Leadership and Business

The amount of change businesses have experienced since the pandemic has been considerable. Just about every sector learned some lessons during and after the pandemic. And, as a result, they operate differently today. That includes hospitals. In the past five years, hospitals of all sizes have seen changes in staffing, tele-health, finance, and staff and patient safety among other things. Dr. Corne...

According to Gallup's State of the Workplace, 1 in 5 employees currently feel lonely at work. And the World Health Organization estimates 1 in 6 adults worldwide experience significant loneliness. The downstream effects of loneliness at work include poor performance, reduced creativity, and higher absenteeism. Loneliness among young people, in particular Gen Z, has reached an alarming rate. The Un...

Whether you're happily employed, between jobs, or employed and looking for your next role, it can be easy to forget about your personal brand. Building and promoting your personal brand is important in today's competitive and crowded world, and it requires time, thought and effort. On the positive side, more tools than ever are available today to help you communicate those qualities that make you...

The holidays are upon us and we hope that means you get some well-deserved downtime. Some quiet time to read a good book, listen to a podcast, watch a movie, or stream some good TV. We asked some of our colleagues at the William & Mary School of Business to share their recommendations with you. Something they think you'll enjoy while you watch, listen, or read.  Learn how the Raymond A. Mason Scho...

Ask someone to describe the current job market and you're bound to hear a range of labels like "soft," "mixed," and even "positive." However you see it, one thing's for sure: the current job market is unusual. Due to a number of factors, it seems like we've never experienced a market quite like this. If you're seeking or considering a new role, some of the traditional tactics still work. At the sa...

Whether a startup or a Fortune 500 company, it's more challenging than ever to cut through all the noise and competition to reach new customers, partners, and investors. One requirement for success is a great story, and often one that can be told in just seconds. In today's world, the best story wins. Last month during homecoming weekend, the William & Mary entrepreneurship hub hosted a storytelli...

According to a number of sources, the average business professional spends just under five years with an employer before they move on to another organization. Colby Loucks has been with the same employer his entire career. For 29 years, he's worked for the World Wildlife Fund. He started as a college intern, now he's Vice President and Deputy for Wildlife. The World Wildlife Fund works to build a...

It's a special edition of Leadership & Business. With today's episode, we're celebrating two milestones: our 10th year anniversary, and our 250th episode. We couldn't let that go by without sharing something special so we invited two CEOs to join us on the podcast today. AnnaMaria DeSalva just concluded her tenure as Chairman at Burson - the global strategic communication firm. Before that, she se...

From Dog Street to Wall Street. It's an annual event co-hosted by the Boehly Center for Excellence in Finance at the William & Mary School of Business and partner organizations on campus. The event introduces students to William & Mary alumni and industry guests who lead sessions and panels on finance, investment and corporate banking, private equity, alternative investments, hedge funds and more....

Data centers, artificial intelligence, and manufacturing facilities require power to operate. And demand for power is growing considerably. Some wonder if the US will have the power necessary to fill its needs in the future. While the demand is causing increased and new competition in the energy space, one organization has been solving complex energy problems since 1990. LS Power is part investmen...

Improvisation. You probably know it as comedy and communication on the fly. It often consists of short scenes or sketches beginning with an idea from the audience. Many of your favorite comedians and entertainers have considerable improv training. As modern improv comedy grew, business professionals took note - realizing improv training could greatly help in terms of communication, success, and te...

With each day, more companies and organizations are hiring people who think – and approach problems – differently. Neurodiversity refers to the variation in which human brains function. A range of conditions fall under the neurodiverse umbrella; from autism to Tourette Syndrome, to others. The conditions affects the way people communicate, interact, and process information. Eleanor Loiacono is a p...

Bill Rosenthal is not a typical leader, and Midnight Oil is not a typical creative agency. Rosenthal is President of Midnight Oil, an agency located in Los Angeles. Its clients include Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and other streaming services and studios. Rosenthal and his team design and build highly creative and unique displays, billboards, and other media that grab peoples attention and get them talking...

