Outthinkers

Marc Beckman is the Co-Founder and CEO of DMA United, the award-winning advertising agency positioned at the center of style and design. His philosophy concentrates on building equity at the intersection of content and commerce. In fact, Marc has designed and implemented creative campaigns for countless individuals and corporations within DMA United’s polycultural platform, including venerable brands such as NBA, Pepsi, Sony, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Nelson Mandela, Gucci, and MoMA. Marc embraces new technology and trends to augment marketing platforms and communications tactics. To date, he has leveraged blockchain technology to launch platforms for over sixty brands; and has created seven marketplaces in Web3 for clients. Mr. Beckman’s cross-sector blockchain approach includes programs in luxury, fashion, government, technology, academics, philanthropy, and beauty. He is the author of The Comprehensive Guide: NFTs, Digital Artwork, Blockchain Technology. The book has received many accolades, including receiving best-seller status, and inclusion on JP Morgan’s Reading List.Marc is New York University’s Metaverse Senior Fellow, an Adjunct Professor in Marketing, and Chairman of Stern’s Luxury & Fashion Council. Further, Marc is developing legal policy and best practices for Web3 and other emerging technologies as Co-Chair of the New York State Bar Association’s Web3 Task Force. In this episode, he shares:Real-world Insights from a marketing agency at the forefront of the digital revolution on how to leverage and pull your brand into the new digital era The essential things you need to know about Web3, the metaverse and the digital space to take advantage of the new opportunities afforded by them How to use the perception of value of digital assets to create new revenue streams without cannibalizing your legacy streams The new opportunities to co-create with third parties in the digital space—or create a microverse of your own for your brand What brands can do—and examples of what they are already doing—to revamp their brand loyalty programs with these new technologies _________________________________________________________________________________________Episode Timeline:00:00—Highlight from today's episode01:09—Introducing Marc + The topic of today’s episode3:20—If you really know me, you know that...4:33—What is your definition of strategy?5:43—You came into your role from a legal background—can you explain this pathway?7:15—Can you give us a sense of what your agency does, and how technology is a fundamental role of this?10:12—Could you define what the metaverse is for you and your agency?12:16—Could you talk us through how these new opportunities offer the chance to revamp brand loyalty programs?15:27—How do you believe the perception of digital assets varies from generation to generation?18:58—Could you talk to us about Travis Scott and his revenue-generating digital concert?20:52—Could you tell us about the difference between decentralized, on-chain/off-chain verticals?22:29—Should companies be worrying about getting into these digital opportunities now, or are they already behind if they are not?24:23—How can people follow you and connect with you?Thank you to our guest. Thank you to our executive producer, Karina Reyes, our editor, Zach Ness, and the rest of the team. If you like what you heard, please follow, download, and subscribe. I'm your host, Kaihan Krippendorff. Thank you for listening.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast

Linda Yates is the founder and CEO of Mach49, the growth incubator for global businesses with clients including Goodyear, Gundersen Health, Hitachi, Intel, Pernod Ricard, Schneider Electric, Shell, and many more. She is a seasoned CEO and board member with over thirty years of experience bridging Silicon Valley and the Global 1000, creating global strategy, building companies, and driving innovation for large multinationals worldwide, and the author The Unicorn Within: How Companies Can Create Game-Changing Ventures at Startup Speed. She is a seasoned CEO and board member with over thirty years of experience bridging Silicon Valley and the Global 1000. With her firsthand e experience in one largest geographic incubators of unicorns in the world—Silicon Valley—Linda has fine-tuned a proven framework for building and sustaining corporate ventures. As heard in the highlight clip, Linda believes that incumbent enterprises CAN unlock their innovative capabilities. Contrary to commonly held dogma of large, established companies as being stagnant, and slow, the reality is that it is these large companies have many advantages to launch transformative projects that start-ups can only dream of. In this episode, she shares: Why your company needs to learn to pivot and adapt strategy to execution asap or risk becoming part of the 88% of companies that won't survive next decadesThe four pillars needed to jumpstart your company’s growth engine How to overcome the reticence many companies have of allocating funding toward risky new ventures How to ensure your organization is ready to successfully accelerate and scale opportunities—and make these stages fail-proof while doing so. _________________________________________________________________________________________Episode Timeline:00:00—Highlight