Fearless Creative Leadership

Jenny Just is the Co-Founder of PEAK6 Investments . She's been described as the most successful business woman you've never heard of. A recent study by the World Health Organization reveals that working more than 55 hours a week causes a significant increase in premature death. If that's true, it's just one more reason why leaders should make decisions faster. And why they need to create an enviro...

Edited highlights of our full conversation. Jenny Just is the Co-Founder of PEAK6 Investments . She's been described as the most successful business woman you've never heard of. A recent study by the World Health Organization reveals that working more than 55 hours a week causes a significant increase in premature death. If that's true, it's just one more reason why leaders should make decisions f...

Charlie Cole is the CEO of  FTD . As you're about to hear, Charlie is a high energy leader. Relentlessly positive, endlessly optimistic. He took over a bankrupt company in the early days of a pandemic. He put together an executive team that only now, a year later can he spend any time with in person. Charlie discovered something brand new about himself in the middle of all of that. That he has a b...

Edited highlights of our full conversation. Charlie Cole is the CEO of  FTD . As you're about to hear, Charlie is a high energy leader. Relentlessly positive, endlessly optimistic. He took over a bankrupt company in the early days of a pandemic. He put together an executive team that only now, a year later can he spend any time with in person. Charlie discovered something brand new about himself i...

Dave Gilboa is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Warby Parker .  Warby Parker is a twenty first century business. A case study in what purpose driven, values based, agile, innovative and disruptive looks like. At the beginning of 2010, the company didn't exist. Mid-way through 2020, it was valued at $3 billion dollars. They have given away more than 8 million pairs of eyeglasses, offering the gift of s...

Edited highlights of our full conversation. Dave Gilboa is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Warby Parker .  Warby Parker is a twenty first century business. A case study in what purpose driven, values based, agile, innovative and disruptive looks like. At the beginning of 2010, the company didn't exist. Mid-way through 2020, it was valued at $3 billion dollars. They have given away more than 8 million...

Andy Nairn is the Co-Founder of Lucky Generals , who describe themselves as a creative company for people on a mission. Andy has been named the top brand strategist in the UK for the last three years and has also been named one of the top 5 creative people in world advertising. Andy has just written a book called Go Luck Yourself , which discusses the role luck can and should play in unlocking cre...

How do leaders lead when none of us have ever been here before? This week, I'm going to do something a little different.   Some people have suggested that every few weeks they'd like me to put a broader context around what I'm learning about leadership, both from these conversations and from my own work. How do the leaders who are best at unlocking creativity and innovation in the people that work...

Greg Lyons is the Chief Marketing Officer of PepsiCo , North America. Greg and I spoke during the CMO spotlight series on Cannes Lions live back in October and I was struck by his willingness to share his own journey. Greg lost his wife, Andrea in December of 2016. Before she died, she gave him and their two children three pieces of advice. There is nothing more important than family and friends....

Nils Leonard is the Co-Founder of Uncommon , the London-based Creative Studio. They were just named Agency of the Year by Campaign UK. He believes that, "Good things happen to people who do stuff." He's got enviable energy. And he's in a hurry. He's not alone in that. Most leaders are in a hurry. Sometimes constructively. Sometimes not. People are really going to be in a hurry this year. They alre...

Heidi Hackemer is the Executive Creative Director of OATLY! North America . She is intentioned and reflective. Leadership used to be exerted through command and control. Identify the levers of power and pull them. Rely on that today and you'll soon discover if your company is built to unlock creative thinking and innovation. If people do what you say, it's not. Original thinkers aren't interested...

Marc Pritchard is the Chief Brand Officer of Procter & Gamble . He focuses every day on being useful to the people around him. And that allows him to see the world through an invaluable lens. Theirs. 2020 was complicated. But, 2021 is going to re-define the word. For the last year, the playing field has been level. Everyone stayed home. But as vaccine rates increase and cases decrease, the questio...

