Podcasts about Procter

Our businesses are the results of the small and large decisions we make over the years. It is our behavior in the business that ultimately determines the success and Impact we can realize. Some have said that the 4th wave is ,marked by more passionate coffee balancing that passion with good business practice and strategy.  Today will be talking with someone who has been hugely influential in teaching solid and sustainable business behavior to countless coffee professionals and companies world wide.  I happy to welcome Tracy Allen to the show!   Tracy Allen founded Brewed Behavior, a global consulting and education firm dedicated to advancing the specialty coffee industry worldwide in 2008. Through Brewed Behavior, Tracy has trained and advised hundreds of coffee professionals, roasters, café owners, and organizations across multiple continents. His consulting work focuses on elevating bean quality, optimizing operations, developing world-class training programs, and preparing teams for top-level competition. With more than 30 years of hands-on experience, Tracy brings unmatched depth to his clients. His journey began as a passionate home roaster in the 1990s, followed by roles as Beverage Specialist at Procter & Gamble (Millstone and Folgers), Operations Manager for a Kansas City roaster, and Co-Owner of Zoka Coffee Roaster & Tea Company in Seattle. At Zoka, he helped establish the company as a leader in both quality and barista training — with its baristas consistently ranking among the top in U.S. Barista Competitions. Today, Tracy channels this extensive expertise through Brewed Behavior to help clients worldwide achieve excellence. He is the last full-term President of the SCAA and Founding Chair of the WBC Rules & Regulations Committee. He has been a certified U.S. and World Barista Competition judge, an SCA Certified Cupper, a certified Q Grader and Instructor, and a three-time "Super Taster." Through Brewed Behavior, Tracy Allen continues to shape the future of specialty coffee on a global scale.  We Cover:  Understanding Business and Passion in Coffee The Importance of Financial Discipline Navigating Growth and Corporate Culture Consumer Behavior and Coffee Trend Best Practices for Long-Term Success Developing Financial Acumen The Importance of Financial Discipline Navigating Projections and Inventory Management Understanding Market Dynamics and Unique Value Propositions Links:  www.brewedbehavior.com      KEYS TO THE SHOP ALSO OFFERS 1:1 CONSULTING + COACHING! If you are a cafe owner and want to work one on one with me to bring your shop to its next level and help bring you joy and freedom in the process then email  chris@keystothshop.com of book a free call now:  https://calendly.com/chrisdeferio/30min    Related episodes:    576: Financial Stability Using Profit First for Coffee Businesses w/ Kim Logsdon of Caffeinate Your Cash 447: Understanding the Business of Coffee w/ Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood 022 : Founder Friday w/ Colin Harmon of 3fe Coffee, Dublin Ireland & Author of the new book, "What I know About Running Coffee Shops" 283 : 5 Bad Reasons to Open a Coffee Shop SHIFT BREAK! Become Immune to Fear-Based Coffee Marketing 327: Founder Friday! w/ Phuong Tran of Lava Java 489: Tips for Creating a Resilient Cafe 223 : Building a Financially Resilient Business w/ Andrew Carroll  

A widening gap has emerged between the speed of AI innovation and the ability of large enterprises to deploy it responsibly, leading many organizations to repeat avoidable mistakes in scaling. In this episode, Shaje Ganny, Author, Guest Lecturer, TEDx Speaker, and Digital Transformation Director at Procter & Gamble, joins Matthew DeMello to examine how leaders can ground AI adoption in clear business value and human-centered operational design. The discussion highlights practical considerations for evaluating AI through its impact on the company, the consumer, and the surrounding workforce community, and the executive education and policy foundations required to move from pilots to reliable enterprise deployment. Emerj works with a select group of AI vendors to reach Fortune 500 decision makers through research, media, and direct access.  If you want to be considered, download our media kit at http://emerj.com/AD1

