Corporate Competitor Podcast

Ep. 19: BYU Football shaped this business icon. Sean Covey, was the quarterback at BYU after Hall of Famer Steve Young. Sean's father, Stephen Covey, most famous for his book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, loved watching his son play. Today Sean is a New York Times Best-Selling author and brings his competitive fire to FranklinCovey-- an organization whose mission is to enable greatness in s...

Ep. 18 : South Dakota State baseball shaped this business icon. CEO of Mayo Clinic Florida and Vice President of Mayo Clinic, Dr. Kent Thielen, has a strong personal interest in developing new technologies! He shares how they are using 3D printers to create anatomic models from a patient's CT scans. He reflects on the lessons he learned as a three-sport athlete in high school, including how to pus...

Ep. 17: Duke field hockey shaped this business icon. Forbes named ESPN's Senior Vice President of Marketing and the FOUNDER of espnW, Laura Gentile, one of the "Most Powerful Women in U.S. Sports." She was a two-time field hockey team captain at Duke and led the Blue Devils to their first appearance in the NCAA tournament,  graduating as Duke's all-time leading scorer! Laura began her career at ES...

Ep. 16: Miami Baseball shaped this business icon . Through trials, including a season-ending baseball injury, and an emergency heart surgery, he has learned that his attitude governs his altitude. You will learn the power of a recommendation through the story of his Miami recruitment, and Matt's 11 Ground Rules so that you attract trustworthy teammates that listen more than they speak. Visit Episo...

Ep. 15: Indiana State Baseball shaped this business icon. Learn how to navigate mergers and acquisitions in this technology month episode with Joe Quaglia! Joe joined the Tech Data team in 2006 and rose to be President of the Americas. Tech Data connects the world with the power of technology and has been named one of Fortune's World's Most Admired Companies for 11 straight years. Joe was a member...

Ep. 14: Chicago Cubs Manager David Ross spent most of his 15-year career playing in the major leagues as a backup catcher. But, when he learned how to become a great teammate, his career doubled in length and he had the opportunity to win two world series championships. We wrote a New York Times Best-Selling book together that teaches us how to create environments that recognize and celebrate thos...

Ep. 13: Gymnastics shaped this business icon. We continue TECHNOLOGY MONTH with our first gymnast on the show, and although Jill Billhorn gave up the floor routines and balance beam long ago, her competitive spirit is still alive as, CDW's Senior Vice President of Corporate Sales. She will reveal the question every salesperson should be asking their customers. Plus, you will learn the benefits of...

Ep. 12: Ohio State baseball shaped this business icon. TECHNOLOGY MONTH continues in Episode 12, and not only will you learn how to wake-up with a winning attitude, but you will also learn how President of ViON, Jeff Henry, has been shaped by his Ohio State University baseball experience. Jeff believes the ability to teach people, and then see their success, is more important than anything he coul...

Ep. 11: Rowing at Michigan shaped this business icon. We are kicking off TECHNOLOGY MONTH with ViON's Executive Vice President of Operations, Rob Davies. ViON is a cloud service provider and market leader in the design, delivery, and maintenance of IT infrastructure solutions. Rob brings more than 25 years of experience to his role and over the course of his career, he has established a strong tra...

Ep. 10: Princeton ballet shaped this business icon. As Amazon's Vice President of Consumables-- a $56 billion portfolio including grocery, household products, and beauty-- Carla Vernon is the highest-ranking woman of color at one of the world's largest corporations. Previously as the President of General Mills Natural & Organic, Carla restored growth to Nature Valley resulting in the highest level...

Ep. 9: Edinboro basketball shaped this business icon. Xavier Williams, who played college basketball at Edinboro University, spent 30 years working for AT&T and rose to become President of the Public Sector and FirstNet. He leads with the motto: "Culture trumps strategy." In this episode, you will get a behind the scenes look into how Xavier took one of the country's lowest-ranking AT&T branches,...

Ep. 8: Basketball shaped this business icon growing up in Centerville, Ohio. In this episode, you will learn the #1 time-waster in leaders' lives and how to eliminate it from leadership expert, John C. Maxwell. John is a #1 New York Times Best-Selling Author, speaker, and coach. He has sold 26 million books in 50 languages and trained six million leaders. He recently reached the milestone of havin...

Ep. 7 SPECIAL EDITION:  We know how sports shapes executives, but in this special edition, we discuss how sports shaped society. September 12th is the 50th anniversary of a game that, many would argue, completely changed college football.  Bear Bryant, who was still coaching an all-white football team at Alabama in 1970, slyly pulled off a game against a fully integrated Southern Cal team in a gam...

Ep. 6: Wrestling shaped this business icon growing up in Pennsylvania. As the President and COO of VMware, Carl Eschenbach helped build the company from 200 employees and 30 million dollars in revenue to 20,000 employees and 7 billion dollars in revenue. In 2016, he became a partner at Sequoia Capital – widely regarded as Silicon Valley's most prestigious venture capital firm. Carl is a true Corpo...

Ep. 5: Georgia Tech tennis shaped this business icon. Rugby and Weber State football shaped this business icon. In his senior executive role at Microsoft, Oguo manages Global Cloud Scale Services. Educated in three different continents, Oguo has the ability to interweave his mixed cultural background with his rich career experiences.  In our conversation, Oguo shares stories about how his love of...

Ep. 4: Bill was a three-sport athlete in high school and rose to become a member of the Georgia Tech tennis team. His four decades of C-Suite experience include serving as the Executive Vice President of Honeywell, Chairman, and CEO of Medtronic, and TODAY he is a senior fellow at Harvard Business School, where he has taught leadership since 2004. He has written several best-selling books includin...

Ep. 3: Texas A&M volleyball shaped this business icon. While studying petroleum engineering at Texas A&M, Kim McHugh played on the Aggie volleyball team and advanced to the NCAA tournament! She rose to become the Vice President of Chevron's Drilling and Completions and today attributes her mental strength to her experience on the court: You can do more than you think you can— it's your mind that s...

Ep. 2: Drake track and field shaped this business icon. Louis Carr's story encourages us to set impactful goals, work harder than everybody else, and refine our mental skills. You will learn the power of competing against yourself as Don Yaeger interviews the man responsible for more advertising dollars targeting African-American consumers than any other professional or company in history. Louis C...

Ep. 1: Harvard track and field shaped this business icon.  In 2021, Dolf accepted the role of CEO of Lindblad Expeditions. His team partners with National Geographic to take customers on adventure cruises around the world.  Dolf was a member of the Harvard track and field team in the early 1980s. Now, he sits on the board for USA Track and Field, and continues to find athletic success. Dolf is the...

What do most Fortune 500 executives have in common? They learned their leadership lessons on the fields and courts of their high school and collegiate sports' teams. This is true for both men and women. Ernst & Young found that a whopping 94% of women holding a C-suite position, played sports. Join New York Times Best-Selling Author Don Yaeger on his journey to sit with the brightest executives in...