Adam Bryant is the Managing Director of the Americas at Merryck - a leadership advisory group. Adam is also a noted author, and before joining Merryck, was a writer and journalist for the New York Times. He is perhaps best known for his column, the Corner Office, in which he interviewed over 500 CEOs. He is an extraordinarily astute observer of leadership. The last year has, in many ways, brought...

Susan Credle is the Global CCO of FCB . 2020 blew up the leadership playbook. Suddenly there were no rules. There was only you and how you chose to lead. It was the year when it became obvious who the real leaders are and who had just been wearing the robes. The leaders that have risen from the experiences of the last 12 months have done so because they showed up with openness, with honesty and wi...

Welcome to Season 3, which we're calling, "Leading The Future". We're living in an unprecedented time. An epoch in which the collision of science, technology and humanity is changing everything we thought we knew. How do leaders lead when none of us have ever been here before? Joanna Coles  has been an observer and shaper of society and culture for most of her professional life. She has worked for...

Vicki Maguire is the Chief Creative Officer of Havas London .  Vicki is clear about who she is and she's driven to create an environment in which people can be authentic. She's also clear what it means to be authentic. We talked about what 2020 has taught her and which of the changes will stick around into 2021 and beyond. What have you learned from this year? And what do you want to be true 12 mo...

Malcolm Poynton is the Global Chief Creative Officer of Cheil Worldwide .  In the early weeks of the pandemic, Malcolm got stuck in New Zealand while his family were in London. He experienced first hand one of the very best governmental responses and learned some leadership lessons that I suspect will prove timeless for all of us. What's your intention and what is the greatest obstacle to that? Le...

Mae Karwowski is the Founder and CEO of Obviously . They describe themselves as a team of best in class marketers and technologists who are obsessed with pushing the cutting edge of influencer marketing. When your company's success depends on creating and maintaining virtual connections, how do you keep your own company physically connected when the world is pushing us apart? Effectively solving t...

Rich Bressler is the President, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of  iHeartMedia and iHeartCommunications. iHeart is both a highly creative and a highly complicated business. The company has 13,000 employees in the United States, spread over 150 offices for 850 radio stations.  Add to all of that the realities of a global pandemic and a historic civil rights moment and you creat...

Justin Spooner is the Co-Founder of the London-based consultancy, Unthinkable Digital . Justin knows more and thinks more than anyone I know about how people learn and how they connect. In a world that has moved mostly online, that understanding has become essential not only for our business success but for our humanity - and increasingly for our sanity. Like all great conversations, I learned a l...

Frank Spotnitz is the Founder and CEO of Big Light Productions . They're a London and Paris-based production company. Under Frank's leadership, Big Light has produced a number of high-end drama productions including Amazon's Emmy award-winning The Man in the High Castle , Ransom , The Indian Detective and three seasons of Medici for Netflix. He has also co-created the new drama series Leonardo , w...

Nicki Sprinz is the Managing Director of B-corp digital product studio  ustwo . In the six years that she has been with the company, she has eradicated the company's gender pay gap .  In her past, she's been a journalist for the Sunday Times and The Guardian, before going on to work in the NHS. She also co-founded Ada's List in 2013, a supportive global community of more than 3,000 women working i...

This episode is being published within a couple of days of the very sad news that Sir Ken Robinson has died.  He was perhaps the world's leading thinker and expert on creativity and innovation. His original TED Talk, Do schools kill creativity? , is the most-watched in the history of TED. If you haven't seen it, take 18 minutes and watch it. It's extraordinary. Ken believed in the potential of eve...

Marcel Marcondes is the U.S. Chief Marketing Officer for Anheuser-Busch . We talked about what he's learned about leading a culture that embraces minorities after experiencing racism in his own life. And about the need to show up as a human being first and a leader second.  We also talked about why he's listening now, more than ever. And then turning what he hears into action. That last point is e...

Stephen Garrett is a film and television producer. During his career, Stephen's been responsible for an extraordinary range of content - from The Night Manager , to the long-running series Spooks ( MI-5 here in the U.S.), to Life on Mars to Salmon Fishing in the Yemen . He brings stories to life. And he has a rare gift for observing humanity. As almost everything about our world seems to be changi...