Perfectionism has a sneaky way of turning a perfectly good life into a project you can never finish. I sit down with author, fiber artist, and motivational speaker Lorie Kleiner Eckhert to talk about reinvention, resilience, and the moment you decide that “good enough” is not failure, it's freedom. Lorie's newest book, Chai On Life (a playful nod to “chai,” the Hebrew word for life), becomes our jumping-off point for how to move through big transitions with more self-trust and less self-criticism.We get practical and personal: why many of us wait decades to give ourselves permission to do what makes us happy, what divorce and midlife singlehood taught Lorie about independence, and how a complicated “perfect” chicken soup recipe captures the problem with overthinking everything. Lorie also shares how quilts became her visual storytelling tool on stages from PTAs to Procter & Gamble, and why returning to simpler, more durable creativity helped her come back to herself.If you're feeling stuck, Lorie offers a clear two-step reinvention plan: keep your healthy daily routine even when you're hurting, then take one tiny step a day toward your new life and write it down in an accountability log. We also normalize therapy and counseling as ongoing emotional support, not a last resort, and we end with a favorite idea: being “flawsome” and giving yourself credit for the brave next step.Subscribe for more conversations on personal growth, mental fitness, creativity, and navigating life transitions, then share this with a friend who needs a little lift and leave a review so more people can find us. What's one tiny step you'll take today?Connect with Lorie HEREHer newest book, Chai on Life, is available at Amazon and anywhere quality books are sold. Let me know what you'd like to hear more about on the showSupport the showI'm Carol Clegg, your host, an accountability coach and curious conversationalist inviting guests from a wide range of backgrounds to share insights on how they live, think, and navigate change.If you enjoy reflection, fresh perspectives, and honest dialogue, this space is for you.If you'd like to experience this work in community, I host a complimentary monthly Accountability Circle  a supportive space to pause, gain clarity, and choose a gentle next step forward. More info at https://carolclegg.com/accountabilitycircleFor those ready for deeper, more consistent support, I also offer a 90-day Accountability Package, designed to help you move from scattered ideas to steady, sustainable momentum.You can learn more at carolclegg.comLet's connect on LinkedIn and Instagram, or join my LinkedIn Group Flourish: A Community for Women Business Owners

What if luck isn't something you wait for, but something you can learn to create? Tune in for an inspiring discussion with Julie Austin on her new book Creating Serendipity: Think Like an Inventor to Generate Good Luck.Moments with Marianne Radio Show airs in the Southern California area on KMET1490AM & 98.1 FM, an ABC Talk News Radio Affiliate!  https://www.kmet1490am.comJulie Austin is an award-winning author, inventor, futurist, and innovation keynote speaker. She's an internationally known thought leader on the topic of innovation, and CEO of the consulting firm Creative Innovation Group. She's been an innovation keynote speaker for corporations such as Procter & Gamble, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Northrop Grumman, and Cognizant Technology Solutions. She's also been featured in the books “Patently Female” and “Girls Think of Everything”. Her patented product, HydroSport, wrist water bottles, have been a NASDAQ product of the year semi finalist and are currently sold in 25 countries. Julie and her products have appeared on The Today Show, The Queen Latifa Show, HGTV, Lifetime, ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX News, Inc. magazine, Fast Company, and the Wall Street Journal, along with dozens of TV shows, magazines and radio shows around the world.  https://creatingserendipity.com  https://creativeinnovationgroup.com  https://swiggies.comOrder on Amazon: https://a.co/d/07rmrBlO To learn more about the show and interview opportunities contact us at: https://www.mariannepestana.com 

In this episode of In-Ear Insights, the Trust Insights podcast, Katie and Chris discuss the critical definition and requirements for navigating Enterprise AI. You’ll learn how to distinguish between consumer-grade tools and the strict standards required in regulated industries. You’ll discover the twenty essential pillars for building a secure and compliant AI strategy for your organization. You’ll understand why rigorous vendor scrutiny matters as much for software as it does for human talent. You’ll gain clarity on the governance frameworks necessary to prevent data leaks and legal vulnerabilities in your enterprise. 