How Leaders Lead with David Novak

Today's guest is Steve Kerr, the head coach of the Golden State Warriors. Earlier in his career as a player, Steve won three NBA titles with the Chicago Bulls alongside the one and only Michael Jordan. He then went on to win two more titles playing for the San Antonio Spurs, and then he became a coach and won three more titles for the Warriors. Needless to say, this guy knows how to win, and he kn...

From the United States Marine Corps to Wall Street, Eric Gleacher believes the world belongs to the aggressive. After one round of golf with the right person, the trajectory of his career changed as he pursued his dream of working in finance. After only four years at Lehman Brothers, Eric became a partner and was a large part of establishing the merger and acquisition department. Against the advic...

A force of positivity and pioneer of Financial Technology, Alexa von Tobel felt so strongly about democratizing financial advice for Americans that she dropped out of Harvard business school to build her first business, LearnVest, in 2008. After revolutionizing digital financial services, she sold LearnVest the very same week that she gave birth to her first child. Now, Alexa von Tobel is the Mana...

Scott Mahoney, the Chairman and CEO of Peter Millar, goes the distance to for quality in how he shapes the brand and develops his people. Coming up in business, it wasn’t until Scott worked at Polo that he found his love for golf and apparel sales married in an exciting career. He was inspired to buy Peter Millar during the long drive back from a USGA meeting, and moved quickly to scale the brand...

Dr. Neal ElAttrache is a renowned American orthopedic surgeon best known as the Lead Physician for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Rams — as well as his patents and innovation in sports medicine. As a leader, Neal believes strongly in the three “A’s” — Affability, Availability, and Ability. Listen as David and Neal discuss why chasing passion is a sure way to set yourself up for failure and burnout, a...

Every leader knows how important listening is. But how often do we break it down and try to understand what it actually means to be a good listener?   Today’s guest, Rob Light, can really help us answer that question. He’s the Managing Partner of Creative Artists Agency, the world’s largest talent and sports agency. As the head of their music division, he has represented some huge names like Bruce...

How do leaders navigate conversations about the challenges parents, and especially women, face in the workplace? The first step is to simply have the conversation and get the shared perspectives of men and women. In this special episode from the How Leaders Lead Insight Series, Ashley Novak Butler, the Executive Director of the Lift-a-Life Foundation, interviews her dad, David, and Indra Nooyi abo...

Today’s guest is Jessica Kim, Co-Founder and CEO of ianacare, a digital platform that connects family caregivers with the resources they need to care for their loved ones.  Jessica founded ianacare because she herself was a caregiver in her mother’s last days of life. She saw firsthand how frustrating, exhausting and isolating the experience was, and she knew there had to be a better way.  That’s...

Anyone listening this show knows that I am absolutely passionate about the game of golf, and how blessed I am to have been able to play with some of the top players in the game. So we thought we'd mix things up a little bit and create an episode featuring some of the best stories we've heard from around the golf course - some that I'm sure you've never heard before, and you definitely don't want t...

Today’s guest is Dan Cathy, Chairman & CEO of Chick-fil-A. With Dan at the helm, Chick-fil-A has become the envy of the restaurant industry. The average unit volumes in their stores are absolutely unheard-of – even though they’re only open six days a week. And they’ve had sales increases every single year of the 75 years they’ve been in business. You can’t do that kind of growth for that long with...

Today’s guest is Tom Brady, the quarterback of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and – let’s be honest – the greatest of all time. Now, we all go into new situations where we're expected to come in, turn the team around, and perform. And that’s exactly what Tom did at the Bucs, winning the Super Bowl in his very first season at Tampa Bay. That’s why we call him the GOAT, right!? In this conversation, we r...

Today’s guest is Johnny Taylor, President & CEO of SHRM, the Society of Human Resource Management, which is the association for over 300,000 human resource officers in 165 countries. The formula for success in any business is to get your people capability right. That’s how you’re going to satisfy more customers. That’s how you make more money. And more importantly, that’s how you make a bigger dif...

Today’s guest is Jimmy Dunne. He’s the Vice Chairman and Senior Managing Principal at Piper Sandler. He was one of the founders of Sandler O'Neill + Partners which was acquired by Piper Jaffray in 2020. He is renowned for how he led his firm in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Sixty-six of his associates tragically died that day, including the firm’s founder Herman Sandler a...

