Driving Change
39 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 2 years ago - ★★★★★ - 3 ratingsPublic policy impacts everyone’s life, for better or worse.
The decisions taken by faceless civil servants have a lasting impact on the lives of every person on the planet and on the health of the planet itself. Yet beyond high profile officials, very few people know or appreciate the individuals who have dedicated their lives to creating and implementing the policies that change the world around us.
We feel it’s time to change that.
Join us each week as we interview the practitioners of public policy, discuss the work they do, and its impact on the world.
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Episodes
Books Driving Change: Sharath Jeevan and Intrinsic
March 23, 2022 17:29 - 33 minutes - 30.5 MBMatthew Bishop (MB): Hello, this is Matthew Bishop with Books Driving Change. And today I'm talking with Sharath Jeevan, who is the author of Intrinsic: A Manifesto to Reignite Our Inner Drive. Sharath is a social entrepreneur who came out of the business world, consulting world, and helped launch STIR Education -- which is an organization that helps teachers improve their performance through their better motivation and sharing of insights -- he can elaborate on that -- in many countries, in...
Books Driving Change: Jonathan Greenblatt and It Could Happen Here
March 09, 2022 20:23 - 40 minutes - 37 MBToday on Books Driving Change we talk with Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, who has written a powerful new book called It Could Happen Here: Why America Is Tipping from Hate to the Unthinkable—And How We Can Stop It.
Books Driving Change: Agustín Porres and Unfinished Business in Education
February 14, 2022 15:30 - 33 minutes - 30.3 MBThe people that work in education and that take the responsibility of leading the education system are mainly optimists. If not, you cannot take the job. In the latest episode of Books Driving Change, Agustín Porres and Matthew Bishop talk about Porres’ new book, Unfinished Business in Education, in which he interviews 31 previous education secretaries from around the globe. Each of them reflects on their time in office -- what they learned, what they achieved, what they failed to do, and w...
Books Driving Change: Ron Gonen and The Waste-Free World
January 26, 2022 20:38 - 31 minutes - 28.7 MBIn this episode, we talk with Ron Gonen, who is the founder of Closed Loop Partners, and the author of The Waste-Free World: How the Circular Economy Will Take Less, Make More, and Save the Planet. Ron believes we have a challenge in the American economy -- and a little bit in the U.K. as well some other developed countries -- where the highest status in society goes sometimes to the jobs that don't always create the most social benefit or require the most amount of intellect. The jobs of t...
Made in Africa: A Conversation with Yawa Hansen-Quao
January 13, 2022 17:41 - 42 minutes - 39.3 MBHansen-Quao has also served for three years on the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Community, has worked as a leadership consultant to UN Women, and in 2016 was awarded an Eisenhower Fellowship in honor of her pioneering work nurturing emerging women leaders. Hansen-Quao talks with Bansal about her journey, both professional and personal, and how her experiences have helped the vision she has for African governance and leadership. She and her family were for...
Books Driving Change: Anne-Marie Slaughter and Renewal
December 15, 2021 16:43 - 33 minutes - 30.7 MBToday we talk with Anne-Marie Slaughter, the author of Renewal: From Crisis to Transformation in Our Lives, Work, and Politics. Anne-Marie has been a big figure in Washington and thought leadership for the past 20 years or so. This book is both a story about how America, because America in some ways is also a beacon for the world, needs to go through a process of renewal to get itself out of its current, dysfunctional moment. And also, it's a story of personal renewal as a leader. And the wa...
Books Driving Change: François Bonnici and The Systems Work of Social Change
December 08, 2021 15:46 - 35 minutes - 32.2 MBMatthew Bishop (MB): Hello, this is Books Driving Change with me, Matthew Bishop. And today I'm talking with François Bonnici, co-author with Cynthia Rayner, of The Systems Work of Social Change: How to Harness Connection, Context, and Power to Cultivate Deep and Enduring Change. Obviously, this is a book that goes right to the heart of the mission of Books Driving Change, where we're looking at how do we build back better in this moment of crisis that the world is facing. And this book, I ...