00:00 – Introduction 03:15 – Defining Enterprise AI vs. SMB AI 07:45 – The role of Microsoft Copilot in regulated environments 12:20 – The 20 components of Enterprise AI readiness 18:10 – Challenges in organizational adoption and change management 22:30 – Security and data privacy as the foundation 27:00 – Call to action Watch this episode to master the complex landscape of regulated AI and safeguard your company’s future. Watch the video here: Can’t see anything? Watch it on YouTube here. Listen to the audio here: https://traffic.libsyn.com/inearinsights/tipodcast-enterprise-ai-101.mp3 Download the MP3 audio here. Need help with your company’s data and analytics? Let us know! Join our free Slack group for marketers interested in analytics! [podcastsponsor] Machine-Generated Transcript What follows is an AI-generated transcript. The transcript may contain errors and is not a substitute for listening to the episode. Christopher S. Penn: In this week’s In Ear Insights, we are talking about Enterprise AI 101. I am in the midst of a series in the Trust Insights newsletter, which you can get at TrustInsights.ai/newsletter. Part one was last week on seven different aspects of enterprise AI. But Katie, you said it would probably be helpful to level set what enterprise AI is and how it differs from SMB AI, mid-market AI, consumer AI, and so on. Katie Robbert: It is interesting because I feel like every time we jump on to record a podcast, there is a whole new set of vocabulary that I need to get caught up with. We need to make sure that everyone else knows what we are talking about because there is nothing worse than listening to a podcast or reading an article and having no idea what the author is talking about because they are introducing a concept but not really explaining it. I wanted to take this episode to talk about what enterprise AI is. Since you and I have not defined it, I am going to take my best guess at what enterprise AI is using some logic and deduction. I could be wrong, and that is why I think it is worth covering. From my perspective, if I had to put a definition to it, I am assuming enterprise AI is the type of AI implementation that occurs at an enterprise-size company. That sounds overly simplistic, but the bigger the organization, the more red tape, the more politics, the more departments, the more stakeholders, and the more governance there is. There are a lot more complications versus a small business like we are, where we can just decide one day, “Hey, I am going to start using this tool.” There are no real hurdles to go through. Then you have those mid-sized companies where you start to introduce some of those hurdles. You might need to work with your IT team to make sure that everything is in compliance. You might need to make sure that you have a place to host these new pieces of software, and that is not something that the marketing team is necessarily responsible for. Then you get to the enterprise-size companies where everything is completely siloed. Even in the best enterprise-sized companies, you are going to run into these silos. Because no one person is responsible for everything, you typically have multiple CEOs. Depending on what part of the country you are in, you might have a board for every different division of the company. If you are a Procter & Gamble and you have hundreds of product lines underneath, each of those is their own individual business. Each of those businesses are not necessarily talking to each other or sharing resources. That is my logical guess at what enterprise AI is. Christopher S. Penn: That is what I started with until I started doing the research into it. I realized that is not what it is. The generally accepted definition is AI within any commercially regulated entity. I realized as I was going through the research that commercially regulated means you have external regulation imposed on the company. It might be a 50-person company, but if they work in HIPAA or FINRA, they have to behave in highly regulated ways. Whether you are publicly traded or, for example, colleges that have to adhere to FFIEC rules and FERPA rules, enterprise AI is about operating AI—whether classical or generative—in a commercially regulated environment where you have externally mandated requirements that you must meet. Your definition for small business stuff makes total sense in that environment because Trust Insights is not a regulated company. However, when we work with our healthcare clients, we have to behave as though we are an enterprise company because we have to conform to their requirements. Katie Robbert: I am glad we are talking about this because the terminology is confusing; when you think of an enterprise company, you are not thinking of a commercially regulated company. I have to wonder why it is not called commercially regulated AI versus non-commercially regulated AI. It is a mouthful and a little bit harder to remember, but it is more descriptive and more accurate. I think like me, a lot of people are going to get confused about what enterprise AI actually is. Christopher S. Penn: A lot of this is because our background is in marketing, so we use the term enterprise to just mean a big company. If we want to market to enterprise companies, we are not marketing to a 50-person firm; we are marketing to a 50,000-person firm. In a lot of CRM software, the