How Leaders Lead with David Novak

Today’s guest is Cathy Engelbert, the first Commissioner of the WNBA. She is a trailblazer, having also served as the first-ever female CEO of Deloitte. But the WNBA is a whole new challenge. She is leading with an incredible drive, using her “players first” philosophy to take women’s sports to the next level. Cathy knows how to get big things done – and as you’ll hear, it’s often the small things...

Today’s guest is John “Spider” Miller, a legendary amateur golfer who captained the US team in the 2015 and 2017 Walker Cup. If you have never seen the Walker Cup, it’s a biennial competition where leading amateur golfers of the US go head to head with the best amateurs from Great Britain and Ireland. In both his golf game and his career as a beer distributor, Spider is living proof of the power o...

Today’s guest is Daniel Lubetzky, Founder of KIND Snacks – which is the fastest growing snack brand in the world. It’s not every day that you can find a snack that’s healthy AND tasty.  But as you’re going to hear in this conversation, Daniel is really good at finding a way to advance two seemingly contradictory goals, and it’s been a game changer for both his business and his life. He calls it th...

Today’s guest is Donna Barton Brothers, the COO of Starlight Racing. She also just happens to be one of the most decorated female jockeys in the horse industry and the leading on-track television broadcaster for NBC. If you watch the Kentucky Derby, she’s the reporter at the winner’s circle, riding her horse backward as she talks to the winning jockey in the moments after the race. Now that takes...

Here is part two of my conversation with Fred Ridley, Chairman of the Augusta National Golf Club. If you haven’t had a chance to listen to part one yet, stop and do that first. It’s not easy to preserve the incredible tradition of a place like Augusta National while also making sure you’re moving into the future with new ideas. That tension between tradition and new ideas is something we can proba...

Today’s guest is Fred Ridley, Chairman of Augusta National Golf Club, and the man behind the Masters. Fred has so much love and respect for the game of golf, and he’s quite a player himself – he won the 1975 US Amateur and competed in a few Masters tournaments. But after a successful career as a commercial lawyer and overseeing the Masters Championship Committee for ten years, Fred took over as Ch...

Today’s guest is Kara Goldin, the CEO and Founder of Hint Water, which is the leading brand for unsweetened flavored water.  It may surprise you to learn that Kara founded this company having no experience at all in the beverage industry.  It all started when she wanted to swap her diet soda for water, but she found drinking plain water too boring. So she created a whole new product category that’...

Today’s guest is Jesse Cole, the Founder of Fans First Entertainment & Owner of Savannah Bananas. He’s the one-of-a-kind innovator behind the incredible (and unlikely) popularity of this small Coastal Plain League baseball team. That’s because the sell-out crowds at a Savannah Bananas game aren’t really there for the baseball. They’re there for the dancing grandmas and conga lines and – get this –...

Today’s guest is Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder of Allbirds, the world’s most comfortable shoe according to Time Magazine. His company is growing by leaps and bounds, and they’ve pioneered a truly sustainable shoe that people really love. But all of it almost never happened. Fortunately, a few years ago, Joey had the courage to ask himself one really powerful question. And when he did, he got a healt...

Today’s guest is Niren Chaudhary, CEO of Panera. Have you ever been absolutely overwhelmed by a challenge? Maybe it was a crisis … or a huge turnaround effort … or just a really complex problem you had to fix? Those are the moments that define us as leaders. And Niren Chaudhary can teach us so much about how to turn those challenging moments into defining wins. When he took over at Panera in 2019,...

Today, you’ll see that business wisdom and leadership insight can come from ANY age – because our guest for this episode is 15-year-old Mikaila Ulmer, the Founder and CEO of Me and the Bees Lemonade. Mikaila turned the lemonade stand she started as a four-year-old into a nationally distributed brand that has sold 2 million bottles of honey lemonade and is backed by Shark Tank investor Daymond John...

Today’s guest is Marvin Ellison, CEO of Lowe’s. Have you ever taken over in a position after the previous person left under bad circumstances?  If you have, then you know – those are some of the toughest situations to walk into. Marvin is amazing for a lot of reasons … but check this out: in EVERY new role during his 25-year career, he has taken over for someone who’s been fired or forced out. Now...

