Corporate Unplugged

Virginia Salas Kastilio is a hyper connector and serial entrepreneur who was named one of Inc. Magazine's top 26 Women to Change the World. She's an internationally acclaimed speaker, marketer and activist and having built multiple empires, she is currently helping "reconnect" humanity and bring consciousness into the mainstream through The I Trust You Movement (after previously disputing the soci...

Chief Oren Lyons is a Native American Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Seneca Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, the Haudenosaunee Peoples. He’s a member Chief of the Onondaga Council of Chiefs and the Grand Council of the Iroquois Confederacy. He's Professor Emeritus at University of Buffalo, New York and he has a doctorate law degree from Syracuse University. Oren is an accomplished artis...

Nina Siemiatkowski is the founder and CEO of Milkywire, a platform that brings people who want to improve our world closer to the people in the field who are working to protect and restore our planet.  Milkywire is a crowdfunding platform that lets you connect with and support grassroots NGOs that fight climate change, preserve wildlife, protect and clean the oceans, and so much more.&nb...

“In the wake of this pandemic, it's this impossible stretch between on the one hand restoring normalcy and making sure that the operations continue, and at the same time thinking ahead, looking forward and really adjusting to the new reality that we're going to experience in the wake of this crisis.” And what will this new reality look like for you? A more beautiful business that allows more human...

Laurent “Larry” Leksell is the co-founder of Elekta, a global company that is pushing the boundaries of radiation therapy to provide access for advanced, high-quality cancer care. While studying at the Stockholm School of Economics, Larry jumped into entrepreneurship with his father who had a passion in cancer research. Larry now sits as a chairman and principal shareholder of Elekta while he fulf...

Markus Lehto is a Utopian, an expert generalist. He’s also the co-founder of Joint Idea and Lifeworks Labs and the co-founder of the global community - Love Mafia. Born in Canada with Finnish traditions and culture, life took him on a path across the world as a professional in consulting, investment banking and real estate development. He's based in Istanbul and is pursuing entrepreneurial venture...

“Business leaders should be ready to be challenged by young people. I feel we have ended up in this patriarchal system with CEOs and leaders who do not want to be confronted by the young generations.” Meet Zakaria Bekkali, a 22 year old with a wise head on young shoulders. Zak is a graduate student at the London School of Economics and Political Science where he’s been awarded a postgraduate excel...

Maria Konnikova is a New York Times best-selling author, journalist and psychologist who in 2018 while researching her newest book, The Biggest Bluff, became an international poker champion and the winner of over $300,000 in tournament earnings, inadvertently turning herself into a professional poker player.  In this podcast: The role that luck plays in our lives What Maria has learned about...

Ma Steinsvik is passionate about emerging technologies and believes in the power of digital transformation and AI in order to scale business transformation towards a circular economy. Because an augmented circular future will lead to a better world.  Ma is a European business leader, futurist and investor, and the CEO of Bulls Holding, an international agency for film, literary and art-based...

What is design and who is it for?  This loaded question is asked of Ayse Birsel, named by Fast Company as one of the Most Creative People in Business. Ayse is a beautiful blend of East meets West, born and raised in Turkey but who now calls New York home.  “The combination of East and West, being Turkish living in the States, really allows me to see two sides of everything, which is a gr...

We’ve all suffered from ‘Not Enough Syndrome’ at some point in our lives.  “In our relentless pursuit for external validation, we've lost sight with the fact that validation actually comes from within always, and I think that actually applies to business and products.” Tara Schuster was told early on to pick a lane and stick with it. She couldn’t be or do more than one thing, but luckily for...

With everything going on globally, taking your physical mailbox online is probably one of the smartest decisions you could make. Not just to protect yourself, but to protect the environment too.  It’s such a smart move that today over 3.7 million Swedish people, almost half of the grown up population in Sweden, have Kivra. That’s roughly 25,000 companies and organisations that rely on Kivra,...

