Economics & Strategy Podcast

In this episode I had the good fortune to speak with DePaul Alumnus Kelly Kester. Kelly currently serves as Senior Manager - Corporate Strategy & Business Development at Cardinal Health. We reviewed her unique career journey and discussed how Cardinal Health uses vertical strategies to offer both value to their customers & provide safe harbor from a highly competitive core business.

This month we are thrilled to host DePaul Double Demon, Andy Polacek. Andy is a Senior Economic Research Analyst with Insurance Initiative at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. He speaks with me about how insurance markets develop and how we are currently dealing some highly correlated risks that may defy our standard mechanisms of insurance and de-risking.

In this episode, Erik Lindholm, Digital Transformation Lead at Deloitte, talks with us about how he considers what resources are available and what is the best strategy that is going to maximize the success of those resources. This is called consonance. The musical definition of this is the combination of notes which are in harmony with each other due to the relationship between their frequencies,...

This month we are joined by AT&T Vice President of Mobility Customer Care, Jennifer Asplund. Jennifer not only sits in a position that has a 30,000 ft view of a highly competitive industry within one of its most powerful established firms, but she also has over 15 years of experience within AT&T that ranges from front line store operations to product development. The main focus of our conversation...

John Adams III is the Inside Sales & Customer Support Manager at Zekelman Industries, a firm that manufactures steel piping for large scale construction projects. The steel industry is a part of well developed supply chain and is highly competitive, making relationship maintenance important and price competition possible. John speaks with me about how his firm creates value without falling into th...

Jordan Blue is the West Coast Director for AIRINC, a firm that specializes in employee mobility. Employee mobility conjures a pretty clear image of employees moving from place to place. You might think of this as simply a firm that coordinates logistics of employee relocation. This might have been an accurate description at the beginning of this industry, but now that barely scratches the surface.

DePaul MBA alumnus, Jeff Lemonds is the Managing Director at Casappa Corporation, which is a firm that specializes in hydraulic systems. Hydraulics are a very old technology that is inside almost all machinery with moving mechanical parts. Jeff talks with me about his industry's dynamics, how COVID has disrupted the supply chain, and how his firm views the next step of innovation for this very est...

Lead Product Marketing Manager at Esri, Lauren Lipovic speaks with us about the GIS industry, which stands for geographic information system. GIS is one of those services & products that we often overlook, but consider any kind of dynamic map you've encountered. Every single one is GIS and each provides vital information for daily routines, but also massive resource management for large organizati...

Carlie Frisch is a DePaul MBA Alumnus and Client Insights Manager at SPINS, a wellness-focused data technology company. Carlie talks with me about the growth of the 'naturals' industry within consumer packaged goods. The CPG industry is a very competitive space that must quickly respond to changes in consumer preferences while leveraging massive economies of scale to keep costs low. Yet in the fac...

This month we are joined by Senior Manager of Corporate Development at Blue Cross of Illinois, Louise Anderson. Health insurance in the US is a quagmire of complex interactions with lots of moving parts between providers, insurers, governments, and patients. Louise talks with me about how the health insurance industry is organized and how an aging population and the very recent influx of telehealt...

Bob Schiller is the Countrywide Product Manager at National General Insurance (an Allstate Company). Insurance is at the foundation of de-risking many other activities, making them more accessible and fueling economic development. That also means that insurance can be inherently slow to innovate. However, technology and consumer preferences have drastically changed in the past decade, which is for...

DePaul MS-EPA Alumnus, Marty Friel, is a financial advisor with Ameriprise Financial Services which is a highly competitive industry for 2 reasons. Firstly, the service is usually only differentiated by the way products are packaged and the relationships with advisors. Secondly, its hard to judge the quality of an investment strategy even after years of being a client. Marty talks about how using...

In this episode, we are joined by DePaul MBA Alumnus and COO of Equipment International, Bradley Lerner. In Feb 2020, Bradley had recently stepped into his role as the operations leader for a Chicago based firm that sells and services industrial laundry solutions. He began surveying the lay of the land and developing a strategic plan… and then the lockdowns began. One year later, Bradley talks wit...