Today’s guest is Lauren Hobart, President & CEO of Dick's Sporting Goods. If you look at any job description for a leadership role, the one thing that’s ALWAYS going to be listed there is … drumroll, please … excellent communication skills. In fact, we talk about communication skills in leadership so often that it’s easy to forget what it actually means to communicate well. Today’s conversation wi...

Today’s guest is General Ray Odierno, the former Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army – which is the top job in the Army. He retired in 2015 as a four-star general and now works in the private sector, consulting on minor little subjects like country risk and cybersecurity Now it’s one thing to talk about trusting a leader in a workplace setting. But trusting a leader in the military goes up a whole oth...

Today’s guest is Kevin Johnson, CEO of Starbucks. Do you ever feel like your organization is incredibly complex? Like it takes forever to get anything done? It’s a pretty common issue, especially if you lead in a big or fast-growing organization. Now, obviously, Starbucks is a massive company. They operate in 82 countries with 383,000 employees. But they’re still able to innovate and adapt quickly...

Today’s guest is Madeline Bell, President & CEO of the world-renowned Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Now you’ve probably heard how important it is for leaders to “walk the talk” – for our actions to sync up with our words. After all, our people are only listening to us some of the time. But they are watching us all the time. What’s our tone? Our body language? Do we listen? Do we take time o...

Today’s guest is Lindsey Johnson, Cofounder and CEO of Weezie Towels. She and her co-founder Liz Eicholz are long-time friends who joined forces to build something really special. At Weezie, they have made a unique product people love. They’ve created differentiators no one else has. They’ve wrapped it all up in fun, thoughtful branding. They’re making a splash everywhere from Forbes to Southern L...

Today’s guest is John Calipari, head basketball coach at the University of Kentucky. Yes, the legendary Coach Cal!  I gotta tell you, if you’re listening to this podcast first thing in the morning, you can just skip the coffee. Coach Cal will get you fired up with just his passion and energy alone.  But you know, there’s something even more powerful behind that enthusiasm – and that’s how much Coa...

Today’s guest is Jack Nicklaus, who is widely regarded as the best golfer to ever play the game. He hardly needs an introduction! He won 117 professional tournaments over his 44 year career, including six Masters, five PGA championships, four U.S. Open titles, and three British Open titles.  But his legendary status doesn’t stop with his playing career. He’s gone on to design world renowned course...

Today’s guest is Dave Cote, former CEO of Honeywell. Dave led an incredible turnaround at Honeywell. When he took charge in 2002, the company was in dire straits. Dave was in charge for 16 years, and in that time, Honeywell's market cap grew from $20 billion to a whopping $120 billion.  And at every point along the way, Dave fought the misconception that leaders have to choose between two seemingl...

Today’s guest is Frank Blake, former CEO of The Home Depot. He actually calls himself the “accidental CEO” – and it was a bit of a surprise when he was appointed back in 2007. It’s not every day that a former lawyer for GE finds his way to the top role at a home improvement store. However, his success at The Home Depot has been anything BUT accidental. He made big calls that turned the company aro...

Today’s guest is Steve Burke, Chairman of NBCUniversal. Since taking over NBCUniversal in 2011, he's almost tripled the profits from around $3 billion to over $8 billion and is leading the fastest growing media company in the world. Before that, Steve was the #2 guy at Comcast alongside Brian Roberts as they acquired NBCUniversal. He’s also led hugely successful efforts at Disney and ABC. He has a...

In any organization, there’s always some kind of chaos. It’s just the way of the world. But leaders don’t just face chaos. They’re defined by how they handle it.  And that’s why we’re thrilled to have today’s guest, Mory Fontanez. She's the founder of 822 Group, a consultancy which is helping companies and leaders reconnect with their higher purpose to grow their businesses. Now, if you’re the typ...

Today’s guest is Tim Ryan, US Chair and Senior Partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the top accounting and consulting firms in the world.  You don’t get elected to this kind of position if you’re not absolutely at the top of your game. And Tim sure is. He is one of the smartest guys around.  But that does not mean he has all the answers. In fact, in his words, he “drives himself crazy with li...

Today’s guest is Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase. If you haven’t already heard part one of this conversation, check the feed and start there instead. It’s a masterclass in dealing with problems by preparing for them ahead of time. But some problems aren’t possibilities waaaaaay off in the future. They’re right here, right now! And in part two, we get into how Jamie deals with those...