The Sydcast

Episode Summary

John Pepper is a restaurant entrepreneur, angel investor, and a hands-on advocate for the rights of low-wage workers. He’s been an Uber driver, confronted small-town Vermont politics, and turned a banned college fraternity house into a shared work space for startups. Motivated by social justice, sustained by business, he shares his story, on this episode of The Sydcast.

Sydney Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

John Pepper 

John is co-founder and Chief Worker Advocate of Boloco, a New England-based restaurant chain and Certified B Corp founded in 1997 serving Modern Mexican-inspired food and beverages. He is also co-founder of Worthee, an early-stage software project/platform focused on helping hourly workers receive the information they need to rise and thrive. Pepper also co-founded B. Good which grew to 80 units before he and his partners sold it in 2017.

Pepper has been an angel investor since 2014, with investments in more than 30 start-ups focused on workforce-empowering technology, restaurant-facing technology, and a few special consumer businesses like Athletic Brewing, Spindrift, Free Rain, and Starbird.

Pepper graduated from Dartmouth College in 1991 and received his MBA from the Tuck School in 1997 (where he presented the first Boloco business plan). He was elected to the Selectboard of Norwich, VT in 2017 and was Chairman from 2018-2020. 

His wife Maggie and their 3 kids live in Hanover, NH.

Insights from this episode: 

• Insights into Boloco and how it became successful
• How the branding of his restaurant to Boloco was done
• Pepper’s strategies for running a restaurant
• Insights into successfully raising capital
• Pepper’s lessons from being an Uber driver
• Insights into how Worthee came about
• What’s next for Boloco
• Effects of COVID-19 on restaurant business
• Pepper’s rehabilitation of Dartmouth College

Quotes from the show:

• “I am always curious about what’s ticking behind any business, and frankly any job” -John Pepper [3:15]
• “The first thing I had to do when I got back was to realize that we don’t know what we are doing and we need to hire talent: We need to hire someone better than us” -John Pepper [9:52]
• “Their [investors] main objective was to transform me from an entrepreneurial CEO, they said, to a professional CEO” -John Pepper [16:51]
• “I became an Uber driver back in Boston and it informed me a lot about the work I have done since” -John Pepper [23:19]
• “I did come away with a sense that flexibility was going to matter for workers. And we’ve got to figure out how to include people who are stuck in rigid low-paying jobs; put them into flexible jobs so that they’ll find time for better education, skills development and a way to get out of low paying jobs” -John Pepper [29:52]
• “People just don’t get regular feedback in any way that helps them understand their strengths and that led me to start thinking what can we do to solve that problem” -John Pepper [34:34]
• “Our goal has always been, and this is not a high bar, to be the number one highest wage payer in the industry” -John Pepper [40:08]
• “It’s all about work-from-home habits that are not temporary; they are here to stay. Yes, people will move back to the office, but I don’t think we will move back to 100% of what it was in 2019” -John Pepper [48:45]
• “I think that small businesses right now we don’t have the technology. I am investing in technology that does allow businesses like ours to compete with the big chains” -John Pepper [50:14]
• “I do use Boloco today as a petri dish for interesting new technologies. I aggressively implement things that aren’t always so good for our business, but inform us on what is good for the business but also help me in making investment decisions” -John Pepper [53:20]

Stay connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

John Pepper

LinkedIn: John Pepper

Website: johnpepper.com

Boloco's Website: Boloco

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary

Careers zig-zag, they don’t go in straight lines. But yet there is a thread that connects our paths over time. This is true if you run for Governor of New Hampshire, grow one of the top online education universities in the US, or lead the biggest collection of angel investors in the country. And it’s true if you’ve done all of these things, as we’ll find out in this conversation with Colin Van Ostern.

Sydney Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Colin Van Ostern

Colin Van Ostern is an entrepreneurial general manager with experience leading high-growth ventures and teams. Through many different sectors, he has maintained a focus on successfully democratizing access to previously exclusive markets – ranging from higher education to venture capital, consumer goods, tech, and even politics & government.

Currently, he serves as President & COO of Alumni Ventures, a network-powered venture capital firm which in 2021, was the third-most active venture investor in the world (as per Pitchbook Global League Tables). Previously, Van Ostern was on the founding executive team for Southern New Hampshire University’s online College for America, which he helped launch and grow to more than 10,000 “nontraditional” students and graduates nationwide.

Outside of business, Colin was publicly elected twice to New Hampshire’s five-member Executive Council (which serves as a board of directors for the state government), where he was the first Councilor in state history to share all state contracts online for public comment. In 2016, Colin was the general election nominee for Governor of New Hampshire. 

Early in his career, he helped elect several members of Congress, Governors, and US Senators in New Hampshire. He holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and a BA in International Studies from George Washington University. He lived in 16 different houses while growing up before moving to New Hampshire after college. Colin today lives in Concord, NH, with his wife and two boys.

Insights from this episode: 

• How Colin got into politics
• What prompted Colin to run for office
• Why Colin didn’t win his race for governor
• Similarities and differences in political and entrepreneurial leadership
• Colin’s thoughts on online education as a business model 
• Insights into online learning
• Colin’s involvement with Alumni Ventures
• Colin’s shift from politics to venture capital
• How Colin got his job at Alumni Ventures

Quotes from the show:

• “When you see a way things can be better, that you are passionate about and you have a clear picture of how you could positively impact things, you shouldn’t hold back” -Colin Van Ostern [14:23]
• “I think frankly I didn’t offer a compelling enough reason for people to understand in a sentence or in a moment why this race mattered to their lives and why having me as Governor would be different” -Colin Van Ostern [17.06]
• “When you are launching something new, you have to have a vision of the future that you are so convinced has to happen that nothing can get in the way, even failure” -Colin Van Ostern [19:18]
• “There is so much information available, and so it's possible for some of us to get real knowledge about something in a very cost-effective way on their own terms” -Syd Finkelstein [29:58]
• “The best versions of online education, I believe, are significantly better than the worst versions of in-person learning, but I have never seen an online experience that comes close to a good in-person experience” -Colin Van Ostern [31:42]
• “I think content is the smallest part of education in 2022; I think it’s really important, but they're a very small number of thought leaders who are driving new content” -Colin Van Ostern [32:51]
• “Good online education can still be better than in-person learning and we should be honest that there is bad in-person learning” -Colin Van Ostern [37:34] 
• “The folks who have to work twice as hard are accomplished people worth betting on” Colin Van Ostern [55:28]

Stay connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Colin Van Ostern

LinkedIn: Colin Van Ostern 

Twitter: ColinVanOstern

Facebook: Colin Van Ostern

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary

Lowey Bundy Sichol writes books about entrepreneurship for kids. Think Google, Lego, and Disney. A multiple award-winner who used to write business school case studies, Lowey has figured out how to communicate to children in a way that makes them want to keep reading. On this episode of The Sydcast, Lowey tells her story.

Sydney Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Lowey Bundy Sichol

Lowey Bundy Sichol (her last name rhymes with pickle) is an award-winning children's author with an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. She is a leading expert in teaching business and entrepreneurship to kids. 

Lowey’s nonfiction series From an Idea to... (Harper Collins/ HMH, 2019) is the first entrepreneurship and business book series for kids and the recipient of several literary awards. Her latest book, IDEA MAKERS: 15 Fearless Female Entrepreneurs (Chicago Review Press, 2022), shares the incredible stories of 15 of our nation’s greatest female founders. And Lowey’s upcoming book Cookie Queen (Random House, 2023) is the first entrepreneurship picture book. Cookie Queen shares the story of Kathleen King and her inspiration for building Tate’s Bake Shop.  

Prior to writing children’s books, Lowey worked in brand management and founded Case Marketing, a specialized writing firm that composes MBA case studies for some of the top business schools in the world. Her case studies have been read by MBA students across the globe and are included in the internationally best-selling marketing book, Marketing Management, by Kotler & Keller (Pearson, 2016).

Lowey received an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and a BA from Hamilton College, where she played softball and rugby. She lives in Chicago with her husband, three children, and two big dogs. 

