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.

Ed Hajim has had a legendary career in finance, including high-profile stints at E.F. Hutton and Lehman Brothers and 14 years leading Furman Selz.  But his success came against very high odds, which Ed chronicles in his recent book, On the Road Less Traveled: An Unlikely Journey from the Orphanage to the Boardroom.

While Ken Friedman (MBA 1983) was at HBS, he and a group of about a dozen friends would get together regularly to play cards. The group vowed to continue to do so after graduation, and would hold annual weekend get-togethers to catch up. It became a brotherhood, Friedman says. But almost fifteen years ago, one of the members of that group was diagnosed with cancer, ultimately passing away after a 15-month battle. It was a wakeup call for Friedman. He’d had a successful career in investment banking and venture capital, which included being the founder and former president of the investment banking operation of Houlihan Lokey at the age of 28. Houlihan Lokey would go on to become a New York Stock Exchange public company.   But his friend’s death made the next big VC deal or M&A transaction seem much less important. Instead, Friedman reoriented his  life, focusing more on philanthropy—and also getting back into one of his favorite childhood pursuits: motorcycle riding. Ultimately, this renewed passion for riding would become an historic mission to ride a motorcycle on all seven continents.  Friedman completed his mission in December of 2019, and in this episode of Skydeck, he and I talk about the challenges he faced during his epic journey—and why he believes that getting out of one’s comfort zone and tenacity are the keys to personal growth.

Niren Chaudhary (AMP 191) has spent most of his career in restaurants, working in leadership positions at Yum Brands and Krispy Kreme donuts before becoming the CEO of Panera Bread in May 2019.  In this episode of Skydeck, he speaks to Ranjay Gulati—his former college classmate and his eventual HBS executive education professor—about how Panera has faced the myriad challenges of the pandemic, the leadership values that guide him, and how a deep, personal loss became a pivotal part of his life and career.

Jacqui Adams is CEO of a communication strategy firm that she launched after more than two decades as an Emmy award–winning CBS news correspondent. Bonita Stewart is a VP at Google, overseeing the company's global partnerships with US publishers. Together, they're co-authors of A Blessing: Women of Color Teaming Up to Lead, Empower and Thrive. The book uses existing data, as well as the authors' own original research to offer what they call an optimistic playbook for progress. And in this episode of Skydeck, Adams and Stewart speak with contributing host and fellow alum Chitra Nawbatt about the transformational opportunity that business has to engage women of color.

In 1963, Bob Rosenberg’s (MBA 1963) father asked him to become CEO of Universal Food Systems—which included a regional brand known as Dunkin’ Donuts. He was just 25 at the time. He recalls this moment in his new book, Around the Corner to Around the World: A Dozen Lessons I Learned Running Dunkin Donuts.“ Up until that point,” he writes, “the only thing I had managed were a couple of donut shops—replacing managers for their summer vacations—and a short stint supervising a cafeteria. My father’s request was breathtaking and anxiety-producing.”  Over the next 35 years, Rosenberg would turn Dunkin' Donuts into a global icon—which last year sold to Inspire Brands for a stunning $11.3 billion. And in this episode of Skydeck, Rosenberg offers a frank assessment of family donut chain wars, details near-death takeover moments, and expounds on why a donut and a cup of coffee represent much more than a simple morning pick-me-up.

This is the third and final episode of “Out of the Valley,” a Skydeck mini-series that explores the past, present, and future of entrepreneurship. We started in the whaling capital of the world: New Bedford, Massachusetts in the 1800s, where we saw the roots of the venture capital industry. Then, of course, we found ourselves in Silicon Valley, where so many of the brands that shape our daily life got their start in humble garages.  Silicon Valley has been the global hub of tech innovation since the 1960s—but its most influential product might just be its model of entrepreneurship: disruptive, asset-light and capital-intensive businesses with a scale-at-all-cost mentality and no fear of failure. But now something is threatening to disrupt the disruptors. Alex Lazarow (MBA 2010), author of Out-Innovate, calls it the “frontier market model.” Founded in places with limited resources and nascent entrepreneurial ecosystems, these startups have to be scrappier and leaner. And these limitations, Alex says, make businesses more sustainable. In this episode, we ask entrepreneurs from frontier markets around the globe: What can Silicon Valley learn from your experiences? And what happens if the startup capital of the world ignores these lessons?