It's a subsidiary of one of the largest machinery manufacturers in Japan: Sumitomo Machinery Corporation of America. Jim Solomon is its CEO. Solomon overseas the company's locations in North, Central, and South America while staying in close contact with corporate headquarters in Japan. It's an interesting leadership role in that Solomon finds himself interacting with different cultures regularly....

When you think of corporate or organizational crises, the list of examples is never ending: the BP oil spill, the Tylenol tampering incident, the Wells Fargo account fraud scandal, the Equifax data breach, and countless others. A crisis can threaten a number of important elements, including your ability to operate, your relationships with stakeholders, the ability to pursue your strategy, and your...

Since it was founded sixteen years ago, the Hilb Group - a successful middle market insurance broker - has embraced a high growth strategy. And in just over a decade and a half, the organization has acquired almost two hundred small agencies and brokers across the country. While focused on the growth, Hilb's leaders also work to maintain the health of the organization, customer satisfaction, and f...

Networking. Love it or hate it, networking is required if you're looking to land a new job in this unusual employment market, or if you want to grow and progress in your career. Many people feel somewhat uncomfortable networking, and if that sounds like you, it might be time to examine the approach you take to networking. Inga Carboni is a professor of management at the William & Mary School of Bu...

The Muscarelle Museum of Art at William & Mary has been in the spotlight lately generating media coverage by the Wall Street Journal and others thanks to its current exhibition, Michelangelo: The Genesis of the Sistine. The exhibition, running through June 1st,  displays Michelangelo's early drawings of the famous frescoes of the Sistine Chapel. Organizations like the Muscarelle are part museum, p...

If there's one constant in business, it's change. Thanks to globalization, competition, AI, and other factors, change comes at us continuously. And while adapting to change is a challenge for many, change management is a critically important component of leadership. If not done correctly, employees, teammates, and customers will refuse to buy in. David Long is a professor of management at the Will...

Every spring, the MBA program at the William & Mary School of Business presents the Principled Achievement Award to a leader who best embraces and demonstrates the tenets of principled achievement. Previous winners include the head coach of the Buffalo Bills, Sean McDermott; and AnnaMaria DeSalva, global chairman of Burson, the global communication company. The Principled Achievement Award winner...

Have you ever avoided interacting with a colleague because the two of you see the world very differently? You know the conversation will be frustrating, so you just go another way. That, in its most basic form, is an example of polarization. We tend to think of polarization in politics: two parties divided and at two distant extremes. But polarization takes place at work. Our guest says it not onl...

November of 2022: That's when the Large Language Model ChatGPT was introduced. Professionals everywhere started to take notice of, and adopt, the technology. Now, just two years later, we have a number of LLMs at our disposal, including Copilot, Perplexity, Claude, Genesis and DeepSeek. In January, DeepSeek R1 was introduced. Developed by a Chinese Artificial Intelligence startup, DeepSeek has qui...

Few businesses have experienced the amount and type of change college athletics has experienced recently. It started when NIL was introduced, which gives college athletes the rights to control and profit from their name, image, and likeness. Now, some of the very best college athletes in the country are earning seven figures. Meanwhile, the transfer portal - which allows student athletes to easily...

It seems wherever you go, working professionals and companies are talking and strategizing about artificial intelligence, machine learning, and ChatGPT. And many of those conversations have taken place fairly recently. But before all the buzz, way back in 2016, Ai Spark began researching ways machine learning could intersect with finance. Now the organization uses a technology and people approach...

The holidays and the New Year, a time to relax a bit and recharge your battery. It's also an opportunity to break away for awhile and read or listen to a good book. But go online or into a bookstore and it's easy to be a little overwhelmed by all of the choices. To help you cut through the clutter, we invited Anna Milholland to join us. She's the business librarian at the McLeod Library at the Wil...