Awards include 2019 Best Children’s Book, 2019 Best Children’s Nonfiction Book, 2020 Best STEM Book, Junior Library Guild Gold Selection, 2020 Best Children’s Book Council book, 2020 International Literacy Association Book, 2020-2021 Texas Bluebonnet Award master list, among others.

Insights from this episode: 

• Lowey’s idea of writing children’s books
• How Lowey’s mom influenced her work
• How her childhood influenced her journey into writing books
• How to go about writing a case study
• Similarities between writing case studies and children’s books
• Lowey’s sweet spot in her target audience
• How Lowey is able to educate her audience without making it too complicated or too simplified
• The common themes while writing her book IDEA MAKERS: 15 Fearless Female Entrepreneurs
• Lessons that children can learn from reading her book

Quotes from the show:

• “I’d certainly think she [my mom] was very influential. She was always a wonderful teacher in town, very focused on play and learning through doing” -Lowey Bundy Sichol  [11:03]
• “It’s pretty cool that schools now are embracing teaching kids about entrepreneurship, and I think it goes back to ‘learn through doing, learn through failure, experimenting and inventing’” -Lowey Bundy Sichol  [11:36]
• “A lot of my books are about how influenced entrepreneurs and business leaders are by their childhood, and the parents who raised them, and I am such a good example of that” -Lowey Bundy Sichol [12:00]
• “This is what I have learned [about kids in 3rd, 4th, 5th grade]: They are incredibly brave, they are incredibly creative, they are incredibly excited to share their ideas, they are not too cool yet, but they are incredibly bright. It’s almost like they are mini entrepreneurs” -Lowey Bundy Sichol [13:56]
• “It’s interesting the philosophy of education for anyone, but for kids, the idea of having applied projects that are practical is very powerful” -Syd Finkelstein [20:23]
• “I think education, in general, has not done as good a job in entire industries in making it clear why you need to learn” -Syd Finkelstein [20:43]
• “My purpose is to tell a great story and to teach kids about business and entrepreneurship” -Lowey Bundy Sichol [29:43]
• ​​“Being able to adapt for the different audience, being able to just persevere throughout the hard times and being brave enough to go against what other people didn’t support are some of the common themes” -Lowey Bundy Sichol [38:51]

Stay connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Lowey Bundy Sichol

Website: Lowey Bundy Sichol 

LinkedIn: Lowey Bundy Sichol 

Twitter: Lowey Bundy Sichol 

Instagram: Lowey Bundy Sichol 

Amazon: Lowey Bundy Sichol

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary

Diane Brady is one of the top business journalists in the world, with writing and editing gigs at the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Business Week, and Forbes. And also an old friend. She’s wise (“nobody needs more content, they need more intelligence”) and she’s a pro (“the best interviews are about listening”). In this episode, Diane and Syd on curating content, the future of journalism, and Elizabeth Holmes.

Sydney Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.  He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.”  He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus.  Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Diane Brady 

Diane Brady has interviewed many of the world's leading business and political figures throughout her career. She is currently an assistant managing editor at Forbes, overseeing C-suite coverage and communities, as well as the editorial teams that run ForbesWomen, For(bes) the Culture, the 30 Under 30 franchise, and coverage of creators and startups. Prior to joining Forbes, she worked at McKinsey, Bloomberg Businessweek, The Wall Street Journal, and Maclean’s, along with running her own company. Her book, Fraternity, was named one of Amazon’s best books of the year.

Insights from this episode: 

• Diane’s career in journalism
• The difference in the world of business journalism now and when she started
• Insights into the art of storytelling
• Diane’s book Fraternity and how it came about
• Insights into curating content
• The idea and concept behind 30 under 30
• Curating content in a world with so many competitors
• Diane’s favorite people she has interviewed
• Insights into what makes a great interview

Quotes from the show:

• “Every company can be a media company now, or thinks it can be a media company” -Diane Brady [1:11] 
• “I think what has driven me my whole career is curiosity”-Diane Brady [3:06] 
• “There is no better way to clear a room of men than to put the word women on the panel” -Diane Brady [10:20]
• “I have always brought a commercial instinct to journalism, I don’t wanna be on the business side but I love building new franchises” -Diane Brady [17:42]
• “I don’t mind ignorance as long as it goes with intelligence and as long as people know that I am a quick study and I am coming to you with the information” -Diane Brady [19:50]
• “I think one of the tragedies in school is that we learn math and not economics” -Diane Brady [20.32]
• “Nobody needs more content is my general philosophy in life, they need more intelligence, they need more synthesis perhaps, but not more content” -Diane Brady [27:33]
• “When you don’t have a newsroom of 2200 people, what matters is to be the curator of what matters; to be able to connect the dots” -Diane Brady [29:29]
• “The people who stand out don’t always stand out for the right reasons. Sometimes they stand out because there is such a disconnect between who they think they are and the way they run their companies or brands” -Diane Brady [55:42]
• “The best interviews are about listening” -Diane Brady [1:00:20]
• “One thing that I admire about entrepreneurs is the ability to fail and get back up” -Diane Brady [1:10:30]

Stay connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Diane Brady

LinkedIn: Diane Brady 

Twitter: Diane Brady

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

Episode Summary

Ukraine is Ground Zero for war, but also all manner of newer technologies, from cyber to AI. What is NATO seeing, and learning, and what are the implications of the war for global security, technology, and innovation? James Appathurai has a front-row seat at NATO HQ, on this episode of The Sydcast.

Sydney Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

James Appathurai

James Appathurai was appointed to this post in September 2021. As DASG, he works on policy development and implementation in the fields of Emerging and Disruptive Technologies, cyber security, counter-terrorism, the security implications of climate change, and hybrid defence. Mr Appathurai previously served as DASG for Political Affairs and Security Policy and Special Representative to Central Asia and the Caucasus. He was NATO’s Spokesperson from 2004 to 2010. He served as Deputy Head and Senior Planning Officer in the Policy Planning and Speechwriting Section of NATO’s Political Affairs Division from 1998 to 2004. He served in the Canadian Defence Department from 1994 to 1998.

Insights from this episode: 

• Insights on the status of the Ukrainian war
• James’ expertise in various technologies and cyber security
• What is happening in Ukraine, and our role as the west
• How Ukraine has defended itself from attacks
• Insights on emerging technologies and how they fit into the Ukrainian war
• How quantum and AI are benefiting countries that have invested in them
• How the war on Russia has affected her credibility with other countries 
• Innovations at NATO
• NATO’s efforts toward climate change

Quotes from the show:

• “President Zelensky and the Ukrainian people have reminded us what it is to fight for yourself, for your values, for your security, and they are doing remarkably well in that context” -James Appathurai [1:58]
• “Let’s not underestimate the long years of Russia’s interference into our countries, including the electoral process in the U.S, including ransom war attacks all over Europe and the U.S and Canada” -James Appathurai [5:23] 
• “Once you unleash a cyber weapon, everybody knows you have it, everybody knows how it works, and then everybody else has it too. In other words, once it’s out in the wild, you get to copy it, modify it and use it yourself“ -James Appathurai [14:12]
• “Both AI and quantum are technologies which Russia and China have publicly, at the top level of president, identified as national priorities” -James Appathurai [18:07]
• “Whoever gets to quantum encryption first is in a massive position of advantage strategically” -James Appathurai [19:38]
• “If you don’t know whether your communications are reliable within your own system, then how can you know what to do? You are paralyzed” -James Appathurai [23:15]
• “I think when it comes to quantum and to a certain extent AI, it is really the U.S and China that are in the lead” -James Appathurai [25:16]
• “We are not in the same world we were in 20 years ago, we are now in an era of strategic competition, and that strategic competition is driven by technology” -James Appathurai [35:38]
• “When push comes to shove, walls go up: but I think what we need to do is take advantage of the moments when push hasn’t yet come to shove” -James Appathurai [42.39]
• “The U.S doesn’t get as much credit as it should for everything it does over here” -James Appathurai [47:18]

Stay connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

James Appathurai

LinkedIn: James Appathurai 

Twitter: James Appathurai 

Facebook: James Appathurai Official 

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary

What happens when a tech-savvy entrepreneurial young man from Africa comes to America for school? It’s his first time in the US and what does he learn? As he describes on this episode of The Sydcast, George Boateng learns that he is black. That simple, and powerful, observation will strike many listeners as profound, yet George understands that his identity is what he makes it to be. As we will hear, that includes an EdTech start-up that is teaching young people in Africa to code, an effort to mentor young Africans to develop solutions to the real problems they are confronting, and his own work on his Ph.D. in Switzerland.

