Thought Sparks

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, sits down with Roger Dennis, advisor on long term thinking and foresight and cultural transformation specialist.     00:00 Introduction   00:22 Welcome Roger Dennis   01:03 How Roger became a futurist   03:05 "Getting above...

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, sits down with Jonathan Brill, business futurist and co-author of AI and the Octopus Organization: Building the Superintelligent Firm.       1:56: Explaining the Octopus Metaphor  3:25: AI-Enabled Bottom-Up Innovation  8:01: The...

  In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, speaks with fellow Silicon Guild Members Chris Shipley and Scott Barry Kaufman, editors of the upcoming essay collection “Leading for Tomorrow: Unlocking Human Potential in the Era of Continuous Change and Endless Possibility”...

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, speaks with Sharmla Chetty, CEO of Duke Corporate Education and expert on human-centered leadership, AI, and workforce transformation.    0:00 Introduction  0:57 Sharmla's Story: Growing Up Under Apartheid  3:30 Systems Chan...

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, speaks with MacKenzie Price, co-founder of Alpha Schools, about the limitations of the traditional education system, and what other educational models are possible.     0:00 – Intro teaser: raising adaptable young people and the...

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, speaks with April Dunford, expert on brand and product positioning, and author of Obviously Awesome, recently rereleased in its second edition, and Sales Pitch. Their conversation covers how good positioning unlocks value and he...

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, sits down with Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup, to talk about his new book Incorruptible. They discuss what organizations beyond corruption look like, touching on financial gravity and fiduciary duty, and how we might move...

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, speaks with Jennifer Moss, the Chief Research and Strategy Officer at the Global Wellbeing Group and the author of Why Are We Here? Creating A Work Culture Everyone Wants. She's an expert on what causes burnout, and what lea...

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, speaks with Nilofer Merchant, co-founder of The Intangible Labs, and author of the new book Our Best Work: Break Free from the 24 Invisible Norms that Limit Us.    00:28: Context for the Book  3:56: The Birdcage and Why We’re St...

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, speaks with Michael Lurie, Chief Catalyst at Bayer and expert in leading large-scale transformations.    00:00 Introductions & Context  1:37 The Challenge — Walking Into Bayer  5:07 How the Rollout Began, Using Two Tracks  8...

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, speaks with Monica Nassif, an entrepreneur and founder of Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day, as well as author of “I Bottled My Mother: The Mrs. Meyer’s Story: Grit, Grime, and Growing a Business”.    [0:14] Monica Nassif: Entrepreneur, Ca...

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, sits down with Teresa Amabile, Edsel Bryant Ford Professor, Emerita, at Harvard Business School, and co-author of the book  Retiring: Creating a Life That Works for You , which draws on over 100 case studies of individuals’ expe...

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, speaks with Vivienne Ming, theoretical neuroscientist and artificial intelligence expert, named one of “10 Women to Watch in Tech” by Inc. Magazine and one of the BBC’s 100 Women in 2017, and author of the new book “Robot-Proof:...

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, speaks with Dave Whorton, Founder & CEO at Tugboat Institute, and co-author of Another Way: Building Companies That Last…and Last…and Last alongside Bo Burlingham, which gives practical advice and explanations of Evergreen c...

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, sits down with Johan Roos, Global Chief Academic Officer at Hult International Business School, co-creator of LEGO Serious Play, and author of  Human Magic: Leading with Wisdom in an Age of Algorithms.     00:30: Introductions —...

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, sits down with Deborah Perry Piscione, co-author of the book “EMPLOYMENT IS DEAD: How Disruptive Technologies are Revolutionizing the Way we Work” and co-founder and Chief Future Officer of the Work3 Institute.    0:22: Welcome...

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, welcomes Sangeet Paul Choudary– expert on platform economics and network effects, and the recipient of the 2025 Thinkers50 Strategy Award – to discuss his new book Reshuffle.  0:00 - Intro & Teaser   0:31 - Welcome & Gue...

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, welcomes Christian Marcolli, a performance psychologist who works with elite athletes and executives on how to achieve and sustain high performance, and the author of “Winning Match: Leadership for Game Changers”   00:27 Introdu...

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, welcomes Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, professor of business psychology at  University College London  and an adjunct professor at Columbia University,  and the author of Don't Be Yourself: Why Authenticity Is Overrated (and What...

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, welcomes José Marcilla, President of Latin America and Canada (LACan) Region at Novartis, and author of “Unlimited Leadership”.     00:46: Why this Book, and The Crisis of Good Leadership  3:04: Jose’s Journey and Career Path  5...

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, welcomes Steven Goldbach and Geoff Tuff, authors of Hone: How Purposeful Leaders Defy Drift. They explore how leaders can align their organizations amid the “drift” that can accompany large transformations and other contexts of...

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, welcomes Sylvia Acevedo,  a trailblazer with experience spanning NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to executive roles at Apple, Dell, and IBM, and serving as the CEO of the Girl Scouts.     1:56: The Trailblazer’s Playbook: From...

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, sits down with Don Tapscott, CEO of the Tapscott Group, Chairman and co-Founder of the Blockchain Research Institute, and author of “You to the Power of Two”.     00:00: Introductions and Don’s Expertise in Blockchains and Ident...

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, speaks with Peter Capelli of Wharton and HR Strategist Ranya Nehmeh. Their book, In Praise of the Office, is a research-based assessment of the benefits and drawback of both in-person and remote work.  1:10: WFH, RTO, WFM: Acron...

In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, speaks with Rob Siegel, Lecturer in Management at Stanford University , a venture investor, a former operator, and author of The Systems Leader: Mastering the Cross-Pressures That Make or Break Today’s Companies. 1:10: Teaching...