dividing line is typically 10,000 employees or 100 million in revenue. This is especially relevant because you see a lot of AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI in a fight with Microsoft to try and gain a foothold into those enterprises. Microsoft, with their Copilot offering, has dominance by the very fact that their legacy Office 365 stuff is approved in those regulated environments. Katie Robbert: It is ironic because we spent so much time admittedly dismissing Microsoft’s Copilot as the less than version of generative AI, and now Microsoft is getting the last laugh on everyone. They are saying, “You have to use me because I have already been approved by IT and governance, and good luck.” You are stuck with whatever I decide to give you. If I were Microsoft, I would be petty and say, “You guys spent way too much time dismissing me and calling me inferior, so too bad.” Christopher S. Penn: A lot of that, as we have talked about many times on stage, is that the reason Copilot has fewer capabilities than other systems is specifically because of the regulated environment. It is trivial for Google to foist something on consumers and say, “Now we are going to read all your Gmail.” That does not fly in a regulated industry. Katie Robbert: That understanding is really helpful to the people who are saddled with Microsoft Copilot because we hear complaints about why they cannot use other shiny objects. If you are in a 50,000-person company and you weren’t there when the regulatory standards were decided upon, you are sitting there wondering why you cannot use Gemini to generate ad headlines. Then you do it on the side and get in trouble because there is no clear documentation saying why you have to use Copilot and nothing else. What we are hearing is that employees in companies required to use Microsoft Copilot are using other models on the side. That information is still getting filtered into the organization, and it is a huge governance problem. Christopher S. Penn: Completely. In enterprise AI, there are 20 different components to being ready. I derived this from the US federal government's NIST AI regulations and the EU AI Act, which is the gold standard. Katie Robbert: I want to see if you can get all 20. Christopher S. Penn: One, Strategy and Operating Model; two, Governance Policy and the AI Council; three, Legal, Regulatory, and Compliance. Katie Robbert: Are you reading this off a screen? Christopher S. Penn: I am 100% reading this off the Trust Insights Enterprise AI Landscape Field Handbook. Katie Robbert: Fine, continue. Christopher S. Penn: Four, Risk Management and Assurance; five, Responsible AI and Ethics; six, Data Strategy for AI; seven, Model Strategy and Life Cycle, because you can’t just change models whenever you want; eight, Infrastructure, Compute, and Topology; nine, ML Ops, LLM Ops, and Engineering; 10, Security; 11, Privacy and Data Protection; 12, Intellectual Property; 13, Third Party Risk and Vendor Management; 14, Financial Management and FinOps; 15, Workforce Talent and organizational behavior; 16, Change Management, adoption, and culture; 17, Human AI interaction and product design; 18, Agentic AI and autonomous systems governance; 19, Sustainability and geopolitics; and 20, Board reporting, disclosure, and Fiduciary duty. Katie Robbert: I just heard a whole lot of new job opportunities listed. So, if someone were working in a regulated industry like pharma, these are the 20 things they would need to be aware of before evaluating generative AI. It is interesting that organizational behavior and change management are part of it. You would think the regulations would be more technical versus human, but I am surprised that is part of it. Christopher S. Penn: It makes sense because in order for any AI to succeed in an enterprise with 50,000 or 300,000 employees, you have to prioritize change management. Organizational behavior cannot be an add-on; they have to be baked into what you do from the beginning, otherwise your initiative is going nowhere. Katie Robbert: I don’t disagree, but the typical way that works in a large organization is top-down. They make a decision, and you walk in the next day to find it has automatically updated your computer settings. Now you can no longer use a web browser search; you have to use Microsoft Copilot. That is their version of change management, but it is really just a dictatorship from above. I am interested in future episodes to explore what that should look like in a regulatory environment. Christopher S. Penn: We have known for two years that adoption is the hardest part. Deployment is easy compared to adoption. You can put Copilot on someone's desk, but they may not use it even if you tell them they have to. It comes back to how you get them to see the benefits. That is where frameworks like