Fearless Creative Leadership

'The Futurist'. Faith Popcorn has spent almost half a century living in the future. She has predicted everything from the inevitable to the unbelievable. Her company, Faith Popcorn’s Brain Reserve has been instrumental in unlocking what comes next for many of the world’s largest companies and most iconic brands. I met Faith in her townhouse in Manhattan and she talked about the importance of conflict…about why companies hate change…..and about the future of the human race. For more information:  www.FearlessCreativeLeadership.com

A five minute edited highlight of our full conversation.

'The Listener'. Adam Bryant is the creator of ‘The Corner Office’, a weekly feature of The New York Times in which he interviews business leaders from diverse industries. The Corner Office has been around since 2008, and if you haven’t come across it, I encourage you to go and explore the library of knowledge and insights it provides. I talked to Adam about what he’s learned from interviewing hundred of business leaders, about a new description of the most meaningful influences over a company’s culture and about the art of listening.

A five minute edited highlight of our conversation.

'The Poet'. Today’s guest is Wendy Clark, the CEO of DDB, North America. She has been the President of Strategic Marketing at Coca-Cola and the SVP of Global Marketing at AT&T. She was named  Ad Age’s Executive of the Year for 2017 and she is rewriting the rules of the advertising industry. She is also is a wife, the mother of three and one of the most respected and warmly held leaders in today’s creative industries. And, she will ‘crush’ you if you underestimate her.  I talked to Wendy about growing up as the outsider, about the place she never takes her phone, and about her mother’s role in helping her pass her poetry class. This is Wendy Clark unfiltered.

A five minute edited highlight of our conversation.

Welcome to the twentieth episode of Fearless. After four months, nineteen interviews and roughly two hundred thousand spoken words, I thought this was a good time to take stock.  And so this episode is called… “The Story so Far.” What makes a Fearless Creative Leader in today’s moving at the speed of thought world? Based on conversations with companies as diverse as: Hearst Anomaly, Calvin Klein, Google, Refinery29, Panera Bread and W+K, one - perhaps surprising - theme stands out already. Hear from some of the world's most creative leaders including: Joanna Coles; Emma Cookson; Steve Shiffman; Carl Johnson; Jim Stengel; Lisa Gersh; Lars Bastholm; Eric Baldwin & Jason Bagley, Carter Murray and Justin Stefano.

'The Lawyer'. Lisa Gersh is a lawyer by training and a leader by instinct. After a career practicing law, she became the co-founder of the Oxygen network, before becoming the CEO of Martha Stewart omni-media and then the CEO of Gwyneth Paltrow’s company, Goop. Today, she is the CEO of Alexander Wang. Along the way, she has proven over and over again, her willingness to listen, to learn and to lead. I talked to Lisa about the childhood event that changed her focus, about learning how to nod and about the biggest mistake she ever made.

A five minute edited highlight of our full conversation.

'The World Changers'. "We're trying to figure out how do we get vaccines delivered to places that have no physical addresses." Torrence Boone and Lars Bastholm work at Google. Their jobs are multi-faceted but fundamentally they share a responsibility for helping others to unlock the business and societal potential of Google’s capacity for original thinking.  Being a leader at Google demands reaching for the stars while figuring out how to pay the bills. It requires you consider the impossible and the commercial in the same breath. It encourages those who want to change the world.  I talked to Torrence and Lars about their evolutions from Baltimore dancer and Danish film-maker to creative leaders and collaborators at one of the world’s most technologically advanced companies, about what they have learned about building teams and about their own experiences of being outsiders. For more information: www.fearlesscreativeleadership.com