Skydeck

In the first of a weekly series of Skydeck episodes honoring recipients of the 2022 Alumni Achievement Award, finance veteran Naina Lal Kidwai (MBA 1982) talks about her second act as chairman and founder of the India Sanitation Coalition, an organization coordinating business, government, and nonprofit efforts to improve India’s water quality and health outcomes.

Naveen Tewari, founder of InMobi and now Glance, is at the forefront of a growing trend of global consumer technology companies created in Asia—not just powered by it

Anada Lakra’s startup helps non-native speakers master the art of the English language

How Walker & Dunlop CEO Willy Walker’s experience with anger management therapy transformed his life and career

Parsec Ventures CEO Richard Steel (OPM 45, 2014) has had a wide range of professional experiences, including everything from running both private and public companies to serving on nonprofit boards to advising the White House Business Council. Which means that he has spent a lot of time speaking with leaders in both business and government about the factors that are driving their organizations’ strategy. Over the last several years, there has been a dominant theme in those conversations: ESG. Environmental, Social, and Governance.  And Steel wasn’t just hearing it, he was seeing it. At some point, it felt like he would see a new story every day about companies that were grappling with climate change, racial justice, or diversity and inclusion. He was watching a sea change take place. His recent book, Elevated Economics: How Conscious Consumers Will Fuel the Future of Business, is his effort to explain the implications of this watershed moment—and help readers understand what it takes to succeed in the new economy it has created. 

In 2009, in the wake of the financial crisis, with ratings agencies weighing whether or not to downgrade its stock, GE CEO Jeff Immelt made the decision to cut the company's annual dividend for the first time since 1938. It was gutting for Immelt. He knew the financial impact such a move would have not just on the company, but also on its retirees—a group that notably included his own parents. In this second part of our Skydeck conversation with Immelt, we talk about the trials of the financial crisis, the loneliness of life at the top, and what his post-GE career in education and venture capital have taught him about the future of global business.

When Jeff Immelt graduated from HBS in 1982, he had job offers from Morgan Stanley and Boston Consulting Group. But Immelt had spent his second year at HBS reflecting on his career path, and he decided that he was more interested in being an operator than an investor, accepting a position with a lower salary at GE. His initial plan was to spend five years or so at GE learning how to manage. Ultimately though, he would go on to spend 35 years at the company, becoming CEO in 2001. He was so dedicated to GE that, at age 50, he got the company's logo tattooed on his leg. Immelt, now venture partner at New Enterprise Associates and a lecturer at Stanford's Graduate School of Business, recounts his history at GE in his recent book, Hot Seat: What I Learned Leading a Great American Company. And in this first episode of a special two-part Skydeck interview with Immelt, we talk about his rise to CEO, the challenge of enacting change at a massive scale, and what his experience at GE can teach large organizations about overcoming barriers to innovation.

On May 31st, 2020, six days after the murder of George Floyd, Stephen Roger's daughter, Ariel sent him a text. In it, she told her dad that the Black community was suffering and that he needed to talk to them-- that he needed to address the community as if he were the President of the United States. His daughter's plea led him to record a podcast that did just that, urging the Black community to both keep up the fight and take care of themselves. But Rogers also recorded a second podcast, this one addressing a white audience, telling them exactly what they could be doing to help support the Black community. The positive response to that episode led Rogers, a retired HBS professor, to write his recent book, A Letter to My White Friends and Colleagues: What You Can Do Right Now to Help the Black Community. And in this episode of Skydeck, Rogers and I talk about the makings of America's racial wealth gap, why he thinks it is a root cause of the nation's racial crisis, and the tangible steps necessary to help erase it.

This is Dan Morrell, host of Skydeck.  At the HBS reunions in 2019, the Skydeck team set up shop on Spangler lawn and asked alumni to share their secrets to a successful retirement.  John Teeling, DBA 1979, who has started a number of Irish whiskey distilleries, hadn’t intended to sit and offer his advice, but his companion had other ideas.  JOHN TEELING: The reason you have me here is because my wife was listening to the request to come on and she says I’m not allowed to retire until I’m 94. You shouldn’t ask me about retirement, because I’ve done absolutely no planning for it other than financial. And I’d hope to be able to work as long as I’m enjoying it, which I think could be a few years yet. In this episode of Skydeck, you’ll hear from some happy retirees about what   makes for a successful exit from the working world—and a few more like Teeling, who chafe at the very notion. And while this episode of Skydeck was notably recorded in pre-pandemic times, we think the advice offered here remains relevant.

Three days before giving birth to her second daughter, Parul Somani (MBA 2009) felt a lump in her breast. Still unable to walk from her C-section, her husband wheeled her to the breast clinic for an ultrasound and biopsy. On her newborn’s one-week birthday, Somani learned she was in the early stages of a particularly invasive and aggressive form of cancer. Her maternity leave suddenly turned into a medical leave to accommodate 10-plus rounds of chemotherapy and multiple surgeries. Five years later, officially in remission, Somani drew on the lessons learned during that difficult time to launch an inspirational speaker platform called Silver Linings in an effort to champion resilience, advocacy, and mental wellbeing. Somani believes that silver linings aren’t meant to just be “found” during the darkest of times, but can be created through mindset, intention, and sense of purpose. These are all learnable skills, she says, that can be used to build resilience and better navigate the uncertainty and challenges we all confront. In this episode of Skydeck, Somani talks to Associate Editor Julia Hanna about the moment of her diagnosis, an unexpected silver lining from her own experience, her career pivot, and how she sees her work evolving in the future.