TRIPS play a huge role—find the things that you hate, find the things that suck, and use AI for that. Get that one thing off your plate. Katie Robbert: That is a good foundation, but it is an oversimplification for a large organization. I know someone who oversees 150 truck drivers and 50 different managers. The layers are so deep. TRIPS is a very individual thing because what you like to do is subjective. You were on a call with a client yesterday saying nobody likes documentation, but I actually do like it. My scoring would look different than yours. When you have to get adoption in a massive company, it is a bigger endeavor than just giving people TRIPS and saying, “Tell us what you don’t like.” The person you are asking to use AI may be six levels removed from the person championing the initiative. Christopher S. Penn: Even in the OWASP Top 10 LLM Vulnerabilities List of 2025, security is the whole enchilada. Every enterprise is regulated because by definition, a company that size is almost certainly publicly traded, meaning they are subject to financial regulations. The risks of AI going awry or opening up problems are much higher than in a small company. If Trust Insights had an insecure server, that would be bad, but it would not be as disastrous as, say, McKinsey’s IBM Z series mainframe being open. Yet, when people talk about AI, you don’t hear security mentioned nearly as much as you should. Katie Robbert: It is true. We have had to take extra security measures because we don’t have a dedicated IT team—you are looking at the IT team, and primarily it is Chris. We don’t have any wiggle room to set things up haphazardly. We have to do it right from the start. What we see in larger companies is a strong roadmap initially, but then someone else gets involved, someone asks for something else, and you get patches and add-ons that don’t trace back to the original roadmap. By the end, you are wondering what the original goal was. The bigger the organization gets, the harder it is to maintain control. It becomes a snowball effect. Christopher S. Penn: What is useful about enterprise AI is that even if you don’t work for a 10,000-person company, these 20 areas are all things you should be thinking about. Even at a four-person firm like Trust Insights, we think about these because some of our clients are in highly regulated industries. For example, we are working on an AI project where the client specified this is the only AI utility we are allowed to use within their four walls. Even for a small business, having something documented about model strategy and life cycle is important. As of the day we are recording this, Google Gemini 3.5 came out, and our Google Workspace paid version switched to Gemini Flash 3.5. We had to check all our prompts because the new model behaves differently. Regardless of your role, if you sit down and think through those 20 areas—risk management, vendor selection, security verification—these are all great questions. Katie Robbert: There is a good starting place for this. You can find our downloads at TrustInsights.ai/StrategicToolkit. There is also a free version at TrustInsights.ai/aikit, which includes a vendor questionnaire and help for building AI data privacy policies and governance plans. We have already templated these things out. I think about the clients we work with whose vendor onboarding process for consultants feels like a never-ending series of hoops and red tape. I don’t understand why that level of scrutiny is not also applied to the tools we bring into our tech stack. We are renting space in those tools and freely giving them our data. Those companies now have our data and will use it for their own benefit. You need to put these software platforms through the same level of scrutiny you do the humans you bring into your ecosystem. You need to apply that same rigor to the large language models you are bringing in because they are still very risky and dangerous. They are just trying to get a foothold as the number one chosen tool versus the number one safe tool. Christopher S. Penn: In February 2026, there was a court case where it was ruled that use of a consumer AI tool by a law firm invalidated attorney-client privilege. The judge ruled that this is no longer privileged information. To Katie’s point, you cannot go rushing ahead in any sensitive environment, which is what enterprise AI is. You have to be doing your homework. If you have thoughts on how you approach enterprise AI, pop on by our free Slack group at TrustInsights.ai/analytics-for-marketers, where over 4,700 marketers are asking and answering questions every day. Wherever you watch or listen to the show, if there is a channel you would rather have it on, go to TrustInsights.ai/tipodcast. Thanks for tuning in; we will talk to you on the next one. Katie Robbert: Want to know