Skydeck
115 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 17 hours ago - ★★★★★ - 22 ratingsThe Harvard Business School alumni podcast
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Episodes
How To Have Effective Conversations
May 29, 2024 17:24 - 15 minutes - 36 MBPulitzer Prize–winning journalist Charles Duhigg (MBA 2003) on the rules of real talk
On the Job
May 16, 2024 14:02 - 14 minutes - 16.3 MBRecipients of the 2024 Alumni Achievement Award share takeaways from early experiences in the working world
Origin Stories
April 25, 2024 01:46 - 15 minutes - 21 MBRecipients of the 2024 Alumni Achievement Award reflect on how their early life shaped them—personally and professionally
Mission Control
April 05, 2024 17:48 - 16 minutes - 36.7 MBSpace entrepreneur Peter Platzer (MBA 2002) on the process of finding your purpose
In Harmony
March 08, 2024 16:01 - 20 minutes - 23.4 MBBorn in Korea, Michael Kim (MBA 1990) spent his formative years in the US. As his novel ‘Offerings’ heads for the big screen, Asia’s “godfather of private equity” reflects on time, legacy, duty, and the unexpected connections between fiction and finance.
Combat-Tested Cancer Coaching
February 22, 2024 20:27 - 16 minutes - 38.2 MBCancer will impact nearly one in two people in their lifetime. Kathy Giusti (MBA 1985) has battled it twice—and has lessons for anyone in the fight.
The Values and Virtues of a Quick Fix
January 19, 2024 14:08 - 15 minutes - 36.3 MBAuthor Anne Morriss (MBA 2004) on how companies can tackle complex issues with essential speed
The Musts of 2023
December 15, 2023 16:22 - 10 minutes - 25 MBAlumni recommendations from the year in media
So You Want to Join a Startup
November 22, 2023 19:50 - 13 minutes - 29.8 MBEntrepreneur and author Gus Bessalel (MBA 1988) on how to look before you leap
Love and Money
November 03, 2023 15:21 - 15 minutes - 13.9 MBInsights from the dating world with professional matchmaker Rachel Greenwald (MBA 1993)
Soldier On
October 06, 2023 13:43 - 14 minutes - 32.5 MBNewport News Mayor Phillip Jones, a Marine Corps veteran, on managing through a school shooting crisis—and what it takes to turnaround a city
Skydeck Voices: The Most Important Person I Met at HBS
September 19, 2023 18:31 - 14 minutes - 32.1 MBAlumni reflect on the like-minded cofounders, life-changing professors, and lifelong partners they met on campus.
Helping Consumers Decarbonize their Purchases
August 24, 2023 19:40 - 15 minutes - 36.4 MBIn this excerpt from the HBS podcast Climate Rising, Sanchali Pal (MBA 2018) discusses the business plan behind her sustainable spending app.
Striving for Imperfection
July 27, 2023 16:04 - 16 minutes - 38.1 MBIn a new book, Charles Conn (MBA 1990) offers problem-solving mindsets for uncertain times
Skydeck Live: Lessons from Major League Baseball’s Game-Changing Innovations
June 30, 2023 14:23 - 17 minutes - 31.9 MBChris Marinak (MBA 2008), Chief Operations and Strategy Officer at Major League Baseball, on building and nurturing an organizational culture of innovation—and what his experience at MLB can teach any business leader. (Recorded live at Spring Reunions.)
Balancing Acts
May 22, 2023 15:21 - 14 minutes - 16 MBRecipients of the 2023 Alumni Achievement Award offer their take on the tricky topic of managing personal and professional responsibilities
Fail Better
May 05, 2023 13:14 - 19 minutes - 21.9 MBRecipients of the 2023 Alumni Achievement Award describe when things didn’t go according to plan—and how those painful experiences were ultimately a good thing
Step Change
April 12, 2023 16:10 - 26 minutes - 30.1 MBFrom the Bulletin: When she came back to Egypt five years ago, investor Amal Enan (MBA 2014) embraced the chaos—and found a path to impact her country’s future
How Can We Solve the Teacher Shortage Crisis?