Sydney Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

George Boateng 

George Boateng is a Computer Scientist, Engineer, Educator, and Social Entrepreneur who has been recognized as a Pioneer in the 2021 MIT Technology Review’s 35 Innovators Under 35. 

He is currently a PhD Candidate and Doctoral Researcher at ETH Zurich, Switzerland focusing on Applied Machine Learning, and a Visiting Researcher at the Department of Computer Science and Technology at the University of Cambridge, U.K.  

George is also the CEO and co-founder of SuaCode.ai, an EdTech AI start-up that is enabling young Africans to learn to code using smartphones and AI. He is also the President and co-founder of Nsesa Foundation, an education nonprofit that is training and mentoring young Africans to be innovators. He previously worked as an Applied Scientist at Amazon (Alexa AI) and a Software Engineer at Sapho (acquired by Citrix). 

George has a BA in Computer Science and an MS in Computer Engineering from Dartmouth College, U.S. where he was an E.E. Just STEM Scholar and an E.E. Just Graduate Fellow.

Insights from this episode: 

• What George learned along the way
• What it means to have an impact on people’s lives
• What led George to start the coding company
• How George is able to manage his time (doing his Ph.D. and running a startup)
• George’s journey to engineering
• George’s journey to Dartmouth University
• What it means to show up in America coming from Africa
• Insights on how arthritis led him to wearable technology

Quotes from the show:

• “The goal was to teach people across Ghana to code so that we can reach more people” -George Boateng [9:03]
• “We have a lot of good data, we haven’t made good use of it yet, but I think at some point it will really be useful data that other companies might want” -George Boateng [13:28]
• “Now is the single best time to have talent of any type because you are going to be in such demand, and you’re going to get paid for it, maybe more than you have been before” -Sydney Finkelstein [13:49]
• “One of the challenging aspects of coming to the US was having to embrace this new identity called black” -George Boateng [32:49]
• “I have been in Ghana all my life, the concept of race was not part of my experience” -George Boateng [33:03]
• “I think there’s got to be an evolutionary reason for it, but we do like to separate people into groups and when they don’t exist, we create them, and if they do exist, we highlight them” -Sydney Finkelstein [34:03]
• “I consider myself an accidental academic because the main reason i am in academia is because I didn’t get a job. If I had gotten a job, I definitely wouldn’t be doing my PhD” -George Boateng [34:41]
• “Very few people ever have it figured out, you just have to do the best you can and you try to go for it” -Sydney Finkelstein [45:56]

Stay connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

George Boateng 

LinkedIn:  George Jojo Boateng 

Twitter: George Boateng 

Instagram: George Boateng 

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary

Scholar, leadership guru, author, speaker, and influencer, for the last 7 years Christine Riordan has been President of Adelphi University in New York. How did she get there? How did her leadership work translate to when she was sitting in the corner office? How did she navigate running a large university during Covid? And how does she think about women and leadership? A master class on leadership, with Christine Riordan.

Sydney Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Christine Riordan

Christine Riordan (MBA, Ph.D.) is the 10th President of Adelphi University in New York and has been since 2015. Since starting, Chris has established the University's Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and has helped launch 50 new academic degree programs. She also sits on a number of boards including those of RE/MAX Holdings and the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities (CICU).

Prior to becoming Adelphi’s President, Riordan occupied roles including Executive Consultant at State Farm, Dean of University of Denver’s College of Business, and Associate Dean at TCU, to name a few. Chris is an expert in leadership, talent development, career success, and diversity. She has published 70 articles and is authoring Shift Happens: How to Adapt and Thrive in a Rapidly Changing World of Work—a book on helping employees adapt to the changing workplace. Chris’s TEDx talk, “Dare to Be Extraordinary,” has received more than 26,000 views.

Insights from this episode: 

• How to create an inclusive environment
• How to involve people in creating an inclusive environment
• Chris’ journey to being university president
• Chris’ challenges as a president
• Navigating classes during covid
• How Chris helped her university to respond to the pandemic from an academic standpoint
• How she helped her community with resources to tap into during the pandemic
• How Chris helped her community to navigate in the new environment with the COVID-19 pandemic
• How to successfully fundraise
• Chris’ mission to help every student succeed
• What are the attributes of good leadership

Quotes from the show:

• “One of the things that was really important for me was to be able to make an impact on students’ lives” - Christine Riordan [5:36]
• “Diversity is easy but it's useless if it doesn’t have inclusion, and I think the hardest work is to make sure people are included” - Christine Riordan [9:23]
• “The job of not just a leader but almost anyone in any significant senior position with responsibility is to figure out what that puzzle is” - Sydney Finkelstein [19:01]
• “I think when you are trying to accomplish things then the challenge and opportunity again is to try to find that shared goal and commonality” - Christine Riordan [30:55]
• “From a leadership standpoint, it is really important to understand who you are serving and understand their desires and make sure you are communicating constantly with them” - Christine Riordan [39:09]
• “To do all the work around diversity, equity, and inclusion and belonging, you have to be very intentional” - Christine Riordan [44:31]
• “To me the number one capability that a leader has to have is adaptability ” - Christine Riordan [46:11]
• “Even if someone has the capabilities to do a particular job, if they do not have the right mindset, they are not going to be successful” - Christine Riordan [47:05]

Stay connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Christine Riordan

Website: christineriordan.com

LinkedIn:  Christine Riordan 

Twitter: Christine M. Riordan 

Instagram: Christine M. Riordan (@prezriordan)

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

An Athlete's Life, with Anouk Patty

Episode Summary:

So many people are afraid of change, but sometimes we get to talk to someone whose life is a case study of change. When it was clear that Anouk Patty – an NCAA champion ski racer – would not be good enough to reach Olympic medal heights, she changed. Business school and a successful career in tech strategy and deal-making followed. When Anouk realized that she was not living her true self, this mother of two came out as gay, at age 40. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she became an even more empathetic and passionate leader. An honest and inspirational conversation with Anouk Patty, on The Sydcast.

Sydney Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Anouk Patty 

Born into a skiing family in France and raised in Vermont, Anouk Patty was practically destined to make it onto the US Ski team at age 14. Yet after a few years as a global top-30 skier, Anouk was ready to leave behind the “single-minded focus that it takes to be a world-class athlete.” She went on to ski at Dartmouth, where she claimed an NCAA title, and then to JP Morgan in New York where she launched her professional career. After earning her MBA at Harvard Business School and doing a stint at Bain Consulting, Anouk jumped on the tech bandwagon at Intuit. She spent 10 years there before taking some time off to be a mom and (finally) have some time to reflect on her life and what she wanted. As a result, she got divorced, came out as gay, and decided to head back to work doing strategic partnerships at HP. Today, Anouk holds a similar role at Dropbox, sits on numerous ski-related boards, and is a recent survivor of breast cancer. She describes herself as “intensely curious about life, business, opportunities, and people.”

