helpful Links
Addepar’s website
Natalie’s appearance on Fintech Impact podcast
Natalie on LinkedIn
In today’s upended world of work, some questions have moved to the forefront: Just what does the future hold? And how can People Leaders responsibly embrace change to move past old obstacles, inequities and biases? Few are better prepared to answer these questions than Stacia Garr of RedThread Research. Stacia’s commitment to uncovering truth and turning data into compelling stories about employee experience has made her a trusted advisor to executives from many of the world’s leading brands.
In her talk with Jesse, Stacia shares how her love of history turned into a mission to better peoples’ lives at work. She discusses some of her most compelling and unexpected research findings gained over the past decade. She identifies the opportunities that ultimately led her to pursue a path of entrepreneurship, and she leaves us with a look at the new workplace: where it should go, where it shouldn’t, and why moving work forward should be everyone’s concern.
Guest Bio
Stacia Garr is a researcher and thought leader on talent management, leadership, D&I, people analytics, and HR technology. A frequent speaker and writer, her work has been featured in Fortune, Forbes, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal as well as in numerous HR trade publications.
Stacia co-founded RedThread Research in 2018 after leading talent and workforce research for eight years at Bersin by Deloitte. Before Bersin, Stacia spent nearly five years conducting research and creating learning content for the Corporate Leadership Council, part of CEB/Gartner.
Helpful Links
redthreadresearch.com
RedThread Research’s podcast: Workplace Stories
Forbes article: A Mere 12% of Companies Are Truly Inclusive
Stacia on LinkedIn and Twitter
Qualtrics’ Future of Work 2021 Study
Advertiser Content
Design a workplace that works better for everyone on Qualtrics XM. Visit:
www.qualtrics.com/future
Rick Evans and his team at New York-Presbyterian Hospital were at the American epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis in early 2020. They had an incredibly harrowing year. And though their community endured a profound sense of loss, New York-Presbyterian was both a beacon of hope and a pragmatic system of action that helped save lives and make the moves that led a path forward in the pandemic.
In this episode of Breakthrough Builders, Rick speaks with Susan Haufe, Chief Industry Advisor for Healthcare at Qualtrics. Rick offers an insider’s look at the battle to stem the first surge of COVID-19 in the U.S., and shares deeply personal reflections about the far deeper and older scourge of systemic racism in America. Rick and Susan combine to leave us with a vision of the future of patient experience, issuing a call to action to the industry to join them in continuing to repair broken experiences that have persisted in healthcare for too long.
GUEST BIOS
Rick Evans
Rick Evans, MA, is Senior Vice President & Chief Experience Officer for NewYork-Presbyterian. In this role, he is responsible for overseeing NewYork-Presbyterian’s efforts to enhance the patient and family experience across the continuum of care, and developing and implementing a comprehensive strategy to increase patient satisfaction across the enterprise. Previously, he served as the Chief Experience Officer for Massachusetts General Hospital and its physician organization for four years, overseeing the patient experience along with physician leadership programs, visitor education programs, and the referral management office.
Susan Haufe (Guest Host)
With 20 years of experience combining the tools, discipline, expertise, and passion to design and drive a customer-centric culture, Susan Haufe is known for organizational transformation built on brand promise, purpose, and values. She currently serves as the Chief Industry Advisor for Healthcare at Qualtrics. Prior to joining Qualtrics, Susan served as the inaugural Chief Experience Officer for Yale New Haven Health, developing the vision and roadmap to support the execution of critical initiatives, including centralizing patient experience functions across the health system.
Helpful Links
Article from Becker’s Hospital Review: Leading Through a Spring Like No Other
Join us in supporting Patient Experience Week
Rick’s story also featured at Qualtrics’ 2021 WorkDifferent.com
NY Presbyterian Hospital’s website
Nicole Bernard Dawes has long held the conviction that, when done right, healthier food can be everyone’s first choice, not an alternative choice. But as she followed in the footsteps of her parents, who were both food entrepreneurs, she learned that grocery aisles weren’t going to change for the better unless she committed herself and her career entirely to the cause.
In her talk with Jesse, Nicole describes her lifelong journey that began with a food retreat and her role greeting customers at her mother’s natural food store. You’ll hear about her first venture into entrepreneurship as a 12-year-old chef and marketer, and what she learned working for her father’s company, Cape Cod Chips. And you’ll hear how Nicole founded Late July Snacks, stewarded it through a recession and family tragedy, and found the courage to take bold but well-understood risks in the name of good health - helping to spark an organic revolution Nicole would remain at the forefront of for years to follow.
Guest Bio
Nicole Bernard Dawes is a pioneering business owner whose lifelong dedication to transforming the food industry led her to create delicious, organic options like her co-founding Late July Snacks in 2003, one of the country’s most successful organic snack brands, and most recently Nixie Sparkling Water in 2019. Nicole has been named Food & Wine and Fortune Magazine’s ‘Most Innovative Women in Food and Drink’ and Forbes Magazine’s ‘Top Five Women Breaking Barriers in Food and Beverage.’
Helpful Links
Drinknixie.com
Nicole’s appearance on the LA Woman podcast
Forbes article, “How The Founder Of Late July Includes Generation Z In The Snack Business.”
Feature in Inc., series How I Did It
Nicole on LinkedIn and Twitter
Ximena Vengoechea has a knack for writing the right thing at the right moment. From her first article that became an editor’s pick on Medium to her widely heralded Life Audit, Ximena’s ability to provide creative solutions to the hard problems of everyday living has earned her a devoted following. Her new book Listen Like You Mean It: Reclaiming the Lost Art of True Connection couldn’t be more timely in a world where being in the physical presence of others feels like the exception rather than the norm.
In her talk with Jesse, Ximena describes how she learned to harmonize her work as a user researcher with her writing. She describes how she created the Life Audit exercise, a unique blend of design thinking and introspection that has helped people all over the world manage their goals and aspirations in an extraordinarily organized way. And she shares insights from her new book about the importance of peer mentorship and the tactics we have to employ now if we want to listen well and build strong relationships with others.
Guest Bio
Ximena Vengoechea is a user researcher, writer, and illustrator whose work on personal and professional development has been published in Inc., The Washington Post, Newsweek, and Huffington Post. She is the author of the recently published book, Listen Like You Mean it: Reclaiming the Lost Art of True Connection.
She is a contributor at Fast Company and The Muse, and writes Letters from Ximena, a newsletter on tech, culture, career, and creativity. She is best known for her project The Life Audit. An experienced manager, mentor, and researcher in the tech industry, she previously worked at Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Helpful Links
Listen Like You Mean It
Ximena’s website
The Life Audit
Ximena on Twitter and LinkedIn
Hey Everybody. It’s Jesse.
So, we’re here at the end of Season Two of Breakthrough Builders, and, if you’re anything like me, you’ve learned some incredibly helpful things about how to go build teams, products, brands, cultures, and experiences. And you might’ve also picked up some great perspective on how to build, and continue to shape, that all-important asset - YOU.
We started the season hearing from Climate CEO Mike Stern about how to build products and transform companies and categories in the agriculture sector. Andrea Robb talked to us about the importance of Belonging and how to cultivate it, and Kellie McElhaney shared some candid and powerful reflections on blending inspiration and agitation to help people grow and change.