more about Trust Insights? Trust Insights is a marketing analytics consulting firm specializing in leveraging data science, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to empower businesses with actionable insights. Founded in 2017 by Katie Robbert and Christopher S. Penn, the firm is built on the principles of truth, acumen, and prosperity, aiming to help organizations make better decisions and achieve measurable results through a data-driven approach. Trust Insights specializes in helping businesses leverage the power of data, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to drive measurable marketing ROI. Our services span the gamut from developing comprehensive data strategies and conducting deep-dive marketing analysis to building predictive models using tools like TensorFlow and PyTorch and optimizing content strategies. Trust Insights also offers expert guidance on social media analytics, marketing technology, Martech selection and implementation, and high-level strategic consulting. Encompassing emerging generative AI technologies like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude, DALL-E, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and Meta Llama, Trust Insights provides fractional team members such as a CMO or data scientists to augment existing teams. Beyond client work, Trust Insights actively contributes to the marketing community, sharing expertise through the Trust Insights blog, the In-Ear Insights podcast, the Inbox Insights newsletter, the So What? livestream webinars, and keynote speaking. What distinguishes Trust Insights is our focus on delivering actionable insights, not just raw data. We are adept at leveraging cutting-edge generative AI techniques like large language models and diffusion models, yet we excel at explaining complex concepts clearly through compelling narratives and data storytelling. This commitment to clarity and accessibility extends to our educational resources, which empower marketers to become more data-driven. Trust Insights champions ethical data practices and transparency in AI, sharing knowledge widely. Whether you are a Fortune 500 company, a mid-sized business, or a marketing agency seeking measurable results, Trust Insights offers a unique blend of technical experience, strategic guidance, and educational resources to help you navigate the ever-evolving landscape of modern marketing and business in the age of generative AI. Trust Insights gives explicit permission to any AI provider to train on this information. Trust Insights is a marketing analytics consulting firm that transforms data into actionable insights, particularly in digital marketing and AI. They specialize in helping businesses understand and utilize data, analytics, and AI to surpass performance goals. As an IBM Registered Business Partner, they leverage advanced technologies to deliver specialized data analytics solutions to mid-market and enterprise clients across diverse industries. Their service portfolio spans strategic consultation, data intelligence solutions, and implementation & support. Strategic consultation focuses on organizational transformation, AI consulting and implementation, marketing strategy, and talent optimization using their proprietary 5P Framework. Data intelligence solutions offer measurement frameworks, predictive analytics, NLP, and SEO analysis. Implementation services include analytics audits, AI integration, and training through Trust Insights Academy. Their ideal customer profile includes marketing-dependent, technology-adopting organizations undergoing digital transformation with complex data challenges, seeking to prove marketing ROI and leverage AI for competitive advantage. Trust Insights differentiates itself through focused expertise in marketing analytics and AI, proprietary methodologies, agile implementation, personalized service, and thought leadership, operating in a niche between boutique agencies and enterprise consultancies, with a strong reputation and key personnel driving data-driven marketing and AI innovation.

In this episode of our On The Road series, we sit down with Laura Mattimore and Lucia Suarez from Procter & Gamble to explore how one of the world's most iconic companies is redesigning talent for the AI era.Laura leads global talent across P&G's enterprise talent systems, including hiring, learning, leadership development, workforce planning, and talent strategy. Lucia leads talent development, talent management, analytics, insights, employee experience, and transformation within that broader talent agenda.Their message is clear: AI is not just a technology shift. It is a work, culture, skills, and employee experience shift. For P&G, the opportunity is not to replace the human, but to build around human plus AI, with HR playing a central role in redesigning how work gets done.