Insights from this Episode 

• The age range ski racer's usually reach the peak of their careers
• The challenges of being an athlete
• The importance of the single-minded focus for an athlete
• The differences between an excellent athlete and a world champion
• The difficulties Anouk faced when she transitioned to the business world
• How Anouk ended up working on Wall Street
• The skillsets from the athletic world that have served Anouk the most in business
• Anouk's experience choosing an alternative career path
• How Anouk decided that she was going to retire temporarily to be a mom
• How being gay has affected Anouk as a leader
• How the workspace has changed in the past decades
• How Anouk dealt with being diagnosed with breast cancer
• What advice Anouk would give to her younger self

Quotes from the Show: 

• "It's a pretty brutal sport. You're out there in the cold, it's freezing... whether its raining or cold or whatever it is you have to be out there and they're long days" - Anouk Patty [09:30]
• "I love hanging out with people that are trying to be the best in the world at something. There's only one number one at any point in time, so most people are not gonna hit that, but that doesn't mean you can't try it" - Sydney Finkelstein [20:11]
• "When I was actually trying to get the job and going through recruiting, I had a number of different firms say to me: Well you should just go back into sports" - Anouk Patty [23:30]
• "When you make these life-changing shifts you feel like: Oh God, what am I letting go, and what am I giving up? Will I ever be able to find this sense of reward and satisfaction again?" - Anouk Patty [32:28]
• "[About breast cancer] You just never think that something like this could happen because we [the athletes] spend so much of our time taking care of our bodies, eating the right food and exercising everyday"- Anouk Patty [44:30]
• "If you want to get the best out of others, you have to bring your best and truest self to the table" - Anouk Patty[48:42]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Anouk Patty

Twitter: Anouk Patty

Facebook: Anouk Patty

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Dr. Lucy Gilbert: The Cancer-Curing Doctor

Episode Summary:

Dr. Lucy Gilbert – an oncologist at McGill University – has developed a genetic AI-based test to detect early stage ovarian and endometrial cancers, the third highest cancer-killer of women. In this episode of The Sydcast, Dr. Gilbert shares her journey from Singapore to London to Montreal, one of six physician sisters, now closing in on a revolutionary advance in cancer treatment.

Sydney Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Lucy Gilbert 

Dr. Lucy Gilbert is a Professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology and the Department of Oncology at McGill University. She heads the tertiary/quaternary care Gynecologic Cancer Service of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) as well as its Women’s Health Research Unit which is active in multinational clinical trials investigating new precision therapies for gynecologic cancers thus providing practical and immediate benefits for women with gynecologic cancer. Her research focuses on novel therapeutic options for the treatment of ovarian and uterine cancers as well as technologies for their early detection. She has set up a network of satellite clinics as part of the DOvEE (Diagnosing Ovarian and Endometrial Cancers Early) project, which provides open access investigations for women with symptoms associated with gynecologic cancers. Dr. Gilbert and her team have recently developed a genomic uterine pap test to identify the somatic mutation. A sample is taken from the uterus and then uses machine learning to discriminate cancer from benign /normal samples. This test, which is currently being offered to women aged 45 – 70 years, has the potential to detect these cancers while they are confined to the gynecologic organs and still curable. The project received 6.4M GAPP funding to start the phase III clinical trial which started on May 10, 2021. In recognition of her outstanding leadership in cancer research, Dr. Gilbert was recently nominated as one of the Top 25 Most Influential Women in Canada 2021.

Insights from this Episode 

• The racism and sexism Lucy faced during her life professionally and personally
• Lucy’s thoughts on today’s generational anxiety
• How economically challenging was maintaining six daughters for his father
• Lucy’s experience moving to Montreal
• What does Lucy think about the placebo effect and how it affects cancer
• Lucy’s work and advances in cancer
• How problematic is ovarian cancer nowadays
• What is the BRCA test
• What advice would Lucy give to her younger self

Quotes from the Show: 

• “[About her father] He considered us assets and he made us believe that the only limits were what we set for ourselves and if you wanted to be a provider for your family that’s what you did” - Lucy Gilbert [05:08]
• “Health and education, I believe it should not be left to market forces, it should be almost a fundamental right…you will not get a good society and ultimately and impact all of us if we do not invest in a reasonable amount of health for everyone regardless of their ability to pay and a reasonable amount on education” - Lucy Gilbert [13:56]
• “[About the placebo effect] I tell patients what we do with surgery and chemotherapy…is the tip of the iceberg” - Lucy Gilbert [28:40]
• “[About the test] It picks up somatic mutations inside, tells them about prevalent cancers but we also do a saliva test simultaneously which picks up the BRCA genes talk about the genetic susceptibility to these cancers” - Lucy Gilbert [44:17]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Lucy Gilbert

LinkedIn: Lucy Gilbert

Website: Dr. Lucy Gilbert

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

Every once in a while our guest on The Sydcast seems to do everything well. Jay Rosenzweig, this week’s guest, is a great example. Entrepreneurial “breathing” is in his bones, whether that means building a major executive search firm, investing in dozens of Web 3.0 startups, or spearheading major initiatives at multiple non-profit organizations (including the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights). Add in music recording artist, publisher of the most important report in Canada on the status of women in leadership, mentor to NBA players and company founders alike, and you start to get the picture. Jay Rosenzweig is all about impact, which makes him the perfect guest for The Sydcast.

Sydney Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Jay Rosenzweig

Jay Rosenzweig is an internationally renowned social impact entrepreneur, humanitarian, trained lawyer, and leadership strategist. The founder of Rosenzweig & Company, Rosenzweig is an expert in designing, building, and attracting world-class teams. He consults with public and private companies, including large global corporations; emerging growth to mid-sized businesses; professional services firms; and private equity and venture capital firms. He invests in and advises several leading-edge tech companies across North America and beyond. Rosenzweig has been immersed in global human rights causes for well over two decades and has been internationally recognized for the Annual Rosenzweig Report on equality, which he has published for the past seventeen years. Rosenzweig’s Annual Report has received endorsements and contributions from a wide range of leaders and personalities such as Justin Trudeau, Alyssa Milano, Sheryl Sandberg, Mark Cuban, Deepak Chopra, Van Jones, Zainab Salbi, CEOs and Board Chairs of major corporations, and several other artists, humanitarians, politicians and business leaders. He is the Chair of the Board of Irwin Cotler’s Raoul Wallenberg Centre For Human Rights. In addition, he sits on a number of other purpose-driven boards supporting causes ranging from healthcare, youth empowerment, refugee protection, and anti-gun violence. Rosenzweig is an outspoken advocate against Antisemitism, racism, and all forms of hate and discrimination. He invests in businesses whose mission is to foster a world that gives equal opportunities for all, including greater access to education, capital, and mobility. Rosenzweig’s work has been featured in several publications, including The New York Times, Fast Company, The Guardian, Business Insider, BNN Bloomberg, Cheddar, Bold TV, Digital Trends, Business Rockstars, Globe & Mail, National Post, Toronto Star, Huffington Post, and Thrive Global. He earned three degrees at McGill University: Philosophy, Civil Law, and Common Law. In addition, he completed the Harvard Law School Negotiation Program, taught by expert negotiator Roger Fisher, author of Getting To Yes. Rosenzweig is an avid songwriter, having collaborated with a number of well-known recording artists. 

Insights from this Episode

• Jay’s mindset of curiosity
• What has helped Jay to have an open mind to criticism
• Jay’s philosophy to explore the opportunities that life offers
• Jay’s professional trajectory
• How did Jay end up working on startups and founders
• What is the skill set needed to thrive in life and business
• What is going on in the digital sector
• What inspired Jay to work towards promoting female leadership
• What according to Jay’s perspective is one of the biggest issues for female workers in the business world
• How Jay was introduced to the music world

Quotes from the Show:

• “I think for a lot of individuals, and I coach a lot of individuals as well, ego gets in the way and defense mechanisms prevent individuals from actually seeking out criticism” - Jay Rosenzweig [16:41]
• “I take criticism in an objective way if you will, as a mean of self-improvement even if I receive irrational criticism, I don’t let that affect me, so it's a matter of really going more deeply into yourself to understand really the only thing you can control 100% is how you’re feeling inside of yourself” - Jay Rosenzweig [17:32]
• “My philosophy it's always been: when you see these windows of opportunity, when you see these cracks in the door, walk through them” - Jay Rosenzweig [19:50]
• “Success to me is not based on events that happen or based on results, success to me is because you have no control or very little control of what comes at you very often, so to me, success is how you respond to what is thrown at you” - Jay Rosenzweig [34:20]
• “The idea is to put a mirror to the corporate world in terms of the iron clad data of what the status of women is in leadership” - Jay Rosenzweig [45:21]
• “I’d say to myself, it’s going to be alright, enjoy the journey” - Jay Rosenzweig [57:54]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Jay Rosenzweig

LinkedIn: Jay Rosenzweig

Website: Jay Rosenzweig

Twitter: Jay Rosenzweig

Instagram: Jay Rosenzweig

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

Shelley Zalis is an entrepreneur, provocateur, connector, CEO, champion of women and equality, and (as some have called her) “chief troublemaker.” What makes Shelley so fascinating is that she simply refuses to accept the status quo when it’s broken, and what’s broken is the experience – both on the job and at home – of so many working women. The platform she has created and continues to nurture and innovate is The Female Quotient: “We Are in the Business of Equality.” On this episode of The Sydcast, the never-ending campaign to close the gender gap, with Shelley Zalis.