Bill Carr taught us how Amazon works backwards to stay agile and innovative, and Kim Scott offered her guidance on how to bring Radical Candor and Justice to the workplace.
Gurdeep Pall of Microsoft regaled us with his stories from the invention of VPN and other core communication technologies, and Charlene Li taught us how to embrace and benefit from disruption. Steve Schwartz, founder of Art of Tea, talked about how to blend innovation with tradition, and Sheila Vashee closed Season Two by sharing wisdom earned at Dropbox and Opendoor on what it takes to drive growth at scale in Software.
Thanks to all of our Guests here on Breakthrough Builders for inspiring us with your stories and sharing your practical wisdom. And thanks to each one of YOU for listening to the show. I appreciate you.
On April 7th, our first show of Season Three will drop. In Season Three, we’ll introduce you to the Founder and CEO of two incredible food and beverage companies. We’ll talk to Chief Marketing Officers, Heads of Product, and Chief Technology Officers from cloud infrastructure, fintech, and software businesses. We’ll host Diversity & Inclusion leaders, influential authors, HR and Talent experts, brave entrepreneurs with animated side hustles, and other amazing, accomplished people who truly are Breakthrough Builders.
If you’re not yet subscribed to the show, please do subscribe. And please, tell your friends.
If you’re a listener on Apple Podcasts, please rate the show and write a review. It really does help other people find the show.
As always, if you’ve got suggestions for Guests, or if you have any feedback on the show, send me a note on the Contact page at breakthrough builders.com, that’s breakthrough hyphen builders dot com. I so look forward to hearing from you, and I can’t wait to have you join us for Season Three - of Breakthrough Builders.
It’s hard to imagine that there was a time when the word “cloud” was eschewed in technology, but for Sheila Vashee, it was an imperative in the early days of Dropbox. Instead of droning on the next tech buzzword, Sheila helped Dropbox stay relentlessly focused on customer love, making sure people understood the concrete benefits of the technologies Dropbox was developing to make their lives easier and help them work more productively.
In her talk with Jesse, Sheila shares what drove her interest in technology, how her early experiences at well-established brands prepared her to guide Dropbox through its leap from consumer brand to enterprise platform, and what compelled her to join Opendoor at a time when Dropbox was hitting its stride as a public company. Sheila also draws on her knowledge of today’s technology landscape as an investor at Basis Set Ventures to offer a glimpse of what the future might hold for workplaces in every industry.
Guest Bio
Sheila Vashee is a Partner at Basis Set Ventures, an early stage venture fund focused on investing in the future of work. Previously, she was the VP of Growth at Opendoor, where she oversaw the marketing, partnerships, and product teams responsible for growth across the buyer and seller marketplace. Sheila took Opendoor from 4 to 21 markets and billions in GMV in a few years.
Prior to that, she was the second marketing hire at Dropbox, where she launched every major product, including Dropbox Business, and helped 12x the Dropbox user base to 600m users and >1Bn in revenue.
Helpful Links
Sheila’s podcast: Hypergrowth: The Early Years
Forbes article on Sheila joining BSV
Basis Set Ventures
Sheila on LinkedIn and Twitter
When Steve Schwartz founded Art of Tea, it was with the belief that there was an opportunity to make people’s lives better through tea. His authentic yet innovative blends and passion for teaching ultimately gave rise to a highly successful B2B business through partnerships with leading restaurateurs, chefs, and hospitality brands - which grew into a D2C brand in the wake of the pandemic.
In his talk with Jesse, Steve describes his journey from inquisitive student to master tea blender to business founder. Follow him from the Ayurvedic Institute in New Mexico, where he studied plant alchemy, to tea-growing fields in Asia, where he first began to “believe in the leaf,” to make-or-break business meetings with some of the country’s most well-known chefs and restaurants.
Finally, learn how Art of Tea has adapted during the pandemic to help consumers continue to enjoy a delicious, time-honored ritual that gives at least a little control back to us in these turbulent times.
Guest Bio
Steve Schwartz is a Master Tea Blender and the Founder of Art of Tea, a hand-crafted tea purveyor based in Los Angeles. At Art of Tea, Steve applies his background in ayurveda to the creation of award-winning blends that showcase his passion for the alchemy of combining herbs and botanicals.
Steve’s drive and passion for expanding people’s knowledge of the history of tea has cultivated relationships with brands, acclaimed chefs and restaurants such as Google, Vera Wang, #Slack, The Peninsula Hotels, Huntington Gardens, Wolfgang Puck, Adam Perry Lang, Rustic Canyon Group, Craft Los Angeles and more.
Helpful Links
The Art of Tea website
Spotlight on Art of Tea in the Los Angeles Times in 2014
Q&A with Steve in Forbes in 2020
Steve’s Teacher: Dr. Vasant Lad
Steve on Linkedin
Disruption and change have been with us forever. But disruption and change at work, in business, in organizations—somehow it seems harder. It's unpredictable, it's uncertain, and it's stressful. And we often back away from it as a result.
In her conversation with Jesse, Charlene Li reflects on a career spent empowering everyone—from frontline workers to CEOs—to embrace and move forward in the face of disruptive change. She discusses her experience growing up in Michigan as a woman of color, and how it led her to embrace her own disruptive nature. She describes the structural attributes and convictions that allowed organizations like Adobe, Amazon, and Southern New Hampshire University to see the needs of their future customers - and overcome deeply entrenched barriers and elements of the status quo to serve them. And she offers a poignant look at why organizations in every industry must embrace Diversity and Inclusion now if they are to reach their potential for growth and impact.
Guest Bio
For the past two decades, Charlene Li has been helping people see the future. She’s the New York Times bestselling author of six books, including her newest release,The Disruption Mindset: Why Some Businesses Transform While Others Fail, and Open Leadership, as well as co-author of the critically-acclaimed book, Groundswell. She founded and ran Altimeter Group, a disruptive industry analyst firm, and has been a respected advisor to Fortune 500 companies.
Named one of the Top 50 Leadership Innovators by Inc., and one of the most creative people in business by Fast Company, Charlene has appeared at events ranging from TED and the World Business Forum to SxSW. She has appeared on 60 Minutes and PBS NewsHour, and is frequently quoted by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, and The Associated Press.
Helpful Links
Charlene named to the list of the 100 B2B Thought Leaders and Influencers You Should Follow in 2021
Website for Altimeter @ Prophet, the analyst firm studying digital disruption founded by Charlene.
Charlene's Book The Disruption Mindset on Amazon
Charlene’s website
Charlene on Twitter
Gurdeep Pall is a monumental builder whose constant curiosity, occasional audacity, and lifelong penchant for asking “what if” and “why?” positioned him as one of the key creators of and contributors to the most foundational Internet and communications technologies of the Third Industrial Revolution. Now in his 32nd year at Microsoft, Gurdeep has turned his attention to the scalable and ethical development of high-utility Autonomous Systems.
HIs conversation with Jesse touches on the sources of Gurdeep's fascination with technology, the inventive culture of Microsoft during the internet revolution, Gurdeep's role in inventing technologies central to today's digital economy like TCP/IP, VPN, and cloud-based communications, his personal reflections on working directly with Bill Gates, and a philosophy for moving from Comprehension to Creation that Gurdeep has applied in his stewardship of technologies and teams. The conversation closes on a discussion of the enormous potential of Gurdeep’s present-day work in AI.
