From The Culture

Today on From the Culture , we're asking a simple question: Where does greatness come from? Our guest is Matthew Knowles: music executive, entrepreneur, educator, author, and the visionary behind one of the most successful music careers of our time. For decades, he's developed talent, built high-performing teams, and helped shape moments that have influenced culture around the world. But this conv...

What does it take to build something people actually want in the age of AI? And as technology lowers the barriers to starting a company, what becomes even more important than the idea itself? Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin sit down with entrepreneur, investor, and UC Berkeley Haas Lester Center Fellow Jim Hornthal to explore how founders can move beyond hype and build organizations that genuinel...

What if the people most companies overlook are actually their greatest untapped source of talent? Dr. Gil Winch, founder of a call center, Call Yachol, that employs people with disabilities and others often excluded from the workforce, joins Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin to discuss belonging, culture, and why designing workplaces around human potential can create extraordinary results. Through...

This week, Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin are joined by entrepreneur, craftsman, and Square co-founder Jim McKelvey. Through stories from his life as a glassblower and startup founder, Jim shares lessons on risk-taking, trust, innovation, and what it means to build something that can withstand pressure without losing its integrity. From unbreakable glass to billion-dollar businesses, the convers...

What if the most important leadership skill isn't strategy, charisma, or vision, but empathy? This week, Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin sit down with Kathryn Petralia, co-founder of Kabbage, a data-driven company bought by American Express that provides new lending opportunities to underserved communities. They explore how better understanding people’s needs became the foundation of a huge busin...

Blake Mycoskie built one of the world's most influential purpose-driven brands: TOMS. Yet after years of success and accompanying mental health struggles, he found himself asking a difficult question: Is this all there is? In this episode of From the Culture, Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin talk with the industry-shaping entrepreneur about ambition, mental health, conscious capitalism, and the ch...

Today we dive into the expansive world of LEGO and what it means to harness the art of play to educate and build a business culture. On this episode, Marcus and Amanda talk with VP of Product Experience at LEGO Education, Andrew Sliwinski about his strategy for creating products that can inspire a diverse array of children with wide interests to learn more while bringing their creativity out in th...

On this episode of From the Culture , Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin sit down with psychologist and Good Inside founder Becky Kennedy to explore the surprising overlap between parenting, leadership, and workplace culture. Together, they unpack emotional intelligence, invisible labor, modern fatherhood, and why the skills that help people thrive at home are often the same ones that build healthie...

This week on From the Culture, Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin sit down with powerhouse executive Najoh Tita-Reid for a conversation much bigger than career advice. Najoh opens up about leaving the corporate mountaintop, raising her children abroad, learning to trust her intuition, and why she sees herself as “the canary in the coal mine” for the future of work. Together, they unpack what it mean...

This week, Marcus and Amanda sit down with global AI product leader, civil rights attorney, and filmmaker Julie Wenah to explore what it really means to bring your whole self to work. Julie’s religious faith, love of hip hop, and filmmaking passions “outside” of work inform her roles and her life impact in technology and equity. She explains a powerful framework, the “album and the mixtape,” to ex...

This week on From the Culture , Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin sit down with Nick Tran, a veteran brand leader whose career has taken him through some of the biggest moments of disruption in business. After navigating company shakeups at places like TikTok and Hulu, Nick now pursues companies that need help growing through uncertainty, including in his current role as President and CMO of First...

On this episode of From the Culture , Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin sit down with Felicity Fellows, a global community strategist who has built and scaled cultural ecosystems through her work with TED, TEDx, and her fandom agency Stan—to unpack the hidden dynamics shaping workplace culture. Starting with a striking reality, HR is overwhelmingly made up of women, yet remains one of the most unde...

On this episode of From the Culture , Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin sit down with Courtnee LeClaire, a transformational leader behind iconic moments at companies like Apple, to explore why she started calling herself a Chief “Becoming” Officer. From launching products like the iPod and iPhone to navigating personal upheaval, Courtnee shares a deeply honest look at success, failure, and the myth...