Sydney Finkelstein:

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Shelley Zalis:

Shelley Zalis, known as the “chief troublemaker,” is a pioneer for online research, movement leader, and champion of gender equality. She is an internationally renowned entrepreneur, speaker, mentor, mother, and founder and CEO of The Female Quotient. Zalis rewrites the rules and innovates solutions to impact real change. In 2000, she left the corporate world to found OTX (Online Testing Exchange), which became one of the fastest-growing research companies in the world. She sold OTX to Ipsos in 2010 and then led global innovation in more than 80 countries at Ipsos OTX. Today, as CEO of The Female Quotient, Zalis works with Fortune 500 companies to advance gender equality across industries. The FQ’s signature pop-up experience, the FQ Lounge (formerly the Girls’ Lounge), brings a Home of Equality to major conferences, companies, and college campuses around the world. The FQ Lounge is the gathering place for leaders of all levels at events such as the World Economic Forum, Cannes Lions, Consumer Electronics Show, and the Milken Institute Global Conference. Through the destination-turned-movement, Zalis has connected more than 18,000 women in business and created the largest female-led community to transform workplace culture. 

Insights from this Episode

• What gave Shelley the idea to start OTX
• What Shelley learned as founder and CEO
• What problems Shelley faced when launching her business about online research?
• Where did she get her “the defying status quo” mindset
• What it’s like being a female CEO
• The role of gender barriers in the business environment
• What competition really is for women in business
• How is competition a bad thing?
• What have successful women learned that young people – men and women – in their 20’s or early 30’s haven’t learned?

Quotes from the Show: 

• “[About online research business idea] I didn’t have the money to do it, I didn’t I would be writing, it was so ahead of its time, I had to make it the right time ” - Shelley Zalis [13:42]
• “As we started, I hated titles, I never wanted anyone to talk to someone because of their title or because of the company. I want people to discover people…because I believe you learn something from everyone not because of the title that you wear” - Shelley Zalis [18:39]
• “As a CEO, gender aside, I want to talk about being a conscious leader and I would like to take gender out of the equation and say: as a conscious leader we need to make decisions in our organizations that are good for caregivers” - Shelley Zalis [24:24]
• “Historically women in business have been trained to be competitive because there’s been such a scarcity of jobs at the top so few women get to the top” - Shelley Zalis [31:41]
• “Once women were proud to be women and be collaborative and be feminine and own their strength and not hide it, not try to act like a man and bring their emotive powers to the table, it was game-changing” - Shelley Zalis [36:06]
• “I don’t believe in one mentor, one mentor doesn’t have all the knowledge, you learn bits and bites of advice from different people who have been there, done that” - Shelley Zalis [39:29]
• “I’ve been working on the power of connectivity which its been our global exchange talking to women over hundred countries listening to hear of what they all need to close the gaps” - Shelley Zalis [45:27]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Shelley Zalis

Website: The Female Quotient

LinkedIn: Shelley Zalis

Twitter: Shelley Zalis

Facebook: Shelley Zalis

Instagram: Shelley Zalis

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

Recently, Syd launched a set of four online courses on the Coursera platform – the Strategic Leadership “specialization” – getting a first-hand view of how education has shifted from traditional classroom to digital media. Since the Sydcast is all about learning, it seems appropriate for the first episode of Season 4 to kick off with the CEO of that digital education company, Jeff Maggioncalda. Not only is Coursera the biggest online education start-up with over 100 million learners around the world, but the company is also creating a complex ecosystem where traditional suppliers of learning – universities – are as much business partners as they are competitors. On this episode of The Sydcast, the story of a CEO in the booming yet quickly morphing education sector that is looking to change how each of us learns.

Sydney Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Jeff Maggioncalda 

Jeff Maggioncalda joined Coursera as CEO in June 2017 and since then helped the company grow to over 100 million learners and 7,000+ institutions, served by high-quality learning content from 250+ of the world’s top universities and industry educators. He previously served for 18 years as the founding CEO at Financial Engines Inc, a company co-founded by economist and Nobel Prize winner William Sharpe. Financial Engines grew rapidly under Jeff's leadership, providing high-quality online investment advice that has helped millions of people save and prepare for retirement. Jeff has also worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company and Cornerstone Research and continues to serve as a Director of Silicon Valley Bank, Inc. He holds an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor's degree in Economics and English from Stanford University. In his free time, Jeff is a lifelong learner and proud dad, and enjoys studying music theory and spending time with his wife and three daughters.

Insights from this Episode

• What is Coursera
• How Coursera was founded
• Why Coursera is a rapid changer enabler
• Technology and globalization relationship with Coursera
• Success factors of Coursera
• What’s the general population of Coursera learners
• How did Jeff end up being the CEO of Coursera
• Sydney’s course on Coursera
• What advantages does this “era of resignation” has brought to Coursera
• How do academic institutions use Coursera
• How does Coursera as an organization manage failure
• What does Jeff think most of the time about as a CEO
• What does Jeff think about CEOs addressing social issues in the public eye
• How does Coursera help their workers to balance their time
• What advice would Jeff give to his younger self

Quotes from the Show: 

• “I thought everybody knew Coursera, its a hundred million people that are learners in Coursera but turns out that’s not the case”- Sydney Finkelstein in “The Sydcast” [08:25]
• “[About Coursera] We are certainly facilitating a very different and more accessible way of learning than only being able to go on a four-year on-campus program ”- Jeff Maggioncalda in “The Sydcast” [10:45]
• “I teach certain things that I want more people to access so the fact that Coursera came out of universities but it was really the entrepreneurship of professors”- Jeff Maggioncalda in “The Sydcast” [14:10]
• “The exclusive audience of great teachers was the people sitting in the classrooms, it doesn’t have to be that way”- Jeff Maggioncalda in “The Sydcast” [23:21]
• “We’re now in the world of the so-called “great resignation” and what really means is like reconsideration of our lives”- Sydney Finkelstein in “The Sydcast” [32:06]
• “[About entrepreneurship] Even if it's something that the student wants, even if it is less expensive, even if it is higher quality, it doesn’t mean that you’re gonna have a successful business”- Jeff Maggioncalda in “The Sydcast” [39:37]
• “[About Coursera’s culture] It's that combination of loving to learn and translating learning into impact”- Jeff Maggioncalda in “The Sydcast” [42:54]
• “I think what good investors celebrate is rapid learning and often you can’t learn unless you fail”- Jeff Maggioncalda in “The Sydcast” [44:01]
• “What we haven’t yet completely figured out … is how do we want to redeploy strategically the way we use physical space to run our company, to attract people, to engage employees ”- Jeff Maggioncalda in “The Sydcast” [56:54]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Jeff Maggioncalda 

Coursera: Strategic Leadership: Impact, Change, and Decision-Making Specialization

LinkedIn: Jeff Maggioncalda

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

Sarah Apgar – Princeton and Dartmouth alum, Iraqi war vet, volunteer fire fighter and EMT, and startup founder – wants to create a fitness and wellness movement based on the FitFighter steelhose product. In three conversations over the last year, we learn about Sarah and her company, her life as a Mom, her aspirations for her business, and how the relentless move toward growth requires constant adjustment and deep resilience.