March 24, 2023 15:15 - 12 minutes - 29.6 MBIn this excerpt from HBS's Managing the Future of Work podcast, Mallory Dwinal-Palisch (MBA 2015) offers a lesson plan for the American education system
Clearing the Air - Episode 3: Carbon’s Second Act
February 24, 2023 18:33 - 10 minutes - 11.5 MBThis is the third and final episode of Clearing the Air, our mini-series on carbon capture. In this episode, we look at some of the potential uses for captured carbon—including a startup employing nature’s C02 recycling model—and the necessity of sweeping, speedy scaling.
Clearing the Air - Episode 2: Grand Ambitions in the Great Plains
February 14, 2023 15:08 - 9 minutes - 10.5 MBThis is the second episode of our Skydeck mini-series on carbon capture. In the first episode, we explored the scope of the problem—and the potential size of the business opportunity at this moment. In this episode we’re headed to the Carbon Capture Inc.'s headquarters in Downtown Los Angeles, where the company's first prototype was built. And to Southwest Wyoming where the company is planning the first large-scale direct-air capture facility in the United States.
Clearing the Air: Episode 1 - Can We Really Engineer a Climate Fix?
January 30, 2023 17:07 - 11 minutes - 12.7 MBThis is the first episode of "Clearing the Air", a three-part series focused on the business of carbon capture, a technology that could help address the climate change crisis by removing excess carbon dioxide right out of the atmosphere. The promise of this approach has launched a raft of companies that not only capture but also store and even reuse the carbon—creating an industry that has attracted several billion dollars of government and investor capital in just the last few years. But ...
Forged in Fire
January 13, 2023 16:08 - 19 minutes - 45.5 MBHBS Executive Fellow Bill George and Chad Foster (PLDA 21, 2016), an author and motivational speaker, on the transformational power of crucibles
Singing to the Corn
December 16, 2022 19:53 - 21 minutes - 48.4 MBFrom the HBS Alumni Bulletin: Taylor Keen’s Sacred Seed project shows how a Native American approach to agriculture can protect the planet’s soil—one garden at a time.
If I Were You
October 17, 2022 23:57 - 9 minutes - 21.7 MBAlumni offer their advice to current HBS students
Your Family, Your Work, Your Way
August 30, 2022 18:34 - 19 minutes - 43.8 MBDaisy Dowling (MBA 2002) helps working parents hit the reset button, post-COVID—and offers practical advice for moving forward on an even keel at home and in the office
Skydeck Live: Stage Not Age
August 09, 2022 20:35 - 20 minutes - 47.8 MBSusan Wilner Golden (PMD 59, 1990) on the promise of the new longevity economy
Wired to be Inspired
July 14, 2022 14:53 - 15 minutes - 35.9 MBProfessor Ranjay Gulati on the messy but transformational pursuit of purpose
Bidding Up
May 25, 2022 19:39 - 22 minutes - 25.2 MB2022 Alumni Achievement Award recipient Bob Wilson (MBA 1961, DBA 1963) on his journey from Depression-era Nebraska to a 2020 Nobel Prize
Leading to Salvation
May 19, 2022 15:14 - 22 minutes - 41.2 MB2022 Alumni Achievement Award recipient Bob Ryan (MBA 1970) had just stepped off his last board when he was called on for a different sort of service: revitalizing the oldest African American-owned business in north Minneapolis.
Onboarding
May 11, 2022 14:50 - 19 minutes - 21.8 MB2022 Alumni Achievement Award recipient Tosh Barron (MBA 1972) describes her experience as a pioneering woman in the board room, the elements of effective corporate governance, and what to look for when seeking a board role
Lesson Plans
May 05, 2022 17:24 - 15 minutes - 17.2 MBSal Khan’s ambition for Khan Academy: Empower billions of learners and provide a safety net for education systems around the world
Clean Slate
April 28, 2022 20:11 - 15 minutes - 18.2 MBIn the first of a weekly series of Skydeck episodes honoring recipients of the 2022 Alumni Achievement Award, finance veteran Naina Lal Kidwai (MBA 1982) talks about her second act as chairman and founder of the India Sanitation Coalition, an organization coordinating business, government, and nonprofit efforts to improve India’s water quality and health outcomes.