Books Driving Change: Peter Coleman and The Way Out
November 19, 2021 17:36 - 43 minutes - 40.1 MBMatthew Bishop (MB): Hello, this is Matthew Bishop with Books Driving Change. And today I'm talking with Peter Coleman of Columbia University, one of the co-founders of the Difficult Conversations Lab, which explores what do we do about toxic conversations, a subject that hopefully won't refer to the conversation we're having together now -- which will hopefully be a very positive conversation. But, obviously, we are at a time of increasing polarization in the world. And a lot of conversa...
Made in Africa: A Conversation with Bright Simons
October 28, 2021 18:37 - 41 minutes - 37.9 MBThat was also a very interesting lesson, because eventually, that will be the way we managed to make the most difference, not by convincing people about the goodness of our mission alone, or trying to shame them into doing good, we found out that ultimately strategic alliances, where people see the enlightened self-interest was almost always a more effective tool, which is where my activism was then balanced by my intrapreneurship. And this continuing dance went on. In this episode of Made ...
Books Driving Change: Meighan Stone and Awakening
October 25, 2021 15:19 - 39 minutes - 36.5 MBShow me the social movement where there was no backlash. I'll wait for an answer, because there is none. There is not an example of a social movement that didn't trigger backlash. Because these things feel very threatening when we start to change the structures of society. -- Meighan Stone, Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations; Former President, Malala Foundation
Books Driving Change: Paul Polman and Net Positive
October 06, 2021 15:21 - 33 minutes - 30.6 MBPaul, thank you for talking with us today. The audience of this podcast is people who are interested in being involved, in building back better, and dealing with some of the big global challenges that we're now facing. In a sentence, why should they read your book? Paul Polman (PP): Well, in a simple sentence will be one question: is the world better off because your company is in it or not? This is probably the most important question to ask. What the book is trying to do is to create a mo...
Books Driving Change: Paul Shoemaker and Taking Charge of Change
September 29, 2021 14:38 - 23 minutes - 21.6 MBMatthew Bishop (MB): Hello, welcome to Books Driving Change. I'm Matthew Bishop, and today we're talking with Paul Shoemaker, who is the author of Taking Charge of Change: How Rebuilders Solve Hard Problems. Paul is a podcaster, activist, philanthropist, founder of Social Venture Partners International, which is a network of philanthropists, and has been really involved and an activist in change for many years. Paul, our audience is really people who are feeling a calling to get involved, ...
Made in Africa: A Conversation with Chinny Ogunro
September 13, 2021 15:15 - 40 minutes - 36.7 MB“If I have to decide between creating one large hospital that impacts a small number of very, very wealthy lives, but makes me personally rich, versus having a large number of small clinics, that impacts probably the lowest income populations and makes me reasonably okay to eat, I will always choose the latter because I'm very much a utilitarian. I want to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people so my focus has always been on the low- to middle-income population. How do we mak...
Books Driving Change: Gillian Tett and Anthro-Vision
August 27, 2021 15:19 - 33 minutes - 30.3 MBI'm going to start, as I do with all the authors that we have on this podcast, by asking you, Gillian, the audience we're aiming at here is people who are interested in how we can do a better job at improving the state of the world and who are interested in public service in some way. And the question to you is, in a sentence, why should people, our audience, read your book? Gillian Tett (GT): In a sentence, most of the problems in policy making and corporate life, and as general citizens, ...
Books Driving Change: Adam Grant and Think Again
August 16, 2021 15:04 - 25 minutes - 22.9 MBIf you change your mind because you're telling people what they want to hear, and you're trying to curry favor or get the approval of your constituents, you're doing that for purely political reasons. And you are flip flopping, and we should be critical of that. But what if you change because you've encountered stronger evidence or sharper logic? That's not flip flopping, that's called learning. And I think we ought to separate the two and start to recognize that some leaders when they chang...