Sydney Finkelstein:

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Sarah Apgar:

Sarah Apgar is the Inventor of the Steelhose®, Founder of FitFighter® and Creator & Team Captain of the SteelSisters®. FitFighter is a strength and mobility system originally designed to help firefighters learn skills and be better prepared for their job. Sarah’s signature innovation, the Steelhose®, was featured in 2020 on ABC’s Shark Tank, and is now available to trainers, coaches, gyms, teams, physical therapists, and the general public, to keep us ready for our everyday mission. The SteelSisters® is a nationwide team of young women aged 13-30 who support each other, celebrate strength, share knowledge, and do what’s worth fighting for. Sarah is an Iraq War Veteran, All-American Collegiate Athlete, Fitness Professional, former Volunteer Firefighter and Warby Parker Executive, and mom of 2 little girls. In addition to her primetime Shark Tank debut, Sarah and FitFighter® have been featured in Rolling Stone, Mens Health Magazine, Muscle and Fitness, Essence, ABC News, USA Sports Radio, Armed Forces Network, and Oxygen Magazine, and performed for clients the likes of ESPN, FDNY, and the United States Military. Sarah promotes and celebrates the power of teams, women leaders, and public service, contributing a portion of sales to the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Tower Foundation. Prior to launching FitFighter, Sarah was an executive at Warby Parker, overseeing the opening of the first 50 bricks and mortar retail stores in the US and Canada. Sarah has an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and a BA from Princeton University, and is a graduate of the Princeton Army ROTC Program. She lives in Port Washington NY with her husband, Ben Smith, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon, her two young daughters, Emory and Arlyn, and canine Louisiana. Sarah is an avid skier, hiker, triathlete, and just about anything outdoors, and adores baking, cable reruns, and making people smile.

Insights from this Episode:

• What is FitFighter and its purpose 
• How Sarah got to the idea to found FitFighter 
• The importance of the subscription model for FitFighter
• Qualities that entrepreneurs must have 
• How Sarah involves her children in her FitFighter life
• FitFighter's journey through Covid-19
• Sarah's experience on Shark Tank and the challenges she faced
• How Shark Tank helped boost FitFighter
• How Sarah manages her time as a mom and as an entrepreneur 
• The challenges that partnerships have brought to FitFighter
• Sarah's experience hiring a CEO for FitFighter
• Future business plans for FitFighter

Quotes from the Show: 

• “Now we’ve just experienced this incredible shift in folks not being able to get out there to their gym, we’ve seen billions of dollars come out of the market of gym memberships…so what it’s done is really explode companies that developed products that you can have in your home”- Sarah Apgar in “The Sydcast” [12:26]  
• “I’ve never thought of FitFighter as just a product…I don’t think I would invest my life in that, there’s a lot of great companies that produce great products but ultimately this (FitFghter) is a lifestyle change and shift and rethinking the paradigms around fitness and wellness”- Sarah Apgar in “The Sydcast” [38:27]  
• “[About life balance for Sarah and her team] We’re all sort of facing mental health challenges and struggles, from isolation. I like to think that we’re actually kind of living our best FitFighters life when it comes to strength and fostering a healthier, happier lifestyle that has some balance”- Sarah Apgar in “The Sydcast” [58:33]  
• “Whether or not you’re actually starting a business is not the point, is whether you’re creating and seeking opportunities to experience new things and to learn along the way, is really a mindset”- Sydney Finkelstein in “The Sydcast” [01:05:21]  
• “[About looking for a CEO] I’ve never had a co-founder, I’ve had great people at the table with me, friends, strategic advisors from the beginning and a couple of terrific early team members, but I never had that person who you can call up three, four, five times a day”- Sarah Apgar in “The Sydcast” [01:18:55] 

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Sarah Apgar

Website:https://www.sarahapgar.com/

Instagram: Sarah Apgar

LinkedIn: Sarah Apgar

Twitter: Sarah Apgar

Dartmouth College: Sarah Apgar

FitFighter:

Instagram: FitFighter

Company Website: https://www.fitfighter.com/

Training Platform:

https://classes.fitfighter.com/catalog

Sizzler:Sizzler 

FitFighter Brand Trailer: Brand Trailer

FitFighter App:FitFighter App

YouTube Channel: FitFighter

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

Italy. Food. Artisans. Culture. That is the life Professor Danielle Callegari is immersed in, and when you hear about it you’ll probably say, why didn’t I think of it! Except then you’ll need to spend years writing a book on Dante, then start the next book, cloistered in Italian libraries with no air conditioning during Roman summer. Danielle’s story is a story of the professor building a career, a brand, and a platform, an inside look at what it really takes to make it in academia.

Sydney Finkelstein

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Danielle Callegari

Danielle Callegari is Assistant Professor in the Department of French and Italian at Dartmouth College and Councilor of the Dante Society of America. Her teaching and research focuses on Italian literature and food and beverage studies. Her first book,  Dante’s Gluttons: Food and Society from the Convivio to the Comedy, is forthcoming with Amsterdam University Press in spring 2022. She is also the co-host of Gola (patreon.com/golapod), a podcast on Italian food and beverage culture, with Katie Parla.

Insights from this Episode

• How Danielle’s interest on Italian culture began
• How Danielle navigates through the investigation world
• Danielle’s concerns on having a PhD in Humanities
• The story behind the Dante Society of America
• The purpose of Danielle’s book “Dante’s Gluttons: Food and Society”
• Danielle’s ideas for her next book
• The importance of creating a brand as an academic and professor
• Secrets about Danielle’s experience in Italy during Covid-19
• The success of the Gola Podcast 
• Danielle’s networking strategies

Quotes from the Show: 

• “Many people probably don’t understand that if you’re not publishing as a professor you’re not standing up in front of the class as a teacher very long, and whether that’s books or articles or mix of the two”- Sydney Finkelstein in “The Sydcast” [11:35] 
• “Everyone must eat, it’s just perfectly universal, there is not time or place where humans haven’t had a relationship with food, and as a result of that, [food] becomes the ultimate point of reference” - Danielle Callegari in “The Sydcast” [31:44]
• “[About Danielle’s experience on libraries] I’ve found things I didn’t know existed and that no one knew existed that fit into my research in a very special way and that’s a kind of Indiana Jones moment”- Danielle Callegari in “The Sydcast” [46:54]
• “[About her teaching method] Talking about things like social order, soft power, economic viability, so it's the place where we start and we outline all the ways in which food culture becomes something that communicates much more than what is apparently on the surface”- Danielle Callegari in “The Sydcast” [56:08]
• “To me universities that continue to offer standard learning just in the classroom without a strong experiential component are living on borrowed time”- Sydney Finkelstein in “The Sydcast” [01:01:55]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Danielle Callegari 

Instagram: Danielle Callegari 

Podcast: Gola Podcast

Society: Dante Society of America

Dartmouth College: Danielle Callegari | Faculty Directory

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

Did you ever feel like you didn’t deserve the job you had? That you were faking it, and would soon be found out? That’s impostor syndrome in action, and my former MBA student Catharine Keene has been dealing with it for years. In this episode she tells her story, including how she’s figured out how to keep it under wraps as she starts her post-MBA career at one of the world’s leading consulting firms.

Sydney Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Catharine Keene

Catharine Keene is a consultant at Bain & Company. She received her Bachelor of Science in biology from Tufts University, her Master's in Education from University of Pennsylvania, and her MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Prior to consulting, Catharine taught high school biology at St. Paul's School in Concord, NH, and worked in customer experience and lifecycle marketing at ClassPass. A lifelong lover of the outdoors, Catharine hopes to incorporate sustainability into her consulting work, leveraging the power that businesses have to drive positive environmental change.