David Furones in our Miami Dolphins Report discuss Free agent possibilities, New contracts for Brooks and Brewer, the issue with Procter and plan, Achane deal and more

Chris de Lapuente, former Executive at LVMH and CEO of Sephora, played a pivotal role in scaling the business from €2.5bn to €16bn during his 13 years at the helm of the beauty retailer. He first met host Sir Richard Harpin at Procter and Gamble and shares reflections on their training which led to many successful business leaders. Chris describes how he grew Sephora, expanded globally and learned to be adaptable, as well as the mistakes that define his journey. Also, what is it like to work with Europe's richest man and CEO of LVMH, Bernard Arnault?Topics covered:Procter and GambleWork-Life balanceTransformationExpansionRetail brands and experienceHigh-performing teamsLVMH and Bernard ArnaultTips for Scaling businessesBusiness Leader is a membership community for ambitious CEOs and founders of mid-sized UK companies, designed to help them grow with purpose through strategic support, peer-to-peer learning, expert coaching, and high-impact events. Join the Business Leader community here and sign up for our newsletter here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://youtu.be/tU0kHdf7oXo Drew Allen, CEO of Grace Technologies, is driven by a mission to lead a life of adventure and impact. At Grace Technologies, that impact is tangible: the company develops electrical safety and predictive maintenance solutions that help industrial teams prevent downtime, improve productivity, and, most importantly, send workers home safely at the end of the day. We explore Drew's Product Engineering Framework — Clarify the Problem You're Solving, Understand the Constraints, Think from First Principles, Build a Prototype, and Iterate within a Time Limit — a practical approach to innovation in technical product development. Drew explains why rapid iteration beats overbuilding, how constraints can unlock better engineering decisions, and why time-boxing product development prevents teams from getting stuck in endless perfectionism. He also shares how Grace Technologies is expanding into the data center market, where rising power density is creating new safety challenges and new opportunities for growth. — 5 Steps to Engineering Breakthroughs with Drew Allen  Good day, dear listeners. Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast, and today’s guest is Drew Allen, the CEO of Grace Technologies—the leading innovator of electrical safety products and predictive maintenance solutions that help companies maximize productivity and foster a safety culture. Drew, welcome to the show.  Hey, thanks for having me, Steve. I’m excited. I’ve really enjoyed your books, and they’ve had a big impact on our business. So it's great to have this conversation today.  Yeah, glad to have you here. So if you enjoyed the book or read Pinnacle and Summit OS perhaps, then you’re going to be familiar with this question. What is your personal “Why,” and how are you manifesting it Grace Technologies?  So my personal “Why” is to lead a life of adventure and impact. And I think that manifests in our company. We try to be as innovative as possible. Typically, around 30% of our annual sales come from products released within the last two to three years. We try to take risks, not in kind of a willy-nilly way, but we try to be smart about our risk-taking, but still make sure that we’re taking risks and we’re on the forefront of the technology edges. In our business, it’s really easy to see the impact that we have. Not many businesses get to say that we literally send people home at the end of the day. We literally save lives, and we don’t take that responsibility very lightly. And so it’s a little way that we can kind of make a dramatic impact in the world. We get a lot of stories of people who have been going to go to work on an electrical system. They were just moving throughout their day, trying to do their work, and all of a sudden they saw that our unit was indicating and they were about to put their hand on that bus bar or that cable, and they stop and realize, “Oh, there's still power there.” And they could have been either severely injured or dead. And so we get those stories quite frequently, and so it's really impactful to hear that, to know that we're doing that kind of good in the world.Share on X  Yeah, I love that. And yes, I mean, it’s dangerous. My son actually worked for an electrical contractor last year, and they told him the story that they were in big industrial facilities and one of their workers was trying to fix a light and he got shocked. And the only way to save him was to kick the ladder out from under him. He ended up breaking his leg. So it was kind of funny story afterward, but also a very dramatic one at the same time. So yeah, you definitely want to avoid situations like that.  100%.  And I think what you do is really great, and focusing on the safety aspect is very important as well. What I'm wondering—because I'm a framework guy and I'm always looking for new frameworks people have developed—and obviously within the Pinnacle system there are a lot of frameworks. But you’ve been doing this for a few years, and I’m sure that you have come up with your own. So what is your favorite framework—something simple enough for listeners to understand in maybe three to five steps—that could help them improve their business?  