You might think it an impossible task to find inspiration in these troubled times. But according to Jen Grace Baron, co-founder and Chief Inspiration Officer at InspireCorps, an inspiration strategy firm that partners with organisations to drive business growth and also innovation, it’s precisely during times like these when we are most likely to find inspiration.  “Some of what people find m...

WD-40 Company has one of the highest employee engagement rates in the world (93%). And no wonder, at its helm is Garry Ridge, Chairman of the Board and CEO.  Garry has been with the company for almost 33 years, having worked his way up through the managerial ranks to the top position, he knows what great company culture looks like, so much so, he not only practices what he preaches, he teache...

When Roberto Verganti first appeared on Corporate Unplugged, his episode quickly became one of the most listened to interviews on the show. Two years on, Roberto, Professor of Leadership and Innovation at Politecnico di Milano, currently founder and Director of The Garden-Center for Design and Leadership at Stockholm School of Economics, joins Vesna for another illuminating conversation, this time...

What makes a really listenable podcast? Is it a great production value? A plethora of interesting guests? A personable host? Whatever it is, Kristoffer Triumf, host of popular Swedish podcast Värvet, has figured the podcast magic out.  Kristoffer is a popular podcaster and host of Värvet, Sweden's favourite podcast. What makes the podcast so incredibly relatable is that he has very deep dialo...

Do you often find yourself wishing you were more persuasive? Would you love to know the secret to making great decisions? Do you want to do more good and work for a business that does good in the world? Then you want to listen to Zoë Chance, the persuasion expert.  Zoë studies and teaches behavioral science to help great people become more influential. At Yale School of Management, she works...

The idea that the smallest innovation can cause the biggest disruption doesn’t just apply to products and things, it applies to people too, says Whitney Johnson, the world renowned expert on disruptive innovation and personal disruption.  This is a person with 1.7 million LinkedIn followers, the one who was selected as a Top Voice in 2018, so she knows a thing or two about disruptive innovati...

What would you do if you were misdiagnosed with an autoimmune disease as a teenager, subsequently spending 10 years undergoing major surgeries, having 3 organs removed and over 40 hospitalisations, and then once in remission find yourself sabotaged, sexually abused and harassed early in your career in Silicon Valley?  Some people might shy away from the spotlight after all this, but Robin Far...

What if you knew that mastering the art of public speaking was easy? That you could transform your business, your career and your life by getting to grips with this one skill? That you could find yourself a member of a global community with a hub (and a welcoming home) in every city around the world? Well, that’s just what Eric Edmeades is on a mission to do. Eric is an author, serial entrepreneur...

Reynir Indahl isn’t just a man who talks the talk, he is a man who walks the walk.  Having had a wobble as he turned 40, questioning what he was doing and what impact he was having on the world, Reynir, much to his family and friends confusion, turned his back on his successful career in finance in order to focus on being a solution to the world’s most significant challenges.  Drawing on...

Jan Broman, along with his brother, founded Fotografiska as a meeting place to inspire a more conscious world, using photography - portrait, fashion, nature and documentary photography, for example, to initiate conversations. Not just conversations about the here and now, but what the photos represent and the world around us.  The renovated former Customs House, built in 1906 in the heart of...

If, like us, you are captivated by the inspiring actions of a select few individuals who are devoted to save the planet, then you want to listen to this podcast with Ulf Stenerhag, the Swedish entrepreneur who doesn’t believe passion is driving him in his quest to bring about change for the future generations, but a sense of compassion and responsibility. Because that is the kind of man Ulf is: un...

If we want to change the world, instead of fighting against the system from the outside, how about taking a leaf out of Maria Cristina Papetti’s life book, and try to change the world from the inside? “Being an activist, that is not easy, because you need a lot of energy, a lot of passion. But from the outside, always fighting all the time against something, that is easy. It’s what you can do when...

In this podcast: Changing cultural perceptions of parenthood and work Designing a learning experience around parenthood  Riccarda’s dream for Ma’am is that they become useless with no more clients Why Riccarda is passionate about making sense and maintaining consistency What makes a business work today is what will hinder its growth in the future Why the current thinking on retirement needs t...