Throughout, you’ll learn how Gurdeep brought together a lifelong love for learning, a disciplined technical expertise, and a deep interpersonal empathy to not only invent practical technologies - but to reimagine and help advance our world in the process.
Guest BioGurdeep Singh Pall is the Corporate Vice President for Business AI at Microsoft and member of Technology & Research Leadership Team. He is an intrepreneur, a product thinker, and foremost a passionate technologist.
Gurdeep’s team of research scientists, engineers and business leaders is bringing digital transformation to business tasks through the power of AI, including a recent effort to train autonomous systems with reinforcement learning efficiently. Gurdeep is also responsible for Microsoft Garage and Hackathon, a hyper-scale, grassroots innovation program.
Teammates had the following to say about Gurdeep:
“A visionary builder of great products and businesses.” -Amey Parandekar
“I was struck by his authenticity.” -Moz Thomas
“He never let hierarchy get in the way of engaging with us personally.” -Kavita Kamani
“Gurdeep reaffirms for me that the role of a leader is to inspire.” -Ross Smith
Helpful Links
Autonomous Systems: Gurdeep’s current world at Microsoft: https://innovation.microsoft.com/en-us/autonomous-systems
Gurdeep on the future of autonomy on the Microsoft Blog:
https://blogs.microsoft.com/ai-for-business/autonomous-systems-vision/
A perspective on Gurdeep’s life published by The Global Sikh Trail:
https://theglobalsikhtrail.com/story-english/gurdeep-singh-pall/
Gurdeep on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gurdeep-pall-0aa639bb/
Kim Scott, bestselling author and CEO coach, talks with Jesse about her new book Just Work and her New York Times Bestselling book Radical Candor along with the experiences and lessons that moved her to write. She talks about her lifelong love of writing and the value of storytelling in helping change behaviors. Kim reflects on the connected nature of her writing and executive coaching and on her philosophies on being an engaged professional advisor.
Kim shares specific and moving examples of how she learned to care personally for people while also challenging them directly, and how caring personally and challenging directly became the basis for her Radical Candor. She also discusses how leaders can foster the right mix of meaningful debate and clear decision making, Kim speaks openly about the discovery of some of her own biases, and how that exploration and her conversations with underrepresented-minority colleagues and their experiences became the motivation for writing Just Work. She even shares a secret she learned about identical twins early on in parenthood.
How do I give critical feedback without damaging my relationships? What is radical candor? How can a leader be caring while also pushing for high achievement? How can we foster a culture of healthy, productive debate in order to drive better decision making? How can we achieve a more just and productive work environment?
Guest Bio:
Kim Scott is the author of Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity and co-founder of the company Radical Candor. Kim was a CEO coach at Dropbox, Qualtrics, Twitter, and other tech companies.
She was a member of the faculty at Apple University and before that led AdSense, YouTube, and DoubleClick teams at Google. She’s also managed a pediatric clinic in Kosovo and started a diamond-cutting factory in Moscow. She lives with her family in Silicon Valley.
Building Blocks:
What skill or activity or habit is essentially you? Write about what it is and why it's essentially you. Maybe you're a surfer and surfing is not just your way of staying in shape and in balance, but of completely escaping the terra firma that anchors you to the day-to-day and inspires you to think of each day anew. Maybe, like Kim, you're a writer - and you have your own ways of using the written word to relax, reflect or reason with yourself. Or it could be art, music, building and repair … or really anything at all. Just take 10 minutes and write out what it is about this skill or activity or habit that's absolutely essential to you and give yourself gratitude for having discovered it and for living it. If you can't put your finger on anything specific, talk to two or three people who know you well and see if they can help you discover something hidden in plain sight or find a passion that you can make your own.
Helpful Links:
In addition to Radical Candor, she is the author of three novels and the forthcoming leadership book Just Work: Get Sht Done, Fast & Fair*, available March 16, 2021, from St. Martin’s Press.
The Radical Candor organization: https://www.radicalcandor.com/
Kim’s website: https://kimmalonescott.com/
Kim on Twitter: @kimballscott
Kim’s 2017 interview with Kara Swisher: https://www.vox.com/2017/4/13/15295070/transcript-kim-scott-book-radical-candor-live-onstage-recode-decode
Kim at Hubspot’s Inbound Conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj9GLeNCgm4
Bill Carr - entrepreneur, executive coach, author, and former Vice President of Digital Media at Amazon - discusses practical, proven methodologies that Amazon invented to bring products and business to market successfully (including the Narrative-based approach to communication, the PR/FAQ document to guide product development, and the Bar Raiser program for hiring). In this conversation, Bill shares insights and perspectives gleaned from both successes and failures during his 15 years at Amazon. He talks about his reasons for writing Working Backwards (with co-author and former Amazon executive Colin Bryar), the creation of the digital media business at Amazon, the role that Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos played as the “Chief Slowdown Officer,” Amazon’s use of time as a competitive advantage, the way the company puts into practice its 14 Leadership Principles, and the exemplar organizations Amazon itself looks to in order to improve its own processes and operations. Bill punctuates the narrative with candid and honest stories of his own intrapreneurial experiences as a leader who played key roles in developing Amazon Music, Prime Video, and Amazon Studios.
How do you make decisions as an executive? What does it really mean to start with the customer and work backwards? What can you learn about the applicability to your organization of Amazon’s successes across so many different categories of GDP? How do you design products and services to ensure success?
Guest Bio:
Bill Carr joined Amazon in 1999, where he spent more than 15 years. As Vice President of Digital Media, Bill launched and managed the company's global digital music and video businesses, including Amazon Music, Prime Video, and Amazon Studios. After Amazon, Bill was an Executive In Residence with Maveron, LLC, an early-stage, consumer-only venture capital firm. Bill later served as the Chief Operating Officer of OfferUp, the largest mobile marketplace for local buyers and sellers in the U.S. Today Bill is co-founder of Working Backwards LLC where he coaches executives at both large and early-stage companies on how to implement the management practices developed at Amazon.
Building Blocks:
Think about what kind of mechanism your organization could employ to slow down now to move fast later. Maybe it is the written narrative or the PR/FAQ. Maybe there's a piece around how you evaluate talent, which Bill hit on today in which he talks about in his book. But maybe those things inspire you to think of something different that you want to go build. It could be a tool or a process or a way to help your teams get more of a competitive advantage out of their time, like we talked about with Bill today.