In this episode we are joined by DePaul Triple Demon Tom Lubinski, Product Manager at adidas. As you might expect from the competitive nature of sports, the sports apparel industry is similarly competitive. Jobs at firms are coveted by sports lovers, so high performance expectations tend to be intrinsically built into company cultures. This permeates into the everlasting chase of identifying new t...

In this last episode of 2020, we speak with Double Demon, Kirsten Ahlen. Kirsten is a musician turned consultant that specializes in strategic management for Associations. She talks with me about the interesting industry landscape for Associations as well as the challenges of creating differentiated value. Associations have been forced to adopt technology solutions a much quicker pace as the indus...

Steel Construction is at the heart of infrastructure level projects. Brian Raff speaks with me about how his industry works with firms and governments to advocate for legislation that achieves its intended purpose while still encouraging a level playing field. Brian talks with us about growing environmental awareness that has led to a more regulated steel construction industry. He describes how hi...

The energy industry is a complex network of power production, distribution, and delivery that cooperates across boundaries to support both our present and future economies. Dan Ludovisi, Mechanical Engineering Manager & Consultant with Sargent & Lundy, talks with me about the challenges faced by our society as we recognize the importance of moving toward to sustainable energy sources while our ove...

Maggie McHenry is the Director of Development at Florence Crittenton Services, a nonprofit that supports teen mothers & their children. Maggie describes how she approaches strategy from a nonprofit perspective while leveraging the frameworks that might seem more suited to for-profits. There are differences between these two models, but the underlying purpose of strategy remains the same: Find a un...

This month I had the pleasure of speaking with Strategic Sourcing Specialist, Sarah Wojtowicz. Procurement roles can sometimes be thought of as simply a business function that looks for the lowest price, but Sarah tells me about how much care and strategy is involve in every negotiation. Having a strong understanding of your industry, competition, the firm you're negotiating with, and even the ind...

"Last mile" delivery is the most salient portion of the supply chain industry, but it is also the most complicated and costly part. In the past, the US has only really relied on UPS, USPS, and FedEx. However, the growth in scale and scope of Amazon, rapidly changing that landscape. What's it like to compete in this industry? How will it change in the coming years, especially with our increasing re...

On May 20th, we spoke with Erin Jordan Spanski, VP and Partner at Walker Sands, a premiere B2B marketing agencies. Marketing is already a challenging discipline because one must understand a plethora of complex interactions and motivations between the firm's marketing mix and consumer. B2B marketing agencies have 2nd and 3rd orders of complexity. This bodes the question: how do you create value in...

Kristy Nitskoff is the Director of Talent Consulting at Vista Consulting Group and is a DePaul Alumnus with concentrations in Business Strategy & Decision-Making, as well as Leadership & Change Management. Filling open positions at any company can be quite stressful. There are important trade offs between filling the role quickly versus filling the role with the right person. Kristy talks with us...

In this episode, we speak with Clinical Professor of Economics at DePaul and Principal at Black & Essington Solutions, Brian Thompson, about the behavioral components of decision-making and strategy. Cognition plays a massive role in how individuals and firms make decisions that ultimately might be suboptimal. With daily updates about the impact of COVID-19 on people, organizations, and the econom...

In this episode, we speak with Raffaele Colucci about the ocean shipping industry. Raffaele is the Deputy Sales Director for the Mediterranean Shipping Company. His role requires a bird's eye view of his entire line of business, so having a clear perspective on how the industry evolves is extremely important for strategic planning. There are many ways to analyze an industry, but one of the more po...

Dan Clark talks with us about his roles as Senior Manager at the e-commerce platform Shop Your Way and as Founder of Navigating Knowledge, an Ed-Tech startup focused on creating a new way to learn through spatial mapping. At first glance, the Retail and Education industries don't seem to have a lot in common. However, Dan has found that his experience with information and how we process it, can ha...