Books Driving Change: Noreena Hertz and The Lonely Century
July 26, 2021 14:53 - 33 minutes - 31.1 MB“Loneliness thrives in an ecosystem that its drivers are structural, and political, and economic, as well as to do with choices we make as individuals, and therefore that its solutions need to be comprehensive. That we can solve today’s loneliness crisis, but only if we as government, we as business leaders, and we as individuals, make a decision to do so.” -- Noreena Hertz
Books Driving Change: Enric Sala and The Nature of Nature
July 14, 2021 18:47 - 38 minutes - 35.2 MBIn this week's episode we talk with Enric Sala, Explorer in Residence at the National Geographic Society, who has written a terrific new book, The Nature of Nature: Why We Need the Wild. Enric is an extraordinary enthusiast for nature and a practical person who has personally led important work to save large amounts of the ocean through his Pristine Seas initiative, which we discuss in this podcast. For people who are committed to building back a better world, there could be no better prac...
Books Driving Change: Jacqueline Novogratz and Manifesto for a Moral Revolution
June 28, 2021 16:57 - 30 minutes - 28.2 MBToday, I'm talking with Jacqueline Novogratz, who is the founder and CEO of Acumen, a nonprofit investment fund that takes businesslike approaches to building a better world. Jacqueline is an extraordinary leader herself and has experienced some really demanding challenges throughout her career, including having launched a microfinance institution in Rwanda, where some of the leaders got caught up on both sides of the genocidal civil war. She is looked to by many of us for wise counsel and i...
Made in Africa: A Conversation with Elizabeth Wangeci Chege
June 23, 2021 18:54 - 43 minutes - 40.1 MBIn episode three of Made in Africa, Driving Change’s conversation series with African visionaries whose work impacts the public good, Elizabeth Wangeci Chege speaks with Sarika Bansal about her life and career. Chenge is the CEO and co-founder of WEB Limited, a sustainability design consultancy based in Nairobi, Kenya. Until recently, she was also the chairperson of the Kenya Green Building Society. Chenge wants to transform how we think about designing buildings, and cities more general...
Made in Africa: A Conversation With Dalberg’s James Mwangi
June 04, 2021 15:17 - 44 minutes - 41 MB“The thing that I found actually resonated [with potential clients] was less of saying how much we knew, and actually playing into how much we didn't know. And actually coming in and saying, look, you shouldn't hire me if you think you shouldn't hire us, our team. If you think that we know more about this topic or your industry than you do. Because then you know, we should be in your job. What you should hire us for is we will take nothing for granted. Because actually, we don't take anythin...
Government for a New Generation: Q&A with Donald Kettl
June 03, 2021 21:11 - 25 minutes - 23 MBProfessor Donald Kettl is a world-renowned expert in and professor of public affairs at the Lyndon B. Johnson School at the University of Texas, Austin. He’s a senior fellow at the Volcker Alliance and the Partnership for Public Service as well as the author of eight books on government, global management, democracy and public policy. Professor Kettl joins Driving Change in a conversation about what the post-Trump era bodes for the future of public service recruitment, which is now a top prio...
Made in Africa: A Conversation with Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng
May 13, 2021 17:33 - 47 minutes - 43.7 MBDr. T is someone who seems at home in every space she enters, whether she is with sex workers in a tiny clinic or with heads of state at the UN General Assembly. She began her career as a medical doctor in the rural Eastern Cape of South Africa where she specialized in sexual and reproductive health, HIV care, and youth-friendly services. She was inspired to become an activist by her experiences growing up in apartheid South Africa, as well as by the experiences of her young patients. Toda...
From Professional Provocateur To Political Insider. Q&A With Tim Wilson MP
January 13, 2021 14:33 - 17 minutes - 15.9 MBDriving Change (DC): In many ways, you have built your career by courting controversy and critiquing the system that you’re now part of. Can you tell us about that journey Tim Wilson (TW): I’ve gone from the experience of working in the world of ideas to what it means to be practical and to have to implement [those ideas] in terms of policy. That’s been a journey. When you’re in the world of ideas, or the think-tank world, you can stick with very ideological worldviews, things that are v...
