Fearless Creative Leadership

'The Dancer'. Rosemarie Ryan has been leading creativity most of her life. She has helped to build some of the most famous and effective creative companies of their time, leaving behind her a wake of improved businesses and more thoughtful people. Today, she is the  co-founder of CO Collective, a strategy and innovation company based in New York. I talked to Rose about the role her family played i...

A five minute edited highlight of our full conversation.

'The Optimist'. Technology is increasingly the platform on which fearless creative leadership sits. The challenge of this is twofold. First, we need the capability to get the answers to the questions that we know. How do I solve these known problems, and what role does technology play in that? And second, we need the courage to ask questions that until now have been unimaginable or inconceivable....

A five minute edited highlight of our full conversation.

'The Difference Maker'. Over time and with experience, the best leaders are able to quiet the internal noise. The voice in their head becomes less critical and more confident - more certain and more consistent. That's when things really start to happen. When it really gets interesting. For them. And for the people around them. It requires a willingness to look within. To ask the questions and face...

A five minute edited highlight of our full conversation.

'The Futurist'. Faith Popcorn has spent almost half a century living in the future. She has predicted everything from the inevitable to the unbelievable. Her company, Faith Popcorn's Brain Reserve has been instrumental in unlocking what comes next for many of the world's largest companies and most iconic brands. I met Faith in her townhouse in Manhattan and she talked about the importance of confl...

A five minute edited highlight of our full conversation.

'The Listener'. Adam Bryant is the creator of 'The Corner Office', a weekly feature of The New York Times in which he interviews business leaders from diverse industries. The Corner Office has been around since 2008, and if you haven't come across it, I encourage you to go and explore the library of knowledge and insights it provides. I talked to Adam about what he's learned from interviewing hund...

A five minute edited highlight of our conversation.

'The Poet'. Today's guest is Wendy Clark, the CEO of DDB, North America. She has been the President of Strategic Marketing at Coca-Cola and the SVP of Global Marketing at AT&T. She was named  Ad Age's Executive of the Year for 2017 and she is rewriting the rules of the advertising industry. She is also is a wife, the mother of three and one of the most respected and warmly held leaders in today's...

A five minute edited highlight of our conversation.

Welcome to the twentieth episode of Fearless. After four months, nineteen interviews and roughly two hundred thousand spoken words, I thought this was a good time to take stock.  And so this episode is called… "The Story so Far." What makes a Fearless Creative Leader in today's moving at the speed of thought world? Based on conversations with companies as diverse as: Hearst Anomaly, Calvin Klein,...

'The Lawyer'. Lisa Gersh is a lawyer by training and a leader by instinct. After a career practicing law, she became the co-founder of the Oxygen network, before becoming the CEO of Martha Stewart omni-media and then the CEO of Gwyneth Paltrow's company, Goop. Today, she is the CEO of Alexander Wang. Along the way, she has proven over and over again, her willingness to listen, to learn and to lead...

A five minute edited highlight of our full conversation.

'The World Changers'. "We're trying to figure out how do we get vaccines delivered to places that have no physical addresses." Torrence Boone and Lars Bastholm work at Google. Their jobs are multi-faceted but fundamentally they share a responsibility for helping others to unlock the business and societal potential of Google's capacity for original thinking.  Being a leader at Google demands reachi...

A five minute edited highlight of our full length conversation.

"The Simplifier."   Emma Cookson has been able to filter the noise for brands and businesses throughout her career. She is regarded as one of the world's foremost brand strategists, taking over the role of Global Head of Strategic Planning at BBH before becoming CEO and then Chairman of BBH, New York.   Today she is a partner at You and Mr Jones, the disruptive company designed to build brands by...

A five minute highlight of our full conversation.

"The Story Teller."   Joanna Coles has been finding and telling stories since she was a young girl. She has been a writer, a publisher, a salesperson, a journalist, a reporter, an editor, an author and on-camera talent in a reality-tv show.   She's an original thinker, a ground breaker, a glass ceiling raiser, a mentor, and a reference point. She's also the inspiration for a new tv show based larg...

A five-minute highlight of our full conversation

'The Chef'. Dan Kish knows more about food than anyone I've ever met. He has been an entrepreneurial chef, a teacher and an executive. He has always been a student. A few months ago he left his position as Head Chef at Panera Bread where he was responsible for developing the menu for 2000 restaurants across America to become a consultant. Over the last few years, he has met with the world's greate...

A five minute edited highlight of our full conversation

"The New Leaders."   To be a successful creative leader, you need to be able to celebrate an environment that revels in the chaos of original thinking and behavior, and from that produce the reliable performance required of any business.   And sometimes, it requires doing that when your only experience of leading an actual business is none at all. When your success has been based on your capacity...

A five minute edited highlight of our full conversation.