Heroes of Innovation
Inspiring stories from creative legends to bring actionable insights for listeners to break through at work or at home.
Episode 1: Ed Catmull
Ed Catmull is the Founder and former CEO at Pixar, and former CEO of Disney Animation Studios. He dives deep into some of the ideas that he shared in his book Creativity Inc., so you can expect a real masterclass on the creative process and how this translates to high-level teams.
Episode 23: Teresa Amabile and Diego Rodriguez
Teresa Amabile is a leading creativity researcher at Harvard Business School, focusing on how workplace environments influence innovation. Diego Rodriguez, a former IDEO partner, is an innovation strategist renowned for his expertise in design thinking and product development. Both bring valuable insights to the podcast on fostering creativity in organizations.
Episode 22: Diana Chapman
Diana is an advisor to exceptional leaders, and has worked with over 1000 organizational leaders and many of their teams. She has created and implemented professional onboarding and ongoing programs—based on the comprehensive body of work she developed with CLG co-founder Jim Dethmer—with clients such as Asana and Esalen.
Episode 19: Josh Ruff & Marcus Hollinger
Marcus Hollinger is an award-winning marketer, innovation designer, and entrepreneur with a decade-long career. He led marketing at Reach Records, achieving Grammy-winning campaigns and a #1 Billboard 200 album in 2019. He coaches at Stanford d.School and serves as Senior Director of Innovation at Stoked. His coffee company, Portrait Coffee, was named Georgia's best by Food and Wine Magazine.
Josh Ruff is an innovation leader with experience at Hyatt and Stanford d.school. As Senior Director at Stoked, he helps teams reimagine their work processes. He specializes in guiding client teams from prototyping to product launch. Notably, his team at a Fortune 50 company won the CEO Award for Innovation for addressing postpartum support.
Special Episode: “Beyond the Prompt” with GregShove
This is a special sneak peek at a new collaborative effort I’m undertaking with entrepreneur Henrik Werdelin, called “Beyond the Prompt,” where we explore the intersection of AI and business.
In this first episode, Henrik and I sit down with Greg Shove, CEO of edtech disruptor Section, to discuss the emergence of the AI class and the role of technology in redefining education in the future.
It’s a fascinating preview into a whole new world.
Episode 18: Billy Oppenheimer
Billy Oppenheimer is a writer and research assistant based in Austin, TX. He is hands-down my favorite follow on the internet, and I'm delighted to showcase his incredible craft and insight.
In June 2018, Billy cold emailed his favorite writer, thanked him for his work, then offered to work for him for free. 6 months later, he was hired full time as a research and writing assistant. Since then, he's helped and observed Ryan Holiday research, write, edit, publish, and market 5 books, grow his email lists by 500,000+ subscribers, and publish an article a week read by who knows how many people.
Episode 17: David McRaney
After delving deep into the psychology of belief in "How Minds Change," best-selling author and acclaimed podcaster David McRaney has set his journalistic sights on understanding the nature of true genius.
We invited him to speak to Transformative Design, a graduate course at Stanford. Here's a sneak peek into the intimate classroom conversation.
Episode 16: Amy Edmondson
Amy C. Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School, renowned for her research on psychological safety over twenty years. Her award-winning work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Psychology Today, Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, and more. Named by Thinkers50 in 2021 as the #1 Management Thinker in the world, Edmondson’s TED Talk “How to Turn a Group of Strangers into a Team” has been viewed over three million times. She received her PhD, AM, and AB from Harvard University. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is the author of Right Kind of Wrong, The Fearless Organization, and Teaming.
Episode 15: Rita McGrath
Rita McGrath is a best-selling author, a sought-after advisor and speaker, and a longtime professor at Columbia Business School. Rita is one of the world’s top experts on strategy and innovation and is consistently ranked among the top 10 management thinkers in the world, including the #1 award for strategy by Thinkers50. McGrath’s recent book on strategic inflection points is Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019). Rita is the author of four other books, including the best-selling The End of Competitive Advantage (Harvard Business Review Press, 2013).
Episode 14: Matt Abrahams
In THINK FASTER, TALK SMARTER communication expert, Stanford lecturer, and host of the popular podcast, "Think Fast, Talk Smart," Matt Abrahams provides tangible, actionable skills to help even the most anxious of speakers succeed when communicating and speaking spontaneously. Thinking faster and talking smarter Abrahams argues is not an innate skill that requires natural talent, and can actually be learned through preparation and practice. He provides science-based strategies for managing anxiety, responding to the mood of the room, and communicating in concise, relevant, compelling, and memorable ways regardless of the audience.
Episode 13: Liz Tran
Liz Tran is the founder of Reset, an executive coaching company to CEOs and founders. Before founding Reset, Liz spent over a decade working in the tech industry, most recently as the only female executive at a leading venture capital firm. She is a trained meditation teacher and Reiki Master and studied yoga at the Samyak Ashram. She lives in New York City and Norfolk, Connecticut with her husband, Dev, and their dog, Grover.
Episode 12: Mid Day Squares
Lezlie and Jake Karls are the sibling duo behind Mid Day Squares, the white hot venture revolutionizing the chocolate industry through authenticity.
Episode 11: Liz Wiseman
Wiseman is the CEO of the Wiseman Group, a leadership research and development firm headquartered in Silicon Valley, California. Some of her recent clients include: Apple, AT&T, Disney, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Nike, Salesforce, Tesla, and Twitter. Liz has been listed on the Thinkers50 ranking and named one of the top 10 leadership thinkers in the world.
Episode 10: Marcus Whitney
Marcus is a Founding Partner of Jumpstart Health Investors (JHI), the most active early-stage healthcare venture capital firm in America. Of JHI’s funds, Marcus leads Jumpstart Nova, the first healthcare venture fund in America investing exclusively in Black-founded and led startups.
Episode 9: Ron Johnson & Greg McKeown
Ron Johnson served as the senior vice president of retail operations at Apple Inc., reporting directly to Steve Jobs, where he pioneered the concept of the Apple Retail Stores and the Genius Bar. Join me and special guest interviewer Greg McKeown as we dive into several pivotal moments in his relationship with Steve Jobs.
Episode 8: Linda Hill
Linda A. Hill is the Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and chair of the Leadership Initiative. She is regarded as one of the top experts on leadership and innovation. But she’s more than a scholar: she’s also a gifted practitioner.
Episode 7: Astro Teller
Dr. Astro Teller is the CEO of X, Alphabet's moonshot factory for building magical, audaciously impactful ideas that can be brought to reality through science and technology.
In this conversation, we dig into how to lead an organization geared to stimulating radical, disruptive innovation and future-orientation.
Episode 6: Seth Godin
Seth Godin is an American author and a former dot com business executive with over 20 best selling credits to his name. As a marketing and management guru, Seth has his eyes on the fault lines of today’s shifting working paradigm. Tune in to our discussion of his new book “Song of Significance.”
Episode 5: Jason Mayden
A deep dive with a deep soul. Warning: this one hits hard.
During Jason’s 13+ year career at Nike, he led and contributed to the creation of innovative sport performances products for athletes and cultural icons such as Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook, Derek Jeter, and Michael Jordan.
Episode 4: Jennifer Wallace
Jennifer Wallace is an award-winning journalist and social commentator covering parenting and lifestyle trends. Her new book, Never Enough, discusses the phenomenon of “toxic achievement culture” among teens, and what parents can do to create environments that enable thriving.