On this episode of From the Culture , Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin sit down with stylist, author, and cultural thinker Stacey London for a candid conversation about feminism, identity, and how society assigns value to women. They explore some of the reasons why patriarchal work cultures are bad for business and what it could look like to design a working world that utilizes traditionally femin...

In the final episode of the series, Amanda and Marcus discuss various factors around the day to day and legacy interactions that shape us. They discuss this with Chrysi Philalithes (first Chief Digital Officer at RED) alongside the digital firsts she created with the likes of Apple, Nike and X (formerly Twitter). Amanda then interviews the podcaster, artist and photographer Dario Calmese who among...

In this episode of From The Culture , hosts Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin are joined by Sherlen Archibald , a cultural marketing and communications expert who has built a career at the intersection of art, music, fashion and storytelling. As Co-Founder of We The Roses Agency , he has led campaigns for global brands such as Red Bull and Google Arts & Culture, while also collaborating with ic...

In this episode of From the Culture , Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin are joined by Laura Beyer - Head of Brand Partnerships @TED. They discuss the deeper forces behind behaviour and how shared beliefs influence decision making, creativity, and the way organizations evolve over time. They unpack the relationship between identity, community, and the systems we operate within especially when it com...

In this episode of From the Culture , Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin explore how creativity, culture and identity intersect in modern storytelling. The conversation features an interview with Misan Harriman (Photographer, Social Activist and Chair at The Southbank Centre in London) who shares insights on visual storytelling, cultural perspective, and the responsibility creators carry when shapin...

In this episode of From the Culture , Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin explore the forces that shape organizational culture and the role identity plays in leadership. The conversation features a powerful interview with Dr. Eric Solomon (YouTube, Spotify, Google), who shares reflections on navigating corporate environments, aligning personal values with professional work, and why psychological safe...

In this episode, Marcus and Amanda reflect on an interview with Bing Chen - American entrepreneur, former YouTube executive, and co-founder of Gold House. They explore what it truly means to build a culture of abundance. From leadership and performance standards to identity, representation, and resilience, Bing shares how an abundance mindset can reshape organizations, careers, and communities. Th...

In this episode of From The Culture, Marcus and Amanda explore what culture really is beyond the invisible system that helps us make meaning of the world. They are joined by Lenore Skenazy — American speaker, syndicated columnist, author and leading voice behind the free-range parenting movement. The conversation moves into identity, engagement, attention, and the modern struggle to create meaning...

Where does creativity really come from? Is it talent, discipline, inspiration… or something else entirely? In this episode, Marcus and Amanda explore the hidden conditions that allow creativity to emerge alongside Alejandro Chavetta (Brand Executive Creative Director at Adobe). From mental space and environment to boredom, constraint, and deep focus, they unpack the psychology and neuroscience beh...

In this episode of From The Culture , Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin dig into one of the most deceptively complicated forces inside every organization: change . Change isn’t just a strategy, or a punchline, it’s emotional, messy, cultural, and deeply human. They explore trust, resistance, and the role values and shared meaning play in shaping behavior. The conversation also draws on insights fro...

In this episode, Marcus and Amanda reflect and explore big questions, real experiences, and the deeper meaning behind the work we do and why sometimes, it can't be separated from the lives we live. In this episode, Amanda interviews Tariq Hassan , one of the industry’s most recognized marketing leaders, on how legacy culture impacts modern organizations. With over two decades of global marketing,...

In this episode of From The Culture , Marcus and Amanda interview Nadia Kokni a leading Business & Marketing Leader (PUMA, Hugo Boss and JD Sports). They discuss why the most important truths about work, culture, and organizations are often hiding in plain sight. They unpack how “obvious” ideas can become invisible, why teams overlook the fundamentals that actually drive performance, and how s...