Insights from this Episode

• Catharine's learnings from Tuck School of Business 
• How Catharine experienced Covid-19 as a student
• How the imposter syndrome has affected Catharine
• Catharine’s experience at Bain & Company
• Catharine’s tools to deal with the impostor syndrome
• How to build relationships oriented to mentorship

Quotes from the Show: 

• “[About the impostor syndrome] It’s not just a little bit of self-doubt, which is normal for most of us, but the self-doubt kind of takes hold, it starts to take over and it can be debilitating”- Sydney Finkelstein in “The Sydcast” [02:32]
• “As a woman, both in academic settings and in professional settings, women have historically been a little quieter than men and specially in male dominated fields, so that is a stereotype that I want to actively work to counter”- Catharine Keene in “The Sydcast” [13:04]
• “[About growth mindset] My modeling has lots of room to improve, rather than I will never be an excel genius like some other people that I may encounter”- Catharine Keene in “The Sydcast” [16:58]
• “Internally for me it has been important to counter negative thoughts with tangible facts that I know about the work I’ve done, both at being so far at Tuck and then my previous career, and then also engage people which are helpful in creating good habits”- Catharine Keene in “The Sydcast” [32:42]
• “Breaking down that perceived need to be perfect all the time really helps come back at impostor syndrome”- Catharine Keene in “The Sydcast” [34:00]
• “In my experience the people who have been the strongest mentors are people that I have a great connection with on a personal level as well, and it takes time for both people to unravel the different layers of who they are in work and outside of work”- Catharine Keene in “The Sydcast” [38:40]
• “I am reconciling what it means to keep passion and drive in mind while also letting it be okay that there will be periods when you’re just present where you are and not running so fast towards the next goal”- Catharine Keene in “The Sydcast” [42:26]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Catharine Keene

LinkedIn: Catharine Keene

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

Successful MBA leaves high-paying Wall Street job to build a start-up dedicated to helping women manage their careers and families. Joyce Cadesca tells us why she made this move, and in this As It Happens series, visits with us three times over the last year to talk about the challenges and wins she’s racked up. The truth: it hasn’t been easy, but for this single mom of color the path she’s on is a true life passion, replete with reinvention and re-learning, but no regret.

Sydney Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Joyce Cadesca

Joyce Cadesca is an experienced general management leader who is devoted to social justice, inclusion, and equity. Her corporate work experience includes finance, strategy, and human resources roles at leading global Fortune 100 companies such as Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley. Her life purpose is to empower individuals to achieve their educational, family, and professional goals. She is the Founder and President of famHQ LLC, a tech-enabled family concierge, holistic coaching, and dedicated childcare service designed to maximize time, energy, and success for busy working mothers. Joyce was inspired to create famHQ based on her challenges as a busy corporate mom and through her work as a professional development coach and child-care advocate for underserved families. Through partnerships with reliable companies, supportive co-founders, and an experienced in-house staff, Joyce offers an affordable, user-friendly “one stop app” through famHQ to give working moms access to resources that help you set goals and crush them. 

Outside of famHQ, Joyce serves as a Professional Development Coach at Management Leadership for Tomorrow, working with MBA students as they define their career paths. Also, as Resident Director of ‘A Better Chance Lower Merion’, Joyce advocates for providing educational access to underserved high school students. Her previous nonprofit work experience also includes education program management and classroom teaching. Joyce earned an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University.

Insights from this Episode

• Joyce’s process of being admitted into Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth
• Joyce’s experience at J.P. Morgan
• Joyce’s experience as a single working mom
• About famHQ
• About having co-founders in famHQ
• How to deal with doubt as a entrepreneur
• About the constant famHQ adaptation process to changes
• Joyce’s future plans for famHQ
• Why famHQ shifted their focus to moms of color

Quotes from the Show:

• "I do believe in the idea of a calling, I believe that I was called to help young students to gain the opportunities that I was exposed to, because my life was so drastically changed by those opportunities ”- Joyce Cadesca in “The Sydcast” [09:31]
• “[About shifting from the for-profit to non-profit sector] What I have gained by leaving that behind far exceeds the salary that I had, not monetarily right?, not financially, but the piece of mind that I’m doing what I love and what I was called to do, a balanced person, it exceeds that money that I left behind”- Joyce Cadesca in “The Sydcast” [19:01]
• “I have to admit there were moments, I think every entrepreneur has moments like this where you’re in the middle of a pandemic, your kid is home half time or whatever the situation is, or you’re maybe I should just go and do this the easy way, maybe I should go back to my stable corporate life”- Joyce Cadesca in “The Sydcast” [38:53]
• “[About facing doubt as an entrepreneur] I used to say when I was in one of those situations, well what’s the worst thing that could happen? And not always but usually the worst thing that could happened is something you can deal with" - Sydney Finkelstein in “The Sydcast” [41:00]
• “[About entrepreneurship] Be ready for the grind, the resilience and resourcefulness it takes to get through some tough nights, and also the self-awareness to work with partners who may not agree with you”- Joyce Cadesca in “The Sydcast” [1:02:50]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Joyce Cadesca

Instagram: Joyce Cadesca

LinkedIn: Joyce Cadesca

FamHQ

LinkedIn: famHQ | Family Concierge

Instagram: famHQ 

Website: http://www.famhq.org/

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

At It Happens: MBA student Lia Parker-Belfer re-enters the workforce with her summer internship at Uber. Dedicated to a career of impact, joining legendary bro-culture Uber is a purposeful challenge, akin to many Gen Z’ers and Millennials who must come to terms with aspirational values in the corporate world. In this episode, we follow Lia, before and after, comparing expectations and reality, to see what she learned about Uber, and about herself.

Sydney Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Lia Parker-Belfer

Lia Parker-Belfer is a graduate student pursuing an MBA at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and an MPA at the Harvard Kennedy School. Lia grew up in Brookline, MA and received her BA from Hamilton College. Prior to graduate school, Lia was a consultant with Deloitte’s Government and Public Services practice in Washington, DC. During this time, she helped US federal agencies and nonprofit organizations better serve their constituents and customers and work through complex challenges. Lia is currently exploring ways to leverage technology for social good. Upon completing her dual degree in 2023, Lia hopes to work at the intersection of the public and private sectors, advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Lia’s passion for DEI stems from her lived experience as a Chinese woman adopted by Caucasian parents and raised in the Jewish faith. Lia is committed to creating community and fostering cultures of belonging wherever she goes. During her first year at Tuck, Lia founded If You Knew Me, a podcast designed to illuminate surprising connections, broaden perspectives, deepen understanding, and spark rich conversation within the Tuck community. 

Insights from this Episode

• The backstory of the “If You Knew Me” Podcast
• Why Lia picked business school
• Why Lia chose Uber to do her internship
• Lia’s constant pursue for an intersection between the private and public sector
• How to build relationships even in remote environments
• How Lia’s internship experience is different or common from her classmates
• Lia’s experience of taking in person classes during Covid-19
• What Lia learned from working on Uber
• How to identify and understand if a job is the right fit for you
• Lia’s future plans of joining technology with social good

Quotes from the Show:

• “I wanted to work at a company where the product I could really see a tangible connection to helping people, and so Uber actually did make a little bit of sense for me when I thought about how it grants people access, transportation and that might not be otherwise available to people and specifically during the pandemic”- Lia Parker-Belfer in “The Sydcast” [12:16]
• “Redefining what that impact actually looks like and I think you can have a day to day in the communities you’re part of, without maybe having that CEO title for example”- Lia Parker-Belfer in “The Sydcast” [21:14]
• “[About serving to your community] The more gratitude you have the more you personally benefit in terms your own personal mental wellbeing and happiness ”- Sydney Finkelstein in “The Sydcast”- [23:04]
• “It was challenging to find opportunities to be in the CSR or social impact space for a summer that is so short and also that’s not in my job title”- Lia Parker-Belfer in “The Sydcast” [37:45]
• “Being an individual contributor doesn’t mean you’re truly alone, and I think I had that misconception because really you are surrounded by resources, you do have a team ”- Lia Parker-Belfer in “The Sydcast” [45:48]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Lia Parker Belfer

Email: lparkerbelfer@gmail.com

LinkedIn: Lia Parker-Belfer

Podcast: If You Knew Me 

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

As It Happens: Follow puzzle-maker Kaylin Marcotte as she builds her startup JIGGY during Covid – growing, pivoting, and getting her first big break. In two conversations over four months, we get an inside look at how Kaylin and her startup manage early growth while learning both what she needs to do next and who she is as an entrepreneur and a person.