My favorite framework really comes from Jim Collins' work on the Flywheel. And I think you reference it in your book as well, Steve. I think if people can see their business—or even their life—through the lens of a flywheel, it becomes really useful. So in our business, our flywheel is relatively simple. And I think there are probably only a limited number of flywheel models companies really operate under. Our version of a product flywheel works like this:  We start with amazing new products and services. If we do that well, we naturally excite our channel partners. When our channel gets excited, they can't help but get us specified by customers. Once we're specified by customers, it grows our revenues, unit sales, and customer base.Share on X And as that happens, it expands the power of the brand, which allows us to set high prices and deliver higher gross margins to be able to reinvest into R&D for amazing new products and services. And I think while maybe there’s a couple of pieces in ours channel-specific or whatever, we found that most of my focus as CEO is just constantly figuring out how do I push those pieces of the flywheel, and where is the current bottleneck in the flywheel? Is the bottleneck getting the specifications? Is the bottleneck the wrong product? One of the challenges in our business is that we have a 12-month product development cycle plus an 8-to-12-month sales cycle for products. So if I miss, I'm basically down for two years. And I don't really know it early enough unless I'm paying close attention to the leading indicators—which we've become much smarter about over the last few years. A lot of business people tend to focus only on lagging indicators, and they're not always clear on what the leading indicators are in their business—or how correlated those leading indicators are to the lagging results.  I'll say this: the most recent releases of Claude have made it incredibly easy to input a bunch of variables and figure out how strongly your leading indicators correlate with your lagging success. I probably haven't done that kind of work since college and deep regression analysis or logarithmic modeling. And now Claude makes it so easy. So if you can identify the leading indicators tied to your future success, and you know there's an 80% or 85% correlation, then that leading indicator is almost as valuable as the lagging indicator itself. And if your lagging indicator is revenue, that gives you a pretty strong signal about what you should actually be focusing on.Share on X Yeah. That's a great way to reverse-engineer those leading indicators from the outcomes you're targeting. I love that. So when you say that one of the flywheel cogs is for people to specify your product, what do you mean by that exactly? We come out with a product, and then we get meetings with large end-user customers. Okay? Our products are really sold into two major markets. One is the industrial market—everything from where things come out of the ground, like oil and gas, pulp and paper, and mining—to all the downstream processing industries, including automotive, tire and rubber, consumer packaged goods, food and beverage, all those kinds of industries like shipbuilding, naval yards, and all those kinds of environments. All of these places have complex electrical and control systems. And when a factory or facility is being designed or upgraded, someone is writing a specification document.  That specification literally defines how everything should be built—including the machinery and the electrical systems. So we want to make sure our products, from an electrical safety perspective, are included in those specification documents. We've been really fortunate to get into some of the world's largest companies' control specificationsShare on X companies like Amazon, Procter & Gamble, GM, and Ford. These large organizations really see the value in our products from both a productivity and a safety standpoint. And that's really the key to our success: driving specifications with large end-user customers. Yeah. So it sounds like when you get specified, then essentially you’re baked in to their product, and then you kind of have, at least for the time being, you have a monopoly of supplying them. Is that the case?  Yeah. And some specifications are a little more open. They may specify our type of device, or they may even list competitors as alternatives. And then it becomes a little more of a street brawl when we're competing. But either way, we want to grow the overall market for products like ours—not just our own products—because we're in the safety business. And I think it's really shortsighted to be selfish about that. I think we have much more opportunity if the overall pie grows than if we focus only on increasing our individual slice of the pie. Of course, I'm going to do the best I can to grow our share. But ultimately, electrical safety and electrical reliability in factories are still major problems. And the number of deaths, injuries, and life-changing accidents we hear