from today's episode00:46—Introducing Linda + The topic of today’s episode2:48—If you really know me, you know that...3:49—What is your definition of strategy, and what got you interested in it?8:29—What are your thoughts on the idea that incumbent companies are too slow, too archaic?9:00—Could you talk us through the four pillars that companies need to build their growth engines?12:15—How do you overcome the reticence of companies to invest in new riskier investments and be willing to invest in new ventures?13:20—Could you lead us through how to really get to the heart of understanding customer pain? 17:50—Could you talk to us about the need to understand customers' perspectives, and what we overlook around this topic?19:55—How do you go about conducting customer development interviews?23:10—Can you lead us through building a portfolio of opportunities in the pipeline?17:09—Do you have any advice to which pathway should a company commit to?29:40—How can people follow you and keep learning from you?__________________________________________________________________________________________Additional Resources: Mach 49 Page: https://www.mach49.com/Linkedin: https://www.lThank you to our guest. Thank you to our executive producer, Karina Reyes, our editor, Zach Ness, and the rest of the team. If you like what you heard, please follow, download, and subscribe. I'm your host, Kaihan Krippendorff. Thank you for listening.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast

Mohan Subramaniam is a Professor of Strategy and Digital Transformation at the IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland. He focuses on the digital transformation of incumbent industrial firms and new sources of competitive advantage in the digital age. He is a recognized thought leader in digital strategy, and have helped senior executives in several companies find new sources of value and growth for their companies when competing with data within emerging digital ecosystems. He outlines his thinking in his 2022 book The Future of Competitive Strategy: Unleashing the Power of Data and Digital Ecosystems, where he introduces a new paradigm for competitive strategy anchored in data and digital ecosystems and the game-changing role of digital technologies in the modern economy. Legacy firms have for decades anchored their competitive strategy in products and industry characteristics, but these approaches are now becoming outdated. His book therefore explains how legacy firms can harness their existing assets, infrastructure, and traditional strengths to leverage the new and explosive power of data by thoughtfully applying and emulating the best practices of digital titans such as Amazon and Google.His articles regularly appear in Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review. I have also published articles in several leading academic journals such as Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Journal, the Journal of Management, and the Journal of International Business Studies, and my research has been recognized by awards from Strategic Management Society, McKinsey Corporation, the Academy of Management, the Academy of International Business, and the Decision Sciences Institute. In this episode, Mohan shares:Why some of the long-prevailing concepts of competitive strategy, like Michael Porter’s industry value chain, industry attractiveness (or five forces), and even the central paradigm of these approaches may have served us well for decades, but are increasingly becoming ineffectiveHow traditional legacy firms can harness their existing assets, infrastructure, and traditional strengths to be even more effective at the digital game than digital native giants like Amazon and Google Why the first step for such incumbent organizations should be to evolve your traditional customers to digital customers Why we should not just be thinking about ecosystems broadly, but about two specific—and different—ecosystems we need to create, and what they areWhy the idea that so many companies have of capturing and owning lots of data misses the point of what it means to win with data, in a world where the shelf-life value of the data you collect is getting shorter and shorter _________________________________________________________________________________________"The big shift in thinking is that we always thought of data as something that supports our product. What I'm saying is that think of products as something that can support your data."_________________________________________________________________________________________Episode Timeline:00:00—Highlight from today's episode01:02—Introducing Mohan + The topic of today’s episode2:58—If you really know me, you know that...3:25—What is your definition of strategy?3:36—Could you talk to Thank you to our guest. Thank you to our executive producer, Karina Reyes, our editor, Zach Ness, and the rest of the team. If you like what you heard, please follow, download, and subscribe. I'm your host, Kaihan Krippendorff. Thank you for listening.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast

Sally Susman is Executive Vice President and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at Pfizer. She is also Vice Chair of the Pfizer Foundation. Sally leads engagement with all of Pfizer’s external stakeholders, overseeing communications, corporate responsibility, global policy, government relations, investor relations, and patient advocacy. Before joining Pfizer in 2007, she held several senior communications and government relations roles at Estée Lauder Companies and the American Express Company.Through these extensive career experiences, Sally has honed an acute sense of how to navigate the delicate conversation that an organization must perpetually engage in with their stakeholders. And her work and expertise are more needed now than ever. With the growing interest among consumers, investors, and the community in the companies they support doing the right thing, your corporations’ success depends, more so than perhaps any time in history, on your ability to strategically approach the complex challenges of when to take stand, what stand to take, and how to authentically community your corporate stance to the world. In this episode, she shares: The 5 questions leaders can ask to determine what discourses they will engage in with the public, especially in this modern era where that channel is never “off’ How an organization can work in a collaborative way with their leadership and corporate affairs team to craft a united message that reflects company values The principles to mastering “informal influence”—getting others to be willing to adopt your ideas, as discussed in her most recent book, BREAKING THROUGH: Communicating to Open Minds, Move Hearts, and Change the World Why communications is not a nice-to-have soft skill, but an essential capability that any leader or company must master_________________________________________________________________________________________Episode Timeline:00:00—Highlight from today's episode00:52—Introducing Sally + The topic of today’s episode3:00—If you really know me, you know that...4:14—What is your definition of strategy?4:37—Can you tell us about a document Pfizer has developed called a "purpose blueprint"?6:00—What made you make the career shift from a government to corporate role?7:27—It seems that there is now a more pronounced expectation for corporations to channel their impact in the world, why do you think this is taking place, and why now?9:47—What are some suggestions you can share from the experience of navigating really high-stakes, fast moving moments?12:20—Could you tell us about how Pfizer navigated the Russian/Ukraine crisis?13:45—How does a leadership team approach creating a communication plan so that it's coming from authority? 15:07—Could you talk about the personal story in chapter two of your book regarding approaching difficult moments with courage and candor?17:48—Is there something you've changed your mind about?18:45—Any advice for being effective at using communication for informal influence?22:21—How can people follow you and keep learning from you?__________________________________________________________________________________________Additional Resources: Thank you to our guest. Thank you to our executive producer, Karina Reyes, our editor, Zach Ness, and the rest of the team. If you like what you heard, please follow, download, and subscribe. I'm your host, Kaihan Krippendorff. Thank you for listening.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast

David Shrier is a globally-recognized expert on technology-driven change at scale. He is a Professor of Practice, AI & Innovation, with Imperial College Business School, where he is founding faculty of the Centre for Digital Transformation and leads the new Trusted AI initiative. Healso chairs the Research group for the World Metaverse Council. Through his venture studio Visionary Future, David also works extensively with the private sector helping established organizations build innovative capacity, having developed $10 billion of value-creation opportunities with companies such as UBS, Dun & Bradstreet, Kyriba, Ernst & Young, GE and The Walt Disney Company, as well as leading private equity and VC funds. He is CEO of a NYSE-listed company which he led through a 500%-oversubscribed IPO, and advises disruptive technology companies such as Dandelion Science (neurotechnology) and Kaleidoco (metaverse). He is best known for creating and leading the blockchain and fintech classes for MIT and Oxford that expanded access in over 150 countries and revolutionized the business model for higher education online. His efforts resulted in nearly $1 billion of financial support for MIT, Harvard and Oxford. David’s government advisory work spans over 100 countries and has influenced policy affecting more than 2.4 billion people. He has published seven books in seven years; his eighth book, Basic Metaverse, is coming out June 8, from Little Brown and Harvard Business Publishing. More information at www.VisionaryFuture.com. In this episode, he shares: His definition of the metaverse in simple terms, and how it goes beyond just virtual reality, as it’s often perceived Several real-world examples of how AI and the metaverse are already changing industries, careers and businesses, from architecture to the practice of medicine, among many others The sheer accelerated pace at which newer technologies are being adopted compared to previous groundbreaking technologies in history How technology has shaped the way in which the public and private spheres work together to