Home Grown
April 20, 2022 18:53 - 10 minutes - 25.1 MBNaveen Tewari, founder of InMobi and now Glance, is at the forefront of a growing trend of global consumer technology companies created in Asia—not just powered by it
Well Said
March 23, 2022 18:04 - 14 minutes - 32.5 MBAnada Lakra’s startup helps non-native speakers master the art of the English language
Making Peace with Anger
January 24, 2022 15:42 - 19 minutes - 45.7 MBHow Walker & Dunlop CEO Willy Walker’s experience with anger management therapy transformed his life and career
Higher Returns
December 03, 2021 19:33 - 16 minutes - 19.8 MBParsec Ventures CEO Richard Steel (OPM 45, 2014) has had a wide range of professional experiences, including everything from running both private and public companies to serving on nonprofit boards to advising the White House Business Council. Which means that he has spent a lot of time speaking with leaders in both business and government about the factors that are driving their organizations’ strategy. Over the last several years, there has been a dominant theme in those conversations: ESG...
Jeff Immelt in the Hot Seat: Episode 2
September 03, 2021 14:54 - 20 minutes - 23.7 MBIn 2009, in the wake of the financial crisis, with ratings agencies weighing whether or not to downgrade its stock, GE CEO Jeff Immelt made the decision to cut the company's annual dividend for the first time since 1938. It was gutting for Immelt. He knew the financial impact such a move would have not just on the company, but also on its retirees—a group that notably included his own parents. In this second part of our Skydeck conversation with Immelt, we talk about the trials of the fina...
Jeff Immelt in the Hot Seat: Episode 1
August 30, 2021 16:10 - 15 minutes - 18.6 MBWhen Jeff Immelt graduated from HBS in 1982, he had job offers from Morgan Stanley and Boston Consulting Group. But Immelt had spent his second year at HBS reflecting on his career path, and he decided that he was more interested in being an operator than an investor, accepting a position with a lower salary at GE. His initial plan was to spend five years or so at GE learning how to manage. Ultimately though, he would go on to spend 35 years at the company, becoming CEO in 2001. He was so ...
A Letter to My White Friends and Colleagues
August 18, 2021 15:47 - 16 minutes - 38.9 MBOn May 31st, 2020, six days after the murder of George Floyd, Stephen Roger's daughter, Ariel sent him a text. In it, she told her dad that the Black community was suffering and that he needed to talk to them-- that he needed to address the community as if he were the President of the United States. His daughter's plea led him to record a podcast that did just that, urging the Black community to both keep up the fight and take care of themselves. But Rogers also recorded a second podcast, ...
Skydeck Voices: For My Next Act
August 04, 2021 14:48 - 8 minutes - 20.2 MBThis is Dan Morrell, host of Skydeck. At the HBS reunions in 2019, the Skydeck team set up shop on Spangler lawn and asked alumni to share their secrets to a successful retirement. John Teeling, DBA 1979, who has started a number of Irish whiskey distilleries, hadn’t intended to sit and offer his advice, but his companion had other ideas. JOHN TEELING: The reason you have me here is because my wife was listening to the request to come on and she says I’m not allowed to retire until ...
The Power of Resilience
June 10, 2021 16:38 - 14 minutes - 34.5 MBThree days before giving birth to her second daughter, Parul Somani (MBA 2009) felt a lump in her breast. Still unable to walk from her C-section, her husband wheeled her to the breast clinic for an ultrasound and biopsy. On her newborn’s one-week birthday, Somani learned she was in the early stages of a particularly invasive and aggressive form of cancer. Her maternity leave suddenly turned into a medical leave to accommodate 10-plus rounds of chemotherapy and multiple surgeries. Five yea...