Jobs After The Pandemic. Q&A With Nobel Laureate Michael Spence
January 04, 2021 18:02 - 34 minutes - 31.7 MBMichael Spence (MS): The economic outlook is a little grim and tough in the short to medium run. There are two things going on. One is the pandemic, which forced us to conduct experiments in the economy that we normally would have conducted at a much slower pace. And some of those experiments are going to result in learning that changes the whole pattern of work - maybe more working from home, maybe a lot more collaboration, and maybe less international travel. But the flip side is that t...
Were you paying attention in 2020? Take our quiz to find out.
December 29, 2020 18:50 - 16 minutes - 15.2 MBWhat an extraordinary year it has been, with a once-in-100-years pandemic, an historic US presidential election, the long-drawn-out saga of Brexit in Europe, and a host of other lesser-spotted occurrences. But have you been paying attention? Take our quiz to discover if you are top of the public policy pops or whether the finer details have somehow passed you by.
How Public is your Country's Wealth? Take our quiz.
December 28, 2020 18:36 - 10 minutes - 9.15 MBOliver Cromwell once described English land law as “an ungodly jumble”. More than 350 years later, Dag Detter has a similar view of the way cities and countries value what they own. Their property and assets represent two times global GDP – almost twice the size of equity capital markets. Grouped in public wealth funds, they could release capital equal to 3% of annual GDP – $600bn in the US – for vital infrastructure spending. The fundamental problem, according to Detter, is that the public...
The Case For African Optimism. Q&A With Ndidi Nwuneli
December 22, 2020 19:00 - 19 minutes - 18.2 MBNdidi Nwuneli (NN): We have 10 years to achieve UN Sustainable Development Goal 2, zero hunger, yet it is 2020 and we have actually seen almost a doubling of food insecurity around the world. Instead of getting better, our indices are getting worse, not only around malnutrition, but obesity, and all the related diseases. Our focus is on the role of private sector as the engine of growth and change. We believe private sector has to take a lead in innovation, catalytic financing, and addressi...
Science, Policy Making & The Pandemic. Q&A With Bill Haseltine
December 07, 2020 15:43 - 36 minutes - 33.6 MBDuring the pandemic, Bill Haseltine has been a trusted guide for many people to the intricacies of Covid-19 science and the public policy response. This contribution has included writing an invaluable book of advice for parents of younger children, “A COVID Back To School Guide”. A pioneering academic scientist, serial biotech entrepreneur, philanthropist and founder of the NGO, ACCESS Health International, he recently published an autobiography, “My Lifelong Fight Against Disease.” This beg...
Science, Policy Making & The Pandemic. Q&A With William Haseltine
December 07, 2020 15:43 - 36 minutes - 33.6 MBDuring the pandemic, WilliamHaseltine has been a trusted guide for many people to the intricacies of Covid-19 science and the public policy response. This contribution has included writing an invaluable book of advice for parents of younger children, “A COVID Back To School Guide”. A pioneering academic scientist, serial biotech entrepreneur, philanthropist and founder of the NGO, ACCESS Health International, he recently published an autobiography, “My Lifelong Fight Against Disease.” This b...
What Giving Tuesday Says About Movement Building. Q&A with Asha Curran
December 01, 2020 17:04 - 19 minutes - 17.9 MBGiving Tuesday was launched in 2012 on the Tuesday after American Thanksgiving, as an annual celebration of generosity in all its forms. It has grown rapidly into a global grass roots movement, drawing together people around the world who share a love of serving their fellow humans with their time, expertise and money. Asha Curran has been involved in Giving Tuesday from the start, helping her then boss, Henry Timms, launch the idea. Now she is the CEO. For Driving Change, Matthew Bishop – an...
On World Toilet Day a Q&A with Jack Sim, Mr Toilet.
November 19, 2020 17:03 - 15 minutes - 14.5 MBIt is 20 years since Jack Sim founded the World Toilet Organization, to campaign for better sanitation and hygiene. In 2013, the United Nations designated November 19th as an annual World Toilet Day. When he talked recently with Driving Change, we began by asking Mr Toilet, as Sim is affectionately known, about how he first got interested in sanitation, and about an influential meeting he had with Mr Condom.
Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals: Q&A Arturo Condo
October 30, 2020 19:26 - 19 minutes - 17.6 MBArturo Condo is the president of EARTH University in Costa Rica, an innovative global university which trains students for futures in sustainable development, particularly in rural parts of the world. Prior to his work at EARTH University, Condo was the president and professor of strategy and competitiveness at INCAE Business school. In total, he has committed over 24 years of his career to teaching and researching sustainable development. As a result of his dedication, he was named one of th...
How Australia manages the pandemic: Q&A Tim Wilson
October 30, 2020 19:19 - 17 minutes - 15.9 MBTim Wilson is a member of the Australian House of Representatives where he serves as the Chair of the Standing Committee on Economics. His policy areas of interest are health, trade, energy and the environment. Before he was a member of Parliament, he was the Human Rights Commissioner and was the policy director at the Institute of Public Affairs. He is noted for his advocacy in free trade and marriage equality and has authored a book, the New Social Contract, which articulates the unique nat...
Solving homelessness during the pandemic: Q&A Rosanne Haggerty
October 30, 2020 19:16 - 21 minutes - 19.3 MBRosanne Haggerty is one of the most influential voices on homelessness in America and around the world. She is the president of Community Solutions, a nonprofit working to make a lasting end to homelessness. Haggerty uses her expertise in real estate, finance, management, and strategic planning to create innovative housing solutions for disadvantaged urban residents. Prior to COVID-19, Haggerty remained optimistic about achieving zero homelessness in America. Driving Change began our conversa...
The Future of work after Covid 19: Q&A Michael Spence
October 30, 2020 19:10 - 34 minutes - 31.7 MBMichael Spence is a Canadian-American economist and a recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. He is the Phillip H. Knight Professor Emeritus at and former dean of the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a William R. Berkley Professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business. Spence is also the author of The Next Convergence, which looks at what’s at stake for the global economy in the next fifty years. We b...
Climate change and the pandemic: Q&A with Gavin Schmidt
October 30, 2020 19:03 - 21 minutes - 20 MBSince 2014, Gavin Schmidt has been director of the influential NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, located in New York's Columbia University. One of the institute's key objectives is predicting atmospheric and climate changes in the 21st Century - and Schmidt is one of the world's most trusted guides to the latest data on the impact of rising temperatures and advocate for urgent action to limit climate change and its adverse impacts. Driving Change began our conversation by asking him a...
The Endgame For Fossil Fuels. Q&A: Mark Campanale
October 28, 2020 16:40 - 16 minutes - 14.9 MBMark Campanale (MC): COVID changed a lot. What it’s done is forced a huge contraction in the global economy. And that contraction has worked its way into energy demand. If we think of climate change as perhaps the big existential problem of our age, and certainly for the coming century, [Covid has] meant that people are looking at where energy is generated and the burning of fossil fuels which contribute to climate change. People have realized we can switch to clean energy: it’s cheaper, it’...
Is The Great Online Education Experiment Working? Q&A: Vikas Pota
October 28, 2020 16:40 - 22 minutes - 20.3 MBVikas Pota (VP): You are right to say that COVID, as a phenomenon, has absolutely turned everything upside down. What’s really interesting about it is that it’s affected people from what you would call the Global South as much as it has the Global North. Therein lies, I think, a huge number of opportunities to look at how change can happen in education systems. This has been a rare opportunity for a teacher in Nigeria to have an influence on a teacher in Norway, simply because there’s a...
How Covid Can Help Us Fight Climate Change. Q&A: Gavin Schmidt
October 28, 2020 16:40 - 21 minutes - 20 MBGS: So it doesn’t really change our long term forecasts of what’s happening but obviously there are some short term disruptions in what’s being put into the atmosphere, how the economy is working, where power is being generated, how it’s being generated, that have impacts on the amount of fossil fuels that are being burned, how much is being emitted into the atmosphere, or how dirty the air is. All of those things are perhaps detectable in the climate record but will certainly be detectable ...