Leadership and Business

Since it was founded sixteen years ago, the Hilb Group - a successful middle market insurance broker - has embraced a high growth strategy. And in just over a decade and a half, the organization has acquired almost two hundred small agencies and brokers across the country. While focused on the growth, Hilb’s leaders also work to maintain the health of the organization, customer satisfaction, and financial discipline. Jason Angus is the Hilb Group’s Chief Operating Officer. He joins us today to discuss the insurance sector, leading a fast growing organization, and the elements of effective leadership; including communication, patience, and passion.  Learn how the Raymond A. Mason School of Business at William and Mary can help you and your organization develop your top talent through customized executive education and professional development programs. Visit us at www.wmleadership.com. Thank you for listening.

Networking. Love it or hate it, networking is required if you’re looking to land a new job in this unusual employment market, or if you want to grow and progress in your career. Many people feel somewhat uncomfortable networking, and if that sounds like you, it might be time to examine the approach you take to networking. Inga Carboni is a professor of management at the William & Mary School of Business. An author and award-winning instructor, she’s an expert in strategic networking. She joins us today to define strategic networking, and how you can network effectively inside and outside your organization.  Learn how the Raymond A. Mason School of Business at William and Mary can help you and your organization develop your top talent through customized executive education and professional development programs. Visit us at www.wmleadership.com. Thank you for listening.

The Muscarelle Museum of Art at William & Mary has been in the spotlight lately generating media coverage by the Wall Street Journal and others thanks to its current exhibition, Michelangelo: The Genesis of the Sistine. The exhibition, running through June 1st,  displays Michelangelo’s early drawings of the famous frescoes of the Sistine Chapel. Organizations like the Muscarelle are part museum, part art gallery, and part business. David Brashear is the director of the Muscarelle Museum. After earning his MBA from Harvard Business School, he worked in the private sector as an entrepreneur, division manager, and consultant. And he uses his business experience to lead the museum. He joins us today to talk about the Michelangelo exhibition, leadership, and the business of museums.  Learn how the Raymond A. Mason School of Business at William and Mary can help you and your organization develop your top talent through customized executive education and professional development programs. Visit us at www.wmleadership.com. Thank you for listening.

If there’s one constant in business, it’s change. Thanks to globalization, competition, AI, and other factors, change comes at us continuously. And while adapting to change is a challenge for many, change management is a critically important component of leadership. If not done correctly, employees, teammates, and customers will refuse to buy in. David Long is a professor of management at the William & Mary School of Business. He teaches change management to students, working professionals, and leaders. He says in order to effectively introduce and manage change, and make it stick, leaders should become familiar with the change management models that have proven to be effective. He joins us today to share an overview of the models, and to discuss the strategy and tactics behind successful change management. Learn how the Raymond A. Mason School of Business at William and Mary can help you and your organization develop your top talent through customized executive education and professional development programs. Visit us at www.wmleadership.com. Thank you for listening.

Every spring, the MBA program at the William & Mary School of Business presents the Principled Achievement Award to a leader who best embraces and demonstrates the tenets of principled achievement. Previous winners include the head coach of the Buffalo Bills, Sean McDermott; and AnnaMaria DeSalva, global chairman of Burson, the global communication company. The Principled Achievement Award winner is the leader who values people, diversity of thought, empathy, humility, integrity and success. This year’s winner is Michael Medline, CEO of Empire Company and Sobeys Inc – Canada’s second largest retailer, whose key businesses include Sobeys, Safeway, IGA, and others. Medline joins us to discuss principled achievement, leadership, and how doing things the right way is the only way.  Learn how the Raymond A. Mason School of Business at William and Mary can help you and your organization develop your top talent through customized executive education and professional development programs. Visit us at www.wmleadership.com. Thank you for listening.

Have you ever avoided interacting with a colleague because the two of you see the world very differently? You know the conversation will be frustrating, so you just go another way. That, in its most basic form, is an example of polarization. We tend to think of polarization in politics: two parties divided and at two distant extremes. But polarization takes place at work. Our guest says it not only affects behavior, but it harms innovation, collaboration, and success. Phil Wagner is a professor of Organizational Behavior at the William & Mary School of Business. He says while we live in divisive times - and research indicates it’s getting worse - leaders and professionals need to understand polarization, and takes steps to get people talking.  Learn how the Raymond A. Mason School of Business at William and Mary can help you and your organization develop your top talent through customized executive education and professional development programs. Visit us at www.wmleadership.com. Thank you for listening.

November of 2022: That’s when the Large Language Model ChatGPT was introduced. Professionals everywhere started to take notice of, and adopt, the technology. Now, just two years later, we have a number of LLMs at our disposal, including Copilot, Perplexity, Claude, Genesis and DeepSeek. In January, DeepSeek R1 was introduced. Developed by a Chinese Artificial Intelligence startup, DeepSeek has quickly become popular across the world. Monica Tremblay is a professor of Operations and Information Systems Management at William & Mary’s School of Business. She’s a top scholar and researcher who was a systems analyst at Exxon Mobile before starting her career in academia. She joins us on the podcast to discuss DeepSeek, what makes it different from other LLMs, and where the technology may take us. Learn how the Raymond A. Mason School of Business at William and Mary can help you and your organization develop your top talent through customized executive education and professional development programs. Visit us at www.wmleadership.com. Thank you for listening.

Few businesses have experienced the amount and type of change college athletics has experienced recently. It started when NIL was introduced, which gives college athletes the rights to control and profit from their name, image, and likeness. Now, some of the very best college athletes in the country are earning seven figures. Meanwhile, the transfer portal - which allows student athletes to easily move from one college team to another - has dramatically changed college athletics. And the changes keep coming. Brian Mann is director of athletics at William & Mary. A former college quarterback, he was senior associate athletics director at University of California, Berkeley before coming to William & Mary. He joins us to talk about NIL, revenue sharing, and the significant changes taking place in college athletics.  Learn how the Raymond A. Mason School of Business at William and Mary can help you and your organization develop your top talent through customized executive education and professional development programs. Visit us at www.wmleadership.com. Thank you for listening.

It seems wherever you go, working professionals and companies are talking and strategizing about artificial intelligence, machine learning, and ChatGPT. And many of those conversations have taken place fairly recently. But before all the buzz, way back in 2016, Ai Spark began researching ways machine learning could intersect with finance. Now the organization uses a technology and people approach for credit risk analysis. Matt Fiordaliso is a partner at Ai Spark. He’s a William & Mary graduate who serves on the board of the Boehly Center for Excellence in Finance at the William & Mary School of Business. On a recent visit to campus, he joined us to discuss Ai Spark, how the importance of data has grown greatly, and the ways technology is a job creator. Learn how the Raymond A. Mason School of Business at William and Mary can help you and your organization develop your top talent through customized executive education and professional development programs. Visit us at www.wmleadership.com. Thank you for listening.

The holidays and the New Year, a time to relax a bit and recharge your battery. It’s also an opportunity to break away for awhile and read or listen to a good book. But go online or into a bookstore and it’s easy to be a little overwhelmed by all of the choices.To help you cut through the clutter, we invited Anna Milholland to join us. She’s the business librarian at the McLeod Library at the William & Mary School of Business. She oversees the library, works closely with faculty and students, manages the databases, books, publications, and the library team. To help you choose a good book that you’ll enjoy, we asked her to recommend six books of various genres that are relevant and interesting.  Learn how the Raymond A. Mason School of Business at William and Mary can help you and your organization develop your top talent through customized executive education and professional development programs. Visit us at www.wmleadership.com. Thank you for listening.