On the Road Less Traveled
May 25, 2021 20:52 - 11 minutes - 15.9 MBEd Hajim has had a legendary career in finance, including high-profile stints at E.F. Hutton and Lehman Brothers and 14 years leading Furman Selz. But his success came against very high odds, which Ed chronicles in his recent book, On the Road Less Traveled: An Unlikely Journey from the Orphanage to the Boardroom.
Road Work
March 31, 2021 19:42 - 14 minutes - 32.7 MBWhile Ken Friedman (MBA 1983) was at HBS, he and a group of about a dozen friends would get together regularly to play cards. The group vowed to continue to do so after graduation, and would hold annual weekend get-togethers to catch up. It became a brotherhood, Friedman says. But almost fifteen years ago, one of the members of that group was diagnosed with cancer, ultimately passing away after a 15-month battle. It was a wakeup call for Friedman. He’d had a successful career in investmen...
Leading with Heart
March 01, 2021 14:17 - 26 minutes - 60.4 MBNiren Chaudhary (AMP 191) has spent most of his career in restaurants, working in leadership positions at Yum Brands and Krispy Kreme donuts before becoming the CEO of Panera Bread in May 2019. In this episode of Skydeck, he speaks to Ranjay Gulati—his former college classmate and his eventual HBS executive education professor—about how Panera has faced the myriad challenges of the pandemic, the leadership values that guide him, and how a deep, personal loss became a pivotal part of his l...
A Playbook for Progress
February 18, 2021 16:50 - 11 minutes - 27.8 MBJacqui Adams is CEO of a communication strategy firm that she launched after more than two decades as an Emmy award–winning CBS news correspondent. Bonita Stewart is a VP at Google, overseeing the company's global partnerships with US publishers. Together, they're co-authors of A Blessing: Women of Color Teaming Up to Lead, Empower and Thrive. The book uses existing data, as well as the authors' own original research to offer what they call an optimistic playbook for progress. And in this ...
How Dunkin’ Donuts Took Over the World
February 11, 2021 18:22 - 14 minutes - 32.7 MBIn 1963, Bob Rosenberg’s (MBA 1963) father asked him to become CEO of Universal Food Systems—which included a regional brand known as Dunkin’ Donuts. He was just 25 at the time. He recalls this moment in his new book, Around the Corner to Around the World: A Dozen Lessons I Learned Running Dunkin Donuts.“ Up until that point,” he writes, “the only thing I had managed were a couple of donut shops—replacing managers for their summer vacations—and a short stint supervising a cafeteria. My fathe...
Out of the Valley: Episode 3 - Silicon Valley’s “Detroit Moment”
January 11, 2021 17:53 - 18 minutes - 32.5 MBThis is the third and final episode of “Out of the Valley,” a Skydeck mini-series that explores the past, present, and future of entrepreneurship. We started in the whaling capital of the world: New Bedford, Massachusetts in the 1800s, where we saw the roots of the venture capital industry. Then, of course, we found ourselves in Silicon Valley, where so many of the brands that shape our daily life got their start in humble garages. Silicon Valley has been the global hub of tech innovation...
Out of the Valley: Episode 2 - A Creator in the Era of Disruption
December 15, 2020 17:26 - 11 minutes - 27.8 MBWelcome to the second episode of our Skydeck mini-series “Out of the Valley.” Today’s episode starts in Jakarta, Indonesia, in the late 2000s. The city looked nothing like Silicon Valley in those days. There were very few VC-backed startups and not much of an entrepreneurial ecosystem. It was what author and venture capitalist Alex Lazarow would define as a “frontier market”—a place where entrepreneurs face significant constraints on funding, infrastructure, and talent. A place where the S...
Out of the Valley: Episode 1 - The Camel and the Unicorn
December 02, 2020 18:55 - 15 minutes - 34.1 MBIt’s trendy to say that Silicon Valley is over—that this place and the philosophy that it became is past its apex, and all signs point to its impending collapse. That prophecy has become even more popular as the COVID-19 pandemic has made both the Valley’s products and its real estate prices seem ever more impractical. But if those dire predictions come true, it might not be because of inflated valuations. It could be because Silicon Valley has lost its monopoly on its superpower: Innovati...