advance new initiatives and funding around these_________________________________________________________________________________________Episode Timeline:00:00—Highlight from today's episode00:51—Introducing David + The topic of today’s episode2:47—If you really know me, you know that...3:44—What is your definition of strategy?4:47—Could you talk to us about your work at Oxford and MIT around digital technologies?7:51—Could you give us your definition of the metaverse as you would explain it?9:43—How do you see business changing, and how long will these digital transformations be adopted?14:06—What are some of the implications of the adoption of these technologies that people would be surprised by or people get wrong?17:05—What drove you to write your newest book on AI, what was the timing?19:18—What do you think business leaders need to act in light of this fast impending change?__________________________________________________________________________________________Additional Resources: Personal Page: https://davidshrier.com/Company Page: Thank you to our guest. Thank you to our executive producer, Karina Reyes, our editor, Zach Ness, and the rest of the team. If you like what you heard, please follow, download, and subscribe. I'm your host, Kaihan Krippendorff. Thank you for listening.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast

Stephanie Woerner, Director and a Research Scientist at MIT's Center for Information Systems Research (CISR) at the MIT Sloan School of Management. She is also the co-author, with Peter Weill, of What's Your Digital Business Model? And with Peter Weill and Ina Sebastian, Future Ready: The Four Pathways to Capturing Digital Value. Stephanie studies how companies use technology and data to create more effective business models, as well as how they manage the associated organizational change, governance and strategy implications. She has a passion for measuring hard-to-assess digital factors and linking them to firm performance, and as heard in the highlight clip, helping strategists through the challenges digital transformation brings. In this episode, she shares: What digital transformation is exactly, and the characteristics future-ready companies adopt to enable it The four pathways to digital transformation, and which pathway to pursue based on the stage your company is in What companies who succeeded in digital transformation focus on—and what you can learn from them Why digital transformation often requires a shift to an ecosystem business model and partnerships-based modular production What interviews with hundreds with CIOs revealed is the most important IT-enabled digital transformation initiatives The four explosions that will happen in your company’s culture that will enable your company to digitally transform _________________________________________________________________________________________Episode Timeline:00:00—Highlight from today's episode00:56—Introducing Stephanie + The topic of today’s episode2:26—If you really know me, you know that...3:15—What is your definition of strategy?3:51—You focus on digital business models and innovation towards this. Can you tell us about what got you into this space?4:38—Why are digital business models important now as opposed to 10 years ago?6:07—Why does the digital business model require us to deliver more within an ecosystem?8:00—What are the key points that companies who successfully achieve digital transformation focus on? 9:32—What is a digital business transformation?11:04—Could you give us the high-level idea of the digital transformation end states that companies work toward, and the four pathways that lead there?12:27—The first pathway13:34—The second pathway15:49—The third pathway17:09—Do you have any advice to which pathway should a company commit to?18:05—The fourth pathway18:50—Could you talk to us about Bancolombia as a case study in successful digital transformation?20:46—Does a digital transformation require a cultural change?22:21—How can people follow you and keep learning from you?__________________________________________________________________________________________Additional Resources: MIT Faculty Page: https://mitsloan.mit.edu/faculty/directory/stephanie-woernerLinkedin: Thank you to our guest. Thank you to our executive producer, Karina Reyes, our editor, Zach Ness, and the rest of the team. If you like what you heard, please follow, download, and subscribe. I'm your host, Kaihan Krippendorff. Thank you for listening.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast

Andrew Winston is one of the world's most widely read writers and leading thinkers on sustainable business. His books on sustainability strategy, including Green to Gold and The Big Pivot, have sold more than 150,000 copies in seven languages. Winston has also written cover stories for Harvard Business Review and published hundreds of articles in HBR, MIT Sloan Management Review, and other top publications. He was recently selected for the Thinkers50 Radar 2020, a list of 30 thinkers to watch out for in the coming year. His views on strategy have been sought after by many of the world's leading companies, including 3M, DuPont, HP, Ingersoll Rand, Johnson & Johnson, Kimberly-Clark, Marriott, PepsiCo, PwC, and Unilever. Andrew has spent much of his career helping business leaders understand how to put sustainability at the forefront of their strategy—which will inevitably affect all industries and companies. In this podcast he shares with us: Why this seemingly impossible ideas of not net zero but net positive is actually feasibleHow the pandemic actually accelerated both interest and willingness to accept the transition to greener global initiatives Why now is a good time to invest in ESG/sustainability initiatives The role of business in society, and why has it changed over time How any company can make a leap or move to adopting sustainable practices—taking UPS as an example, and how all industries will inevitably be affected _________________________________________________________________________________________Episode Timeline:00:00—Highlight from today's episode00:45—Introducing Andrew + The topic of today’s episode2:05—If you really know me, you know that...3:26—What is your definition of strategy?4:48—What got you interested in strategy, and particularly in ESG and sustainability strategy?6:03—Why do companies care about sustainability now where they didn't as much in the past?7:59—Why is ESG and sustainability a smart place to invest right now?11:00—Do you think there is a fundamental mindset shift happening in leadership?13:34—Could you tell us about how UPS adopted sustainable practices in a surprising, yet effective way?15:10—Could you talk about the future of various industries, using agriculture as an example?17:44—Where should strategists start with net positive practices?20:00—How can people follow you and keep learning from you?__________________________________________________________________________________________Additional Resources: Personal Page: https://andrewwinston.com/Newest Book, Net Positive: https://netpositive.world/book/Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewwinston/Twitter: https://twitter.com/andrewwinstonThank you to our guest. Thank you to our executive producer, Karina Reyes, our editor, Zach Ness, and the rest of the team. If you like what you heard, please follow, download, and subscribe. I'm your host, Kaihan Krippendorff. Thank you for listening.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast

Avi Goldfarb is the Rotman Chair in Artificial Intelligence and Healthcare and Professor of Marketing at Toronto's Rotman School of Management. He is also Chief Data Scientist at the Creative Destruction Lab, a fellow at Behavioral Economics in Action at Rotman, and a faculty affiliate at the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Avi has written extensively on a broad range of topics from marketing, statistics, law, management, medicine, political science, refugee studies, among many others. He has also conducted much deep work in the study of AI and machine learning and how businesses can wield and leverage the predictive capabilities of these technologies.In this podcast, he shares:Point-to-point changes v. the bigger, broader systemic changes that AI may introduceHow AI prediction changes judgement. Until now, most of the exploration of machine learning have been around prediction, but how will things change when AI starts getting good at judgement? The fascinating implications machine learning and AI will have on business decision-making, economics, and competitive advantage _________________________________________________________________________________________Episode Timeline:00:00—Highlight from today's episode00:44—Introducing Avi+ The topic of today’s episode2:21—If you really know me, you know that...2:50—Could you talk about cost of prediction coming on?6:25—Can machine learning surpass human judgment, or where do they have their place?9:30—Could you explain the point-to-point solutions vs. systemic changes?11:40—How does technology change power?14:27—Could you give us an example of the impact of AI-powered predictions in a practical real-life case?17:01—Do you think we have a reason to worry?19:01—How can people continue learning from you?__________________________________________________________________________________________Additional Resources: Personal Page: https://www.avigoldfarb.com/Linkedin: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/avi-goldfarb-46a7473Twitter: https://twitter.com/avicgoldfarb?lang=enThank you to our guest. Thank you to our executive producer, Karina Reyes, our editor, Zach Ness, and the rest of the team. If you like what you heard, please follow, download, and subscribe. I'm your host, Kaihan Krippendorff. Thank you for listening.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast

Nina Mažar is Professor of Marketing at Questrom School of Business at Boston University and author of the book Behavioral Science in the Wild (with Dilip Soman). Nina was the 2019 president of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making and has been named one of "The 40 Most Outstanding B-School Profs Under 40 In The World” (2014). With her focus on behavioral science she examines ways to help individuals and organizations make better decisions and increase societal welfare. Popular accounts of her work have appeared among others on NPR, BBC, Wired, and various NYTimes Bestsellers. Nina is the co-founder of BEworks and former inaugural Senior Behavioral Scientist of the World Bank’s behavioral insights team (eMBeD) in Washington, DC. She has served as advisor on boards of various government (e.g, Austria and Canada) and organizations (e.g., Irrational Labs in San Francisco, CA). She holds a Dr. rer. pol. in Marketing from the University of Mainz in Germany. In this podcast, she shares:Fascinating insights from her years of study about how morals, honesty and dishonesty guide our decisions. How an organization can impact a client or customer’s decisions at the moment they happen How pricing can be a powerful, and I would say overlooked, lever for affecting customer behavior How to design experiments to understand your customers’ underlying motives _________________________________________________________________________________________Episode Timeline:00:00—Highlight from today's episode00:59—Introducing Nina + The topic of today’s episode2:21—If you really know me, you know that...4:33—What is your definition of strategy?5:46—What is an insight you can share when it comes to honesty?8:29—Could you tell us about your work with the Ontario government on projects affecting human behavior?11:03—Can you share an experience where the attempt to influence human behavior backfired?12:42—How do you approach designing a behavioral science experiment as a company?16:14—What do organizations get wrong when they are looking to scale behavioral science and shape behavior?20:00—How can people follow you and keep learning from you?__________________________________________________________________________________________Additional Resources: Personal Page: https://ninamazar.com/Thinkers50 Profile: https://thinkers50.com/biographies/nina-mazar/Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ninamazar/Twitter: https://twitter.com/ninamazarThank you to our guest. Thank you to our executive producer, Karina Reyes, our editor, Zach Ness, and the rest of the team. If you like what you heard, please follow, download, and subscribe. I'm your host, Kaihan Krippendorff. Thank you for listening.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast

Whether building hyper-growth startups or advising Fortune 500 companies, the Royal Family or the United Nations, Lindsey McInerney has spent her career helping people understand the impact of cutting-edge technologies and adopt them early.An internet nerd and tech futurist, Lindsey has launched multiple projects in the metaverse and web3 space and remains excited about the ways crypto, blockchain, NFTs, and extended reality (XR) will change our digital and physical landscape.As Global Head of Technology and Innovation at AB InBev (Anheuser-Busch), the world's largest brewer, she launched Stella Artois into the metaverse in an explosive partnership with ZED RUN, a crypto horse racing game.One of the first major brand executions in the space, the Cannes Lion award- nominated campaign, put Stella Artois on the map as the first beer brand and FMCG company in the metaverse and was well received by traditional and crypto media alike.McInerney was named to the 2023 ‘Thinkers50 Radar List’, a cohort of 30 thinkers whose ideas are predicted to make an important impact on management thinking. She has also been named one of ‘The 30 Most Influential People in the Metaverse’, one of ‘The Most Prominent Digital Futurists to Watch Out For in 2022’, one of the ‘Top Players of the Metaverse' and an 'Adweek Pride Star class of 2022'.As Founder and CEO of Black Sun Labs, Lindsey works with executives, teams and personalities on their web3 and metaverse strategies. She is also the CEO of Sixth Wall, a technology and entertainment company co-founded with actor/producer Mila Kunis and producer Lisa Sterbakov.In this podcast, she shares:How important it is to learn to pivot in the ever-changing digital landscapeWhat the Metaverse, NFTs, Augmented Reality and Virtual reality all are in simple terms—and where they bring new opportunities to businessesHow any brand can distill the essence of their business to launch into the metaverse and emerging tech space _________________________________________________________________________________________Episode Timeline:00:00—Highlight from today's episode00:45—Introducing Lindsey + The topic of today’s episode2:19—If you really know me, you know that...3:41—What is your definition of strategy?4:47—Could you start off with a simple definition of the metaverse?10:10—Would you say the physical technology of modern devices have an impact on their adoption?14:17—What kind of applications do you see for companies that are in more traditional industrial and infrastructure industries?16:01—How does blockchain or NFTs fit into this bigger picture?20:05—How do you transfer a brand and its essence to the metaverse?23:06—How should a company structure their team to move into this new space of technology?25:56—How can people follow you and keep learning from you?__________________________________________________________________________________________Additional Resources: Thinkers50 Profile: https://thinkers50.com/biographies/lindsey-mcinerney/Linkedin: https://uk.linkThank you to our guest. Thank you to our executive producer, Karina Reyes, our editor, Zach Ness, and the rest of the team. If you like what you heard, please follow, download, and subscribe. I'm your host, Kaihan Krippendorff. Thank you for listening.Follow us at outthinkernetworks.com/podcast