Breaking Schemas

It didn’t matter if Gary Schanman worked in the mailroom at MTV, he just wanted to be in the media industry. Gary’s career path may not have turned out exactly the way he pictured it as a 19-year-old advertising major, but one thing he knew for certain was that showing up and having confidence at work matters.  Gary is now the Executive Vice President of Video Services at DISH TV and Sling TV. He’...

From a young age while growing up in Jamaica, Knox Cameron knew he wanted to be a professional soccer player. In order to make that dream come true, he knew it was all about having the right mindset.  Knox went on to become one of the top players for the University of Michigan when the program was just getting off the ground. He set the bar for the level of excellence expected on the team, and it’...

Some brands are so iconic to the American family that the passion for them is passed down generationally. Scott Hegstrom knows all about those kinds of brands.  With a marketing degree in hand from Michigan State University, Scott started his career journey at the household appliance juggernaut – Whirlpool. Through the company’s innovative leadership development program, Scott went on to lead Kitc...

What does it take to become the Anthony Fauci of the University of Michigan? When COVID-19 hit, Dr. Rob Ernst was tapped to lead the school’s response. As the Chief Health Officer for the university, he prioritized maintaining core critical operations in order to provide healthcare for the whole region. For Dr. Ernst, commitment to caring for his community is key. Dr. Ernst chats with Breaking Sch...

For four-time franchise CEO Dave Keil, it’s all about scaling companies for good. A few years back, Dave had a hypothesis that if you applied the same processes and operations of franchising commercial businesses to nonprofits, you could scale them just as successfully, and with massive positive impact. This is how Franchise for Good was born. Before that, Dave spent his career leading and growing...

There’s a key component of venture capital that puts the soul in that kind of work: investing in people. Sheel Mohnot, founder of Better Tomorrow Ventures, understands this well when he’s picking which fintech companies to invest in. A University of Michigan graduate, Sheel has built his career on being able to identify founders who are willing to take risks and believe in themselves.  Sheel joins...

As an accounting major trying to break into the media and entertainment industry, Devin Johnson heard the word “no” a lot. But the now-president of Lebron James and Maverick Carter’s SpringHill Company found his way into the creative world through finance jobs.  That versatility is sewn into the fabric of SpringHill’s mission; it’s a place where accountants can make creative content, too. Devin sa...

The Japanese phrase, ikigai, refers to one’s reason to live. Devon Leahy, the global head of sustainability at Ralph Lauren, found her ikigai at a young age on the ski slopes of Vermont: the outdoors and environmental issues.  Devon took that passion, merged it with a business degree from Michigan Ross, and began crafting what these corporate sustainability roles could look like for major companie...

When Ann Arbor rap darling Mayer Hawthorne first moved to LA, he thought his hip hop producing and DJing was going to launch him into stardom. But some honest feedback made him realize that maybe his real strength was waiting in a completely different direction. Mayer used his musical agility to put out several smash hit soul records that didn’t sound like anything else at the time. He dared to di...

Who says prioritizing fun in your career isn’t a smart move?  Marketing mogul Karima McDaniel has worked with every kind of beauty product under the sun. She made all the right moves to climb ladders at major companies and build a successful career. But at the top, she found herself wanting more. She wanted to find a job that aligned with her values, and on top of that – she wanted to have fun at...

If you ask entrepreneur and former NFL player Dhani Jones what he does for a living, he’ll say he reads the Matrix. His insatiable curiosity and experience in a vast array of worlds has made him a conduit of information.  Whether it’s through his investments, his TV shows, or his consulting work – Dhani likes to help people make sense of the world with his unique perspective. A perspective that is...

Most business leaders with good sense would say starting a for-profit company and a nonprofit company at the same time is not going to be a successful business venture. You need to make the money first and then invest in the nonprofit later. But that’s exactly what David Merritt, former University of Michigan point guard, did. David was so invested in the mission of his company, Merit Goodness, he...

What happens when you combine a business degree, a passion for hip hop, and an expert lens on pop culture? Disruptive magic.  Music journalist Sowmya Krishnamurthy is the author of Fashion Killa: How Hip-Hop Revolutionized High Fashion . After earning her business degree at Michigan Ross, she moved to New York but wasn’t looking for a typical finance job that many in her cohort were after. She was...

The relationships you build on your career journey can play a crucial role in your success. Whether it’s with mentors, peers in your industry, colleagues, clients, or all of the above – networking is key.  But what does cultivating and leveraging those relationships look like in action?  Larry Brinker, Jr. is the CEO of Brinker – a family-owned construction company in Detroit, Mich. that builds co...

In 2018, dancer, marketer, and nonprofit founder Grace French did one of the most courageous things a person can do. She came forward and reported the abuse she had endured as a child at the hands of an infamous USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University doctor.  But that was just the beginning of her work that’s been shaped by courage. Grace went on to found the nonprofit organization, Army of...

How do you get to be the second most subscribed YouTube channel of all time with a viewer count larger than some countries? By being bad at it for a long time.  Marc Hustvedt is the President of MrBeast, a YouTube channel created by Jimmy Donaldson – who Hustvedt calls the “Kobe Bryant of YouTube.” But before the MrBeast team was racking up over 220 million subscribers, it was a lot of shooting fr...

The first step in breaking from the pack and disrupting the status quo is having the agency to do so.  Mike Muse has made a career of doing just that at the intersection of politics and pop culture. He’s the co-founder of the record label, Muse Recordings, the founder and CEO of LawChamps, a TV personality and ABC News correspondent, and the host of the Mike Muse Show on Sirius Radio.  Breaking Sc...

The only constant in life is change. In some instances, this change is evolutionary, with incremental, almost undetectable steps. But oftentimes, change is revolutionary, causing disruption of the status quo, and those who are able to navigate these changes typically win, while those who are unprepared and unaware, well, they typically don't fare so well. And that's why we created this pod...