One of your most important jobs as a leader is to define reality. You have to figure out what is really happening in your organization if you want to make it better. And today’s guest is Alberto Carvalho, the Superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, and someone who knows exactly how to define reality. He leads the fourth largest school district in the nation, and it’s quite the success...

Today’s guest is hall of fame and former world #1 tennis player, Andy Roddick. You may remember him destroying opponents with his serve, or winning the 2003 US Open, or even hosting Saturday Night Live!  But these days, he’s doing all kinds of other fun stuff. He’s the CEO of the Andy Roddick Foundation, which supports kids in low-income communities. He’s co-founded two companies, one in healthcar...

Today’s guest is Becky Frankiewicz, President of ManpowerGroup North America, which is the leading workforce solutions company in the world. Now when she took the job, she was stepping into a whole new world. Why? Because Becky actually made a name for herself in various marketing, sales, and finance roles at PepsiCo.  And not every leader can go from finding breakthrough marketing ideas for snack...

​​Today’s guest is Timo Boldt, Founder and CEO of Gousto, the largest meal kit company in the United Kingdom, which Timo founded at the ripe old age of 27. In the last seven years, its valuation has grown to over one billion dollars!  That is some seriously impressive growth.  And you’re going to love hearing how Timo and his team have done it.  He is constantly pushing himself and his company to...

In this special episode of the How Leaders Lead podcast, listeners will learn that all top leaders are incredible “AVID LEARNERS” - people who’ve demonstrated a real commitment to continuous learning throughout their careers. They all learn by DOING. They all ASK a lot of QUESTIONS and LISTEN CLOSELY for real insights. And at some stage of their career, each of them has learned from FAILURE. So su...

Get ready for an inspiring conversation with today’s guest, Lonnie Ali. She’s the wife of legendary boxer Muhammad Ali and a powerful leader in her own right. She incorporated, built, and sold, Greatest of All Time, Inc. and also founded the Muhammad Ali Center, which is a nonprofit museum and cultural center devoted to inspiring the world through Muhammad Ali’s legacy. Lonnie is an extraordinary...

Today’s guest is Bob Greifeld, the former CEO of NASDAQ. These days, the NASDAQ is a powerhouse market. But that was not the case when Bob took over. It was small and struggling. During his time in charge, he grew the market by a whopping 2000%, attracting companies like Apple, Microsoft, Starbucks, and Amazon.  In this conversation, we go behind the scenes of that amazing turnaround. You can see...

Today’s guest is Jeff Lawson, the co-founder & CEO of Twilio, one of the world’s fastest growing technology companies. Millions of software developers use their platform to add communications to apps and websites we all use, like airbnb and Lyft. Jeff has a unique point of view as an entrepreneur. He has a foot in both the technical developer world AND the executive world. So if you need to make y...

Today’s guest is Wendy Clark, Global CEO of Dentsu International, and the first female CEO of a big six global advertising agency. Before that, she did incredible work as a marketing executive at Coca-Cola and AT&T. She’s a giant of the advertising world. She is literally in the hall of fame. But despite all her success, Wendy is the absolute master of embracing the underdog mentality.  It’s how s...

Today’s guest is Mickey Drexler, the former CEO of The Gap, J. Crew, and Banana Republic. He’s the legendary king of retail who put all those stores (and several others) on the map. These days he and his son have teamed up to build a new clothing brand called Alex Mill. Mickey is a hard-charging guy with plenty of conviction. When you listen to him, you remember just how compelling it is when a le...

Today’s guest is Stephen MR Covey. As the CEO of Covey Leadership Center, he built the largest leadership development company in the world, and orchestrated the successful merger of Franklin Covey. He’s also the New York Times bestselling author of the excellent book, Speed of Trust. If you’ve ever felt like your business just doesn’t move fast enough, you’re going to love this conversation. Steph...

Today’s guest is Milind Pant, CEO of Amway. Amway is the largest direct selling company in the world, with over ONE MILLION independent business owners – a.k.a. entrepreneurs. Milind has tapped into something that’s helping him grow as a leader AND helping his entrepreneurs at Amway grow their businesses. That secret ingredient is community. We all want to do business with people we know and trust...