Helpful Links:
Colin Bryar & Bill Carr’s book, Working Backwards: https://www.amazon.com/Working-Backwards-Insights-Stories-Secrets/dp/1250267595/
Working Backwards LLC: https://www.workingbackwards.com/
Additional advice on applying Amazon’s Working Backwards PR FAQ process: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/applying-amazons-working-backwards-process-leaders-ian-mcallister
Forbes article about how Amazon encourages intrapreneurship: https://www.forbes.com/sites/innovatorsdna/2017/08/08/how-does-amazon-stay-at-day-one/?sh=44e97d0b7e4d
A16Z’s podcast featuring Colin Bryar and Bill Carr: https://a16z.simplecast.com/episodes/working-backwards-amazon-bezos-memos-releases-narratives-innovation
Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Harvard Business Review, on the value of being an intrapreneur: https://hbr.org/2020/03/why-you-should-become-an-intrapreneur
Amazon Leadership Principles: https://www.amazon.jobs/en/principles
About the Andon Cord: https://kanbanzone.com/resources/lean/toyota-production-system/andon/
Bill Carrjoined Amazon in 1999 and spent more than 15 years with the company. As Vice President of Digital Media, Bill launched and managed the company's global digital music and video businesses, including Amazon Music, Prime Video, and Amazon Studios. After Amazon, Bill was an Executive In Residence with Maveron, LLC, an early-stage, consumer-only venture capital firm. Bill later served as the Chief Operating Officer of OfferUp, the largest mobile marketplace for local buyers and sellers in the U.S. Today Bill is co-founder of Working Backwards LLC where he coaches executives at both large and early-stage companies on how to implement the management practices developed at Amazon.
Kim Scott is the author of Just Work: Get Sh*t Done Fast and Fair and Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity and co-founder of the company Radical Candor. Kim was a CEO coach at Dropbox, Qualtrics, Twitter, and other tech companies. She was a member of the faculty at Apple University and before that led AdSense, YouTube, and DoubleClick teams at Google. Kim managed a pediatric clinic in Kosovo and started a diamond-cutting factory in Moscow. She lives with her family in Silicon Valley.
Gurdeep Pall leads the Business AI Group at Microsoft, a team comprising Research Scientists, Engineers and Business Leaders bringing digital transformation to business tasks through the power of AI, including a recent effort to train Autonomous Systems with Reinforcement Learning efficiently. He is also responsible for Microsoft Garage and Hackathon, a hyperscale grass-roots innovation program. Prior to this, Gurdeep was responsible for Skype, Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams efforts, including starting Lync (now Skype for Business) and developing it into a multi-billion-dollar business. Gurdeep’s favorite technology moment was demonstrating the world’s first live real-time spoken language translation within a Skype call at the Code Conference in 2014. Gurdeep joined Microsoft in January 1990 as a software design engineer after graduate school at University of Oregon. He has worked on many breakthrough products in his tenure. Pall was part of the Windows NT development team, working on the first version of Windows NT 3.1 in 1993 as a software design engineer, all the way through Windows XP in 2001 as general manager of Windows Networking. During his work on Windows, he led design and implementation of core networking technologies such as PPP, TCP/IP, VPNs, Internet Routing, and Wi-Fi, and parts of the operating system. Pall co-authored the first VPN protocol in the industry - Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) - which received the prestigious Innovation of the Year award from PC Magazine in 1996. He also authored several documents and standards in the networking area in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards body in the mid-1990s. Since then, amongst other things, Gurdeep has led Conversation-as-a-Platform, Microsoft Speech, Tellme, and Bing Maps initiatives. Gurdeep Pall has been a keynote speaker at many industry conferences over the years. He was named one of the "15 Innovators & Influencers Who Will Make A Difference" in 2008 by Information Week. He co-authored "Institutional Memory Goes Digital," which was published by Harvard Business Review as part of "Breakthrough Ideas for 2009" and subsequently presented at the World Economic Forum 2009 in Davos. Pall holds 25+ patents in networking, VoIP and collaboration areas. He has served on the board of trustees of Ashesi University, Ghana.
Dr. Kellie McElhaney, Distinguished Teaching Fellow and Founding Director of the Center for Equity, Gender and Leadership (EGAL) at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, talks to Jesse about how she blends inspiration and agitation to help students and business leaders discover how to grow and change, and about the times she’s needed to muster up the courage of her conviction to make real change in her own professional and personal life. She shares her view on the importance of corporate social responsibility as good business strategy, the role of our lived experiences in helping inform our ability to grow, and how Equity-Fluent Leadership is a key to building more diverse, inclusive organizations.
How can I use my position or business to do good in the world? How can my values and core competencies inform my corporate social responsibility strategy? How can equity fluency help me build a more impactful and profitable business? How can I develop more personal courage, and enable my business to make more courageous moves?
Guest Bio:
Dr. McElhaney is the Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Equity, Gender and Leadership (EGAL) and is on the faculty at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. She also runs her own Equity Fluent Leadership consultancy and advisory services for businesses, boards, and nonprofits. Kellie also founded the Center for Responsible Business (CRB).
Kellie is a passionate believer in the potential and power of business to make positive change. She authored the book Just Good Business: The Strategic Guide to Aligning Corporate Responsibility and Brand. She also writes numerous case studies of companies who are investing in diversity and inclusion, and conducts research in the areas of equal pay, conscious inclusion, equity fluent leadership, and value-creating strategies of diversity and inclusion. As such, Kellie is a much sought-after global keynote speaker, corporate / c-suite advisor, strategy consultant, mentor, and professor.
Kellie holds degrees. from the University of North Carolina (B.A.), Ohio University (M.A.), and the University of Michigan (PhD). She lives in Oakland, California with her two college-aged daughters.
Linkedin: /kelliemcelhaney
Building Blocks:
Think about your own lived experience and write down a few things:
- What do you think have been the top 2-3 influences in your life?
- How did you get to have access to those influences, those people or those experiences of those environments?
- How have those influences, experiences, or environments affect the outcomes to this point in your life?
Helpful Links:
Kellie’s publications, research, and accomplishments: https://expertfile.com/experts/kellie.mcelhaney
Kellie’s book, Just Good Business, about the strategic value of corporate social responsibility: https://www.amazon.com/Just-Good-Business-Strategic-Responsibility/dp/1576754413
Kellie speaking at TEDxPresido: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpNoEs1TH58
Berkeley Haas Center for Equality, Gender, and Leadership: https://haas.berkeley.edu/equity/
Berkeley Haas Center for Responsible Business: https://haas.berkeley.edu/responsible-business/
Andrea Robb is a talent advisor, designer, and leadership coach. In her conversation with Jesse, she draws on her experiences as a talent executive and consultant to lay out a vision for the future of the workplace experience and of talent management. Andrea shares her views on post-COVID working realities and how forward-thinking teams might improve the employee experience and promote greater empathy and inclusivity. She shares deep insights from her time at Airbnb, including how they turned the company’s external purpose around Belonging into a distinctive employee culture. Andrea discusses the relationship between company purpose, belonging, diversity, and inclusion, talks about lessons learned early in her career at Lucasfilm, and reflects on the importance of discovering and acting on clues that one finds during their career and life.
How will COVID shape the workplace moving forward? How do you help creative talent develop their skills? How do companies create an inclusive culture where employees feel belonging? How can belonging be incorporated into diversity and inclusion programs? How can you start discovering your purpose?
Guest Bio:
Andrea is a former HR leader at Lucasfilm, Airbnb, and Autodesk--with a focus on Organization Development and Learning. She is now an entrepreneur and advisor to organizations on the future of work and education, as founder of Andrea Robb Consulting. Current and former clients include Dive Studios, Lucasfilm, Airbnb, Stanford University, CompassPoint, and Weebly.com. She is also a founding partner at HumanCentric Labs, which seeks to redefine and design how organizations work, using agile, self-management, and human centered design research.