Sydney Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Kaylin Marcotte

Kaylin is the founder & CEO of JIGGY, a direct-to-consumer jigsaw puzzle brand on a mission to modernize and elevate the humble jigsaw, and support female artists around the world. Prior to launching Jiggy, Kaylin founded Village Strategies, a marketing consultancy, and was the first employee at theSkimm, running its community marketing, social media and Skimm’bassadors. Kaylin holds a BA in political science and economics from Barnard College. She lives in Brooklyn, NY and spends her free time doing jigsaw puzzles of course, and running a 30-day plastic-free challenge program with her sister, Mackenzie.

Insights from this Episode

• How JIGGY works
• What the science behind playing puzzles is
• The differences of between being a female founder and male founder \
• Kaylin’s entrepreneur journey and what inspired her to found JIGGY
• The community building process of JIGGY
• What the JIGGY Puzzle Club is
• Kaylin’s experience of being on SharkTank

Quotes from the Show:

• “[About entrepreneurship] I thought it was a much more straightforward process and that, you know, you have an idea, you wanna get something made, there’s these factories, they make it and you pay them and that’s that”- Kaylin Marcotte in “The Sydcast” [15:13]
• “[About Syd’s experience on a class called ‘Art & Money’] The ways in which the art market works are really unusual, and there’s a bit of wild west here”- Sydney Finkelstein in “The Sydcast” [21:57]
• “[About women in the art world] Gender representation it’s a big issue in terms of gallery space, museum space” Kaylin Marcotte in “The Sydcast” [24:33]
• “[About dealing with competitors in the market] As your business grows and people hear about you more you will have copycats, and what I’ve learned about all of this is that you can’t avoid people copying you and if you have to sue them to keep them away is a really bad way to live, you don’t have enough money to keep doing that”- Sydney Finkelstein in “The Sydcast” [26:05]
• “[About her experience on Shark Tank] The idea of just releasing control and not even knowing until it’s live on TV, what that edit is gonna be, you know, you don’t see anything before hand, it’s definitely nerve wracking” Kaylin Marcotte in “The Sydcast” [48:51]
• “[About the founder syndrome] What’s next, what’s the new shiny opportunity or what else should we do and finally I had an advisor and he was like yes of course like innovator die, always thinking of those things, but also like part of scaling is the less sexy, just you do what you’ve already done 10 times over ”- Kaylin Marcotte in “The Sydcast” [1:00:21]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Kaylin Marcotte

Website: https://jiggypuzzles.com/ 

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jiggypuzzles/

Shark Tank: Kaylin Marcotte on the Shark Tank

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

Starting a job as a new CEO is not easy. Starting at the same time as a global pandemic is tougher. Now add in that the CEO – my guest, Lucy Lieberman – is running the travel company Tablet Hotels and you get the picture. With a career that went from digital startups in the early days of the Internet to managing global brands, Lucy has experience with pretty much every aspect of marketing, and she brings it all to her role as CEO. On this episode of The Sydcast, Lucy walks us through her path to the top, how she thinks about leadership, and some of the exciting new ideas she’s been spearheading to help emerge from the Covid crisis

Sydney Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Lucy Lieberman

Lucy Lieberman is CEO of Tablet Hotels, the hotel experts at the MICHELIN Guide. She joined Tablet as Chief Marketing Officer in 2019 to scale the brand globally following its acquisition by Michelin, bringing more than 20 years of expertise in marketing, product development and operations to the role. Lieberman previously spent 10 years with Ogilvy and Mather, most recently serving as Managing Director. At Ogilvy, she was responsible for delivering marketing ROI for brands such as InterContinental Hotels Group, American Express, IKEA and BlackRock. Earlier in her career, Lieberman served as a founding team member of two technology startups, oversaw product development for a mobile startup, and helped lead operations and project management for digital marketing agencies. She holds a BA from Georgetown University in Studio Art and French and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

Insights from this Episode

• How Tablet Hotels work
• The difficulties of running a travel company during Covid-19
• How the partnership between Michelin and Tablet Hotels was formed
• Lucy’s journey to becoming the CEO of Tablet Hotels 
• Lucy and Syd’s first experiences on business with the internet
• How the travel behavior has changed because of Covid-19

Quotes from the Show:

• “[About traveling] For quite a while now, my philosophy has been quite different, I’ll see what I see in terms of the famous places...but I much rather just kind of walk around and experience”- Sydney Finkelstein in “The Sydcast” [4:41]
• “When you get any job offer you think about could I even do this, is this insane or is this completely common sense and there is not even anything to question about it ”- Lucy Lieberman in “The Sydcast” [15:07]
• “You can’t go out thinking that everything you’re going to do is going to be flawless and amazing and game-changing”- Lucy Lieberman in “The Sydcast” [42:05]
• “We definitely saw a real shift in where people were traveling away from metropolitan destinations and big hotels and people were really gravitating towards smaller properties, properties that had bungalows or cottages or stand alone units, villas, those were insanely high demand”- Lucy Lieberman in “The Sydcast” [50:38]
• “When I was growing up I was taught that business and capitalism were almost dirty, that the path in life needed to be more noble and more about education and the wellbeing of society in some ways”- Lucy Lieberman in “The Sydcast” [59:30]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Lucy Lieberman

LinkedIn: Lucy Lieberman

Facebook: Lucy Lieberman

Instagram: Lucy Lieberman

Tablet Hotels

Website: Tablet Hotels

Twitter: Tablet Hotels

Facebook: Tablet Hotels

Instagram: Tablet Hotels

Pinterest: Tablet Hotels

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

Sometimes you know what you want to do with your life, and for Bianca Smith, that was baseball. Professional baseball. Her path to becoming the first Black woman to coach in professional baseball is a story of grit, single-minded focus, and force of personality. Still only 30 and a coach at a minor league affiliate of the Boston Red Sox, Bianca tells us how she got there and what life is like when you’re a 5-foot-tall woman teaching professional male athletes how they could be better baseball players.

Sydney Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Bianca Smith

Bianca Smith finished her 1st season with the FCL Red Sox in 2021. Prior to the Red Sox she was an Assistant Athletic Director and Assistant Baseball Coach/Hitting Coordinator at Carroll University. Smith has also coached at Case Western Reserve University (where she earned her dual JD/MBA) and the University of Dallas, as well as worked in Baseball Operations in the front offices of the Texas Rangers, the Cincinnati Reds, and MLB’s Commissioner’s Office. Smith graduated from Dartmouth College in 2012 where she played varsity softball and club baseball.

Insights from this Episode

• The journey into the baseball major leagues
• The transition from front office work into coaching
• The skill sets and mindset that are necessary to be a coach
• How to build relationships of trust with your players as a coach
• The psychological side of coaching
• The challenges of being a woman in the coaching environment
• Why analytics are helpful in sports

Quotes from the Show:

• “One thing I can say about Bianca is that she is simply not a stoppable force because along with driving passion she brings a learning mindset to everything she does”- Sydney Finkelstein in “The Sydcast” [05:40]
• “Professional baseball is a little bit different because, yes your individual stats matter to your contract, but overall the goal is still, you’re gonna win a world series and you can’t win a world series by yourself, the team wins the world series not you”- Bianca Smith in “The Sydcast” [14:27]
• “As a coach, one of the biggest things I think you need is just to be open minded, don’t come in thinking that you know everything because I guarantee you in any sport you’re never gonna know everything”- Bianca Smith in “The Sydcast” [25:31]
• “The best players are the ones that can adjust on their own because they have that body awareness, they know what they’re looking for, they know what they did wrong and they are able to make that adjustment in game”- Bianca Smith in “The Sydcast” [30:07]
• “[About statistics] The best coaches are the ones that know when to use it and in what situation”- Bianca Smith in “The Sydcast” [46:03]
• “Ignore the criticisms and the expectations and do what you want to do”- Bianca Smith in “The Sydcast” [1:01:09]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Bianca Smith

LinkedIn: Bianca Smith

Twitter: Bianca Smith 

Instagram: Bianca Smith

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This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.