Special Sauce

With the Los Angeles wildfires still raging, we're using this episode to share a brief story about our next guest and suggest a worthy cause in need of donations. That cause is the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation, which is raising money to buy emergency fire shelters, hydration backpacks and wildland brush tools to support firefighters on the ground. As these current fires get contained, new ones will surely follow — and this cause is meant to help today and tomorrow. If you have the means and the desire to help out, please visit supportlafd.org/give or text LAFD to 24365. We'll be back with our next episode shortly.

Eric Berry has been a founder of companies in two disruptive categories: advertising technology and healthcare technology. He started TripleLift, the ad tech company he eventually sold for $1.4B, when he had just two years of industry experience. Eric joins Jordan to talk about why he moved from law to advertising, how the intuition of a founder is critical early on in the life of a company, and the importance of building the pipes of a company in order to make it successful. He tells a Dad joke to kick things off and ends by revealing who he thinks is the best texter on their group chat.

In this engaging conversation, digital media pioneer Peter Naylor reflects on his extensive career, including key roles at Hulu and Netflix. He shares his servant-leadership philosophy, emphasizing the value of authenticity and kindness in team dynamics. Peter discusses the importance of continuous learning through reading and hands-on experience with new platforms. He also touches on hiring experts to foster innovation and maintaining resilience through challenges. With insights from industry greats, he outlines filters for future success in emerging markets.

Heather Freeland has held senior level marketing jobs in Silicon Valley for over a decade, with roles at Facebook, Lyft and Adobe. Prior to moving out west, she was a New Yorker having worked at MTV, Gilt Groupe and the marketing services company, Digitas. Heather joins to talk about the challenge of marketing to marketers, how working for Sheryl Sandberg taught her to be a better listener, and what she learned working with American Express. She also shares a valuable lesson from her Great Aunt Tootie.

Carl Fremont is a long time veteran of advertising agencies. He's also my mentor. Ask anyone who has known him closely over the years and they will tell you that he's been a mentor or advisor to them as well. He joins the podcast to talk about what he's gained by staying at companies for long stretches, and then what he looks for - and advises others to look for - when seeking a new job. He shares the family story that drives his positive outlook on life and how that story motivates him in his career. Carl and Jordan also discuss Carl's vintage radio collection and what that hobby says about his philosophy in business.

Lisa Caputo has worked in the c-suite of some of America's largest companies for over two decades. Prior to her career in the business world, she served as a press secretary on Capitol Hill and later in The White House. Lisa shares how she came to know and work with Hillary Clinton, what her relationship with Hillary has meant to each of them over time, and what it's like to work in one of the most famous buildings in the world. She and Jordan discuss what goes into changing the name and brand of a giant financial services company, and how the "Experience" part of her title came to be part of her remit.

Wenda Harris Millard is a true digital pioneer. Over her career, she has held game changing roles at companies including DoubleClick, Yahoo! and MediaLink. Wenda joins Special Sauce to discuss her early career and the formative experiences she had building organizations. She shares that she started her first business when she was just 9 years old, and got paid to write articles as a young woman for magazines like Seventeen. Wenda and Jordan discuss the value of leading with empathy, her nose for talent, how she consciously set out to (re)build the best media sales team in the world, and she tells us who would be on her own personal Mount Rushmore of the digital media business.

John McCarus is the founder and co-creator of The NewFronts, the multi-week event each Spring featuring dozens of digital content companies and serving as a counterbalance to the television upfronts. He is also the operator of Content Ink, an executive recruiting, coaching and advisory practice that has worked with companies from MrBeast to TikTok. John and Jordan tap into their partnership in building The NewFronts as a framework to discussing what makes for a successful working relationship. They talk about how to use an event to tell a story, why working alongside people with different skill sets leads to better work, and how gaining the confidence of senior leaders can lead to greater creativity.

David Kenny's career has spanned media & marketing (as CEO of Digitas, The Weather Company and Nielsen), technology (Akamai and IBM) and the boardroom (Best Buy, Yahoo!, and Teach For America). He joins Special Sauce to talk about what he learned at "The West Point of the Automobile Industry," the pride he takes in the list of his employees who have gone on to become CEOs, and how to be a leader at companies both large and small. David and Jordan discuss what leaders should think about in order to successfully leverage AI and why he and his team at Weather named winter storms.

Sarah Hofstetter is a long time ad agency executive, public company board member and podcaster (check out "Brave Commerce"). She talks about the career journey that landed her at ad agencies, her early ground-breaking efforts in social media on clients like HGTV and Oreo, and how she prioritizes being a mentor. Sarah and Jordan discuss what past innovations in search, social and mobile can teach us about today's evolutions in retail media, and they realize that they threw themselves similar 50th birthday parties, albeit with different themes (hint: one was super spirited, the other a little bit rock n' roll).