She works with organizations in the public and private sectors that seek modern ideas for work - including organization design, talent strategy, recruiting, learning + development, people analytics, and diversity + belonging. Andrea also holds a board position on The Alumni Association of the University of Michigan.
She holds a Bachelor’s in Psychology from the University of Michigan and a Masters in Education and Public Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and two children.
Building Blocks:
Think about your life right now and also to take a trip back in time.What clues there are in your personal, educational, and professional background that might hint at what you could go build or how you could build. Are you somebody who really enjoyed being a camp counselor as a teenager? A swim coach and you've loved nature your whole life? Maybe that implies something about a career move related to improving our planet, climate, or great outdoors. Maybe you're a person who finds Zen in reading or writing, but so far you've only taken on blogs and papers. What would it look like for you to consider writing your first book? Take an honest and complete look back, and maybe do it over the course of two or three settings and see what clues you come up with and write about some of the possibilities those clues might portend for you.
Helpful Links:
Andrea’s website: https://andrearobb.com/
Qualtrics’ latest research on the importance of belonging in the workplace
Airbnb co-founder Brian Chesky on Airbnb’s identity of “Belong Anywhere”
Dr. Lauren Aguilar, leader of the Inclusion, Diversity, and Belonging Practice at Forshay Consulting, who helped develop the Airbnb Belonging Index and Sally Thornton as Founder/CEO
Belonging Researcher, Dr. Greg Walton at Stanford University
Research on Belonging and Diversity for women, with highly practical applications, at VMware Women's Leadership Innovation Lab. In particular, Shelley J. Correll, the Faculty Director and Principal Investigator has developed a "Small Wins Strategy" to quickly improve diversity and belonging.
Harvard Business Review article on the benefits of building on employee engagement to achieve greater outcomes
Dr. Michael Stern, CEO of the Climate Corporation and Head of Digital Farming for Bayer Crop Science, shares how he blended a deep scientific knowledge with a distinctive leadership approach to build products, teams, and businesses in agriculture. Mike shares early education experiences that helped him choose a career in chemistry, his introduction to and fascination with agricultural science, some of his biggest career successes, and the way his research skills opened opportunities to develop and grow as a manager and leader. Mike shares his secrets to success and the way he’s used the tools of science to be a successful leader at the intersection of science, technology, and agriculture.
How does scientific research work together with business and environmental needs to create a better world? How do you make innovative decisions in a changing industry? How do you take advantage of disruption to strengthen your business? What role can science play in developing industry-defining technologies? How are traditionally low-tech industries being redefined by science and technology?
Guest Bio:
Dr. Michael Stern serves as a member of the Executive Leadership Team and as Head of Climate Corporation and Digital Farming for the Crop Science division of Bayer. Based in St. Louis, Stern leads a diverse team that develops digital tools to help the world’s farmers understand their fields in ways that have never been possible before.
Before joining Bayer, Stern was the CEO of The Climate Corporation and a member of Monsanto’s Executive Team. Prior to his role at The Climate Corporation, Stern led Monsanto’s Row Crop Business in the Americas with responsibility for its corn, soy, cotton, specialty crops, licensing and crop protection businesses across the regions. During his tenure at Monsanto, which began in 1988, Stern has served in leadership roles for a variety of its businesses, including: Vice President, U.S. Seeds and Traits; President, American Seeds; CEO of Renessen LLC, a biotechnology joint venture with Cargill; and Director of Technology, Agricultural Productivity.
Stern is an active member of the St. Louis community, where he serves on the board of the Missouri Botanical Garden. He is married with three children.
Building Blocks:
Think about your version of applying a skill set from one context into another context. Maybe you're really good at playing an instrument and you're just starting a programing job. How could your musical acumen help you as you build, refine and ship software code? Maybe you're somebody who's traveled a lot or you speak several languages fluently. How can your ability to think in a different language open you up to new opinions and perspectives among your colleagues? Think of something you're good at or specially trained in and ask yourself, how can that thing help me in some other area of my life?
Helpful Links:
US Department of Agriculture perspective on Big Data and IoT in agriculture
Business Insider: Big Data and Farming
N. Venkat Venkatraman: Monsanto's “Data + Analytics” Frontier
More on what The Climate Corporation does: https://climate.com/
Wes Selke, Managing Director and Founder of Better Ventures, shares the story of a kid with a fondness for math and languages who goes on to blend a deep financial acumen with a strong sense of purpose to help pioneer and advance the category of social venture capital. Wes shares powerful, relatable anecdotes including his “need” to learn Spanish, his experiences on church-based volunteer trips, and his soul-searching late nights in Chicago that would later prove to be defining steps in determining his career path.
Wes talks about the conflict between a sense of fulfilment from his mission trips and his early career success in finance. He shares how he thought through, and searched for, a more meaningful application of his finance skills, how he found opportunities through friends and through graduate school, and how he got started in social venture capital. Wes concludes by discussing what he’s learned as an investor in social ventures, an advisor to purpose-led business builders, and a social entrepreneur based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
How do you connect technical skills into a sense of purpose? How can you make a career that is both profitable and impactful? How do you find opportunities for your unique set of skills? What is the best way to position yourself to build something meaningful?
Guest Bio:
Wes has 20 years of venture capital and investment experience with Better Ventures, Good Capital, William Blair, and Ernst & Young's Mergers & Acquisitions group. He earned an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and a BBA from the University of Michigan. Wes has volunteered with organizations around the globe, which has fueled his passion for applying his business skills to build a better world.
Wes enjoys rolling up his sleeves to help mission-driven entrepreneurs realize their vision for building high-growth world-changing companies. He lives in Oakland, CA with his wife and three young kids and enjoys road cycling in the East Bay hills and Sunday trips to the farmers market.
LinkedIn
Building Blocks:
Write down one thing about your hopes, goals or dreams, that if people knew it, they could help you become a better builder. Maybe like Wes, there's a career pivot you want to make, or maybe you're in search of the perfect business partner or co-founder or colleague. Maybe there's a learning journey around that people around you could help out with. Undoubtedly, there's a ton of people in your network who could help. Wes talked about how doors will open if you follow your passions, but sometimes those doors have to be opened for you. And the more people who know about who you are and what you believe and what you want to do, the more doors will open.
Helpful Links:
Better Ventures
Paulo Coelho’s book, The Alchemist
Presentation on Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theological views on vocation
Kevin Jones, “Two Pocket Thinking”
Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus’s book, Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty
Julie talks about her first career aspiration to become a waitress to pay for college and how the lessons she learned at waiting tables taught her career-defining skills of empathy and creating a positive customer experience. Julie talks about her first job in tech--as a customer service rep--and learning to code so she could resolve user experience problems at the source and the product impact she had in that role. Julie the female mentors who helped her define herself as a woman in tech. Julie shares her career path from customer service at Aldus to managing UX for Office and running XBox at Microsoft and her eventual Chief Experience Officer roles at Microsoft and Qualtrics.
Julie shares her insights on how team culture and employee experience impact the user experience and how she works to develop the right kind of culture. She shares her perspective on working toward great outcomes in the face of distrust and how to build high-performing product and customer teams.
How do you build a team culture which creates world-class products? How do you overcome organizational and engineering barriers to create an incredible product experience? How do you look at the end-to-end user experience and build products that compete based on a powerful, productive user experience? Julie shares her stories and experiences about how to build a creative culture centered around the user’s experience.
Guest Bio:
Julie is passionate about building technology that gets out of the way so users can focus on what matters most. Her mantra is “People first, technology second.” As a leader, she believes her door should always ber open to listen and embrace everyone’s individual personality, perspective, style, and abilities--making teams stronger and more creative. Julie believes great ideas can come from anyone and anywhere.
She has over 30 years of customer and product management experience. Her career focus has been re-imagining platforms for intelligent work. She has lead product management for SharePoint, the Microsoft Office Suite, Windows, and XBox. She oversaw the successful launch of Windows 7 and Office 365. She currently serves as the Chief Experience Officer for Qualtrics.
Linkedin
Twitter: @Julie_LGreen
Building Blocks:
Put yourself into the role of the Customer Experience Officer for any organization you're a part of. It can be your company, your neighborhood association, your church group, your school board, anything. Pick one organization you're a part of - and you're the CXO.
Identify two specific experiences you would Build.
#1, As the new CXO, what's the biggest “experience gap” you have to close? What's that part of the experience of the product your company sells, or the service your group provides, or the culture of the organization you're a part of, that just needs to be improved? And what specific steps, what specific actions, would you take, to improve it?
#2, What's an experience your organization doesn’t provide today that could be an incredible Breakthrough? Where you're missing a huge opportunity to do something great for customers, for employees, or an even broader group of people? And what specific steps would it take to pull that off?
I think you'll find if you work on this Building Block, you'll get to some really pragmatic and doable things. Stuff you and the people around you can go pull off. And do YOUR part to make the world just a little bit of a better place by serving up THAT much better of an experience to people.
If you’d like to share, get it out there on social with the Hashtag #BreakthroughBuilders. Or, if you’d prefer to not share it publicly, go ahead and email it to me at producer@breakthrough-builders.com. I’d love hearing from you and learning from what you built.
Helpful Links:
Harvard Business Review on Why Every Company Needs a Chief Experience Officer
Forbes reporting on the Chief Experience Officer role
Qualtrics thought leadership on the state of the Chief Experience Officer in high tech here.
FastCompany’s coverage of the reaction to Julie’s promotion to Head of XBox here
The Atlantic’s perspective on Julie’s promotion at Microsoft here
Fortune’s reporting on Julie’s move from Microsoft to Qualtrics here
Christine Thach’s TED Talk on how businesses can learn how to build culture from refugee communities
A deep dive into Tech Company Culture on Medium here
Qualtrics’s The Global State of XM 2020
Julie at the Dublin Tech Summit
Wired Magazine spread on Julie Larson-Green as the new head of XBox
Kim Malek, CEO and Co-Founder of Salt & Straw, shares her journey of quitting a successful corporate career to open an artisanal ice cream shop designed around community. Kim talks about early family experiences that left her wanting to be an entrepreneur, but feeling reluctant to chase her dream. She talks about starting her career as a barista at Starbucks when the company had just 30 stores, and how she went on to learn from roles at Yahoo!, Adidas, and Starbucks corporate. She shares what she learned from her career roles that helped her in starting her own business - and the pivotal moment that gave her the push to pursue her ice cream dream.
Kim shares her philosophy of community-centered business and how partnering with her local community helped the business differentiate and succeed. She talks about Salt & Straw’s creative process for working with the community to create ice creams that tell a local story in respective communities. And she shares her perspectives on the superpowers of women as leaders and on the power of ignoring advice to forge one’s own path.
Guest Bio:
An industry leader and innovator, Kim Malek is the CEO and Co-Founder of the Portland-based Salt & Straw Ice Cream. Since its founding in 2011, Malek has built Salt & Straw from a humble ice cream cart into a fast-growing company with 21 locations along the West Coast while retaining its bones as a family-run company known for its culture of hospitality. Malek is a humble and passionate leader, engaged member of the community, and a champion for causes such as childhood hunger and equal rights.
Prior to launching Salt & Straw, Malek held positions at Starbucks Coffee, Yahoo!, adidas and Gardenburger in marketing, community outreach, and product management and development. She also worked with Bono of U2 on an online music service (RED) and with Seattle’s Cupcake Royale, specializing in retail marketing and management and bringing new, epicurean trends to market.
Malek founded Salt & Straw to create neighborhood gathering places. The Oregonian named Salt & Straw as one of Oregon’s Top Workplaces in both 2014 and 2015.
Building Blocks:
Write down one thing you'd love to be able to build or create one day. And then, as a second step, write down what you think you need to do before you start building or creating. Then, finally, take a look at that list and circle the 3 things you'll commit to doing next year, in 2021, to make progress toward putting your idea into the world.
Yes, I may be the first person to have asked you for a new year's resolution. But hey, 2021 is literally one of the freshest starts to a calendar year that a lot of us have ever had in our lives, and I want you all to jump into it with energy and ambition. And to do your thing to make your part of the world a better place.
Helpful Links:
Check out and buy from the Salt & Straw website
Kim and her cousin and co-founder Tyler featured on the Williams Sonoma blog
Salt & Straw feature on Forbes.com
Spotlight on Kim’s perspective on inclusion and justice at Basic Rights Oregon
The New York Times Magazine article announcing Humphrey Slocombe, as discussed by Kim in the show as the push to start Salt & Straw
News about Danny Meyer’s investment in Salt & Straw at Eater (Portland)
Back in the Trailer for this season, we promised that you’d meet the Founder and CEO of one of the most innovative ice cream brands in the world. Well, we’re dropping this mini-episode today to let you know that, on December 9, our Guest on the show is Kim Malek, the CEO and Co-Founder of Portland-based Salt and Straw. For those of you that know Salt & Straw, the brand needs no introduction. For those that haven’t yet been to one of their scoop shops or ordered the product by mail, let’s just say that once you experience it, you won’t forget it! Kim and her team build connections and communities, and cultivate relationships with local farmers, artisans, and chefs to fearlessly explore and create some of the most distinctive flavors of ice cream you’ll ever come across. And it tastes absolutely incredible.
Join us next week to hear what inspired Kim to build Salt & Straw, how she did it, who she looks to for guidance and support, and how she and her team navigated the pandemic to set up the business to grow and open five new stores in 2021.
Looking forward to having you!
Kristine Chin, VP of Customer Experience at Twilio, talks about how understanding “Enthusiast” customers empowered her to build great experiences. She discusses her education in political economy, with stories of how systems thinking helped her develop her problem-solving approach. She shares what she learned from losing her home in the Oakland Firestorm and how a semester in Slovenia helped her better understand herself and her career interests. She talks about her leadership roles at eBay, Ten-X, and Twilio.
Kristine shares her perspective on what it means to be customer obsessed and about collaborating with customers to build a strong marketplace. She shares her philosophy of being “delightfully persistent” and creating a customer-first culture. She shares key things she learned about setting up a successful customer experience program.
How do you attract customers to a new platform or marketplace? How do you set up a new customer experience program? How do you influence change in a company? How do you create back-office changes to support a strong customer experience?
Guest Bio:
Kristine joined Twilio in 2018 as Vice President, Global Customer Experience. She is responsible for optimizing the end-to-end customer experience. This includes spearheading a company-wide effort to gain a deeper understanding of their customers and raise awareness of their needs.
Kristine previously spent 3 years at Ten-X (formerly Auction.com) as SVP, Customer Experience and 12 years at eBay, where she ultimately served as general manager of the $4B eBay Motors category and ultimately lead eBay’s North American Partner Strategy & Operations. She holds a patent for features to display inventory to the right buyer – and has four additional patents pending related to matching sellers and products with interested buyers.
Kristine’s experience also includes work with enterprise, SMB and consumer customers. She began her career in strategy consulting to the telecommunications industry. She holds a BA from University of California, Berkeley and a Harvard MBA.
linkedin.com/in/kchin/
Building Blocks:
A CX leader's most important role is to help other teams discover the customer. Who are they? What are their behaviors, needs, attitudes? Where are they satisfied, and where are they stuck? The only way you can deliver that consistent end-to-end experience, the one you draw up on that journey map as an ideal state - the only way you can execute it is to have teams across the company locked in on the customer, and then collaborating, to take action - to either design NEW experiences or address parts of the experience that need to be fixed.
Think about what opportunities you have in your role to collaborate better across teams to give your customers a better experience. Maybe you're a marketer looking at customer feedback on the product all day long, but you don't know that much about your company's next feature release or product roadmap, and spending more time with the product team could help out. Or maybe you're on the engineering team and you've got a backlog that seems exciting, but you think you could build even better if you knew the emotions and associations that customers have with your current product. Whatever it is, write down ONE OTHER TEAM, and the names of TWO SPECIFIC PEOPLE, whom you can reach out to in the next week to start to start to do some silo spanning, and get to better outcomes for your customer.
Helpful Links:
“ROI of Customer Experience 2020” by Qualtrics https://www.qualtrics.com/xm-institute/roi-of-customer-experience-2020/
“Creating and Sustaining a Customer-Centric Culture” by Qualtrics https://www.qualtrics.com/xm-institute/creating-and-sustaining-a-customer-centric-culture/
“Where Net Promoter Score Goes Wrong” by Christina Stahlkopf; Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2019/10/where-net-promoter-score-goes-wrong
Farhan Thawar, VP Engineering at Shopify, believes learning is an infinite game. His narrative illustrates this philosophy in diverse, compelling ways as he shares early influences that helped him discover a love for math and computers, his academic and professional evolution, and his desire to surround himself with people who will help him learn. He tells stories about how this desire to learn created opportunities to build companies and communities.
Farhan shares how he thinks about career moves in terms of learning compensation instead of monetary compensation. He comments on the power of “looking stupid” and a willingness to be wrong. He shares his perspectives on community building, personal decision frameworks, and how to maximize “kilojoules per minute” to maximize professional and personal utility.
How do you maximize learning and personal growth in your career? How do you choose between good career paths? What is your connection between personal growth and community building? How does your community contribute to your success as a builder? How can asking stupid questions make you a more valuable member of your team?
Guest Bio:
Farhan is an engineer by training, everything else by experience. The desire to always be learning has driven Farhan’s career from technology giants like Microsoft through to small startups, running a tech incubator, and ultimately to his current role at Shopify. Farhan is a prolific writer and speaker, and loves to share what he is learning with other people.
Farhan is currently the VP of Engineering at Shopify, an advisor to 3 startups, and an angel investor for over 20 companies. He has been published in Wired and TechCrunch magazines, was honored in 2010 as one of Toronto’s 25 most powerful people, and has spoken at a number of conferences including TEDxToronto. Farhan lives with his family in Toronto.
Twitter: @fnthawar
Medium: @fnthawar
Building Blocks:
In this episode, Farhan framed Learning as an Infinite Game. He contrasted it with other pursuits that he labeled Finite, like getting that next job or a promotion. I think we can all agree that we're never done learning. But sometimes it can seem like we don't have time - to pick up that new book, to take that class, to have that conversation - and we lose the chance to learn as a result. What Farhan has done that's both elegant and efficient is to use learning, rather than something like advancement or money, as the organizing principle for his decisions. And I think that's something I could do better at, and I'm guessing many people want to do better at.
In the spirit of Farhan's message, write down two things: First, what is something that you would really like to learn? It can be a new language, a way of sleeping better, a even just some things you could do to keep your life more organized! And it can be a long- or a short-term thing.
Second, what are 3 things - 1 tomorrow, 1 by next week, and 1 by next month - that you can do to move yourself along on this learning journey? Get specific. What exactly will you do? Who can help you? What will your goals be? Maybe you have a bunch of ideas. Jot them down, and run them by somebody. And get some input. Be ambitious, but be practical and honest with yourself too. And remember that Farhan, like Robert Chatwani in episode one, talked about the importance of a framework for knowing who you are and your purpose, and building around that. So if you need some inspiration on that front, go back and check out that episode too.
Helpful Links:
Farhan’s TED Talk: “Refining Mobile Application Technology”
Farhan on making decisions: “Do it. Most things are reversible anyway.”
Farhan on asking questions: “Why looking stupid is my superpower”
Farhan’s Wired Magazine article on pair programming
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie
Range: Why Generalists Succeed in a Specialized World by David Epstein
Charlie Sutton, Head of Design at Facebook App, talks with Jesse about key influences, product design experiences, design philosophy, and rewarding collaborations. Charlie shares how his parents--both creative people working in technical jobs--influenced how he thought of the intersection of technical expertise, art, and experience. After studying Arts and Law, Charlie quit the path to law to pursue a career with Apple. He shares stories of how his experience at Apple helped him grow into the fledgling field of product and service design. Charlie talks about moving to Nokia and the Advanced Design studio, where he used provocative design methodologies to push the Nokia product strategy, as well as his eventual move to lead design for the Facebook App.
Charlie shares his insights into building strong product teams, pushing the boundaries of effective design, and navigating a satisfying career. He shares insights into using design fiction, drawing product inspiration from other arts, and engaging in design as a means to create a shared responsibility of agency with consumers.
How do you build effective product teams? How does team diversity improve product quality? What design strategies can you use for improving products? How do you design for augmented reality or virtual reality? How do I resolve conflicts between design and engineering? How do you make products customers will love? Charlie shares his experiences at the intersection of art, technology, engineering, and human experience.
Guest Bio:
Charlie Sutton is Head of Design for the Facebook App, looking after the 400+ person design organization. As a leader, he has grown and managed teams for almost twenty years at companies including Apple, Nokia and Samsung. He specializes in interaction design for mobile, and has extensive experience in developing for both physical products and AR/VR. Charlie is passionate about teaching and building skills in the new generation of designers, and is currently a Senior Lecturer at California College of the Arts.
charlie-sutton.com
Twitter: @CactusWool
Building Blocks:
In this episode, Charlie talked to us about the two-way exchange of design. He feels it's his responsibility to do great product design, but he also believes people using technology have the responsibility to learn. And he talked about learning as the source of our agency as people, and about how it's this agency that leads us to get the most out of the things in our lives.
With that reflection in mind, please consider and write down two things: #1, What you build in your job, or your hobby, or in your role in one of your communities. It can be a product, service, message, feeling, or anything you build. #2, what people need to learn to do to really get the most out of it. If you style hair, maybe it’s that you ask your clientele to go experiment with a new style you gave them, and try on different looks. If you write books, maybe it’s about the provocations and the reflections you ignite in people. If it’s in tech, well, if it’s in tech, reflect on whether you’re building for sufficient agency or if you’re maybe wrestling too much control from people who are using what you make. Think about it!
If you’d like to share, get it out there on social with the Hashtag #BreakthroughBuilders. Or, if you’d prefer to not share it publicly, go ahead and email it to me at producer@breakthrough-builders.com. I’d love hearing from you and learning from what you built.
Helpful Links:
Charlie speaking about “Designing for Virtual Reality”
Charlie at Facebook Developer Conference: “3 Questions that can Change How Products Get Made”
Charlie at Rethink: “The People Problems Framework”
Learn more about design that expands human agency: “Understanding agency in interaction design materials” by Thorlander, Normark, and Rossitto (2012)
Learn more about Design Fiction
Geetha Murali, CEO of Room to Read, talks with Jesse about her work in ending illiteracy and gender inequality, the importance of consistent skill building in one’s career, reflections on a career shift, and her vision for the future of education. Geetha shares how her mom refused a marriage at 13, leaving home to become a nurse and move to the United States. Geetha shares how her mother’s determination and father’s affable serenity helped shape her growth and values in ways that helped her become an effective builder. She shares insights into how education changes and benefits children, and their communities, including success stories she has helped build at Room to Read.
Geetha shares practical insights on how she collaborates with local leaders, governments, and schools to create sustainable change, and about how Room to Read has scaled with the goal of impacting 40 million children by 2025. She shares her transition from statistician to non-profit leader to CEO and her thoughts on how to have a positive impact no matter where you work. She shares her secrets to success, including how she views the importance of education and relationships.
How does education influence your success and the success of the people you care about? How do relationships and cooperation factor into your success? How do you plan your career to include meaningful impact? How do you rethink your strategy to scale into the future?
Guest Bio:
Dr. Geetha Murali is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Room to Read, an organization that believes World Change Starts with Educated Children.® Room to Read is creating a world free from illiteracy and gender inequality by helping children in low-income communities develop literacy skills and a habit of reading, and by supporting girls to build skills to succeed in school and negotiate key life decisions. The organization collaborates with governments and other partner organizations to deliver positive outcomes for children at scale. Room to Read has benefitted more than 18 million children across 16 countries and 37,000 communities and aims to reach 40 million children by 2025.
As Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Geetha oversees Room to Read’s global operations, which include programmatic work in 16 countries, a global network of investors and volunteer chapters, and a worldwide staff of approximately 1,600 employees.
Geetha on Twitter: https://twitter.com/gkmurali
Room to Read Website: https://www.roomtoread.org/
Building Blocks:
Think about a two-step of skills that combine to form a secret sauce for you. Step #1, the hard skills, the tools of the trade. Step #2, the soft skills, the things you can apply in any context or situation.
For Geetha, her hard skills are mathematical fluency and her soft skills are around relationship building. What's your 1-2 step that gives you your secret sauce? Maybe you're the kind of person whose hard skill is that you can write incredibly well and your soft skill is you're great at reading people. So your secret sauce combines those things and ... you're an incredible writer! Or maybe it's a two-step of being an unbelievable co-writer and being incredibly patient. And those combine to make you an unbelievable technical teammate. Whatever your two step and your secret sauce are, write them down and think about what kinds of things you could go do with that combo that's unique to you. I bet you're already doing some unbelievable things as a result, but maybe there's some untapped magic that this exercise can help you unlock in your quest to become an ever better builder.
Helpful Links:
So Good They Can’t Ignore You, a book recommended by Geetha that was seminal to her early in her role as Room to Read’s CEO
“How to Citizen” podcast by Baratunde Thurston
Room to Read success story of Kamla
BBC World Radio interview on COVID-19 impact on girls’ education
Geetha op-ed on the power of books on our mind
“Six Terrific Book Ideas for Getting Girls into Tech” interview with Geetha Murali and Youtube CEO Susan Wojcicki in Wired Magazine
Geetha’s background and story, shared by the Shakti Collaborative
Michelle Obama & Julia Roberts meet with Room to Read kids in Vietnam
Award from the Library of Congress for Room to Read’s special response to COVID-19
Robert reflects on building with purpose, technology as a force for positive change, and the future of marketing. Robert shares how his parents and early childhood experiences influenced his entrepreneurial drive and his desire to be a builder. He recounts the influence of mentors early in his career who helped him explore his skills and values, the decision to move to Silicon Valley to start a venture early in his career, a deeply authentic commitment to philanthropic efforts spurred by tragic circumstances, an intensely personal personal decision to leave eBay, and his perspectives on the future of marketing and brand as the CMO of Atlassian.
How can you discover and articulate your purpose? How can you make difficult career decisions? How can you incorporate your values into the professional decisions you make? How can you be a better marketer, mentor, and leader? Robert shares his perspective and insights on finding a sense of purpose and making purpose the driving influence in career decisions.
Guest Bio:
Robert is a marketing executive with a passion for building early-stage and large-scale consumer platforms. Deep experience in driving revenue growth through performance marketing and consumer branding.
“I believe that technology serves as a force for positive change in society. My passion is building businesses that foster human connections, create hope, and expand opportunity. I lead with empathy, and focus on attracting, retaining, and growing great talent and world-class teams.”
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chatwani
Twitter: @chatwani
Building Blocks:
Reflect on, and write down, what you love and your “why.” Robert suggested that it’s a worthy exercise to take out a piece of paper and write down your reflections on two things: what you love most, and your reason for being. It won’t be easy, and it might take some time. But, speaking from experience, it’s worth it! It helps provide a ton of clarity on how to think about prioritizing your time, effort, and energy. Plus, it will help simplify your life and will help make you more memorable, distinctive, and compelling to others. Check out the Simon Sinek TED talk on this topic, and Brian Solis’ book Lifescale, to get started.
If you’d like to share, get it out there on social with the Hashtag #BreakthroughBuilders. Or, if you’d prefer to not share it publicly, go ahead and email it to me at jesse@breakthrough-builders.com. I’d love hearing from you and learning from what you built.
Helpful Links:
The seminal Simon Sinek TED talk on Starting with Why
Reflections from Robert on his story at the Atlassian Work Life Blog
Robert’s Author Page on the Atlassian Work Life Blog
2-minute interview with Robert speaking about Atlassian at TieCON 2019
Robert quoted on marketing’s role in driving brand-led growth at CMO.com
Daniel Pink on Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose here (article) and here (video)
Creating a CMO Transformation Agenda: Thought Leadership from Prophet here
Four Priorities for CMOs to Reimagine and Rignite Marketing: Thought Leadership from Prophet here
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Breakthrough Builders is a production of the Industries Team at Qualtrics. The show is written and hosted by Jesse Purewal. Mastering by Nate Crenshaw. Post-production and music by Clean Cuts Audio, part of the Three Seas Collective. Design by Baron Santiago and Vansuka Chindavijak, website by Gregory Hedon, and photography by Christie Hemm Klock. Special thanks to the entire Breakthrough Builders crew at Qualtrics including Ali Rohani, Jeremy Smith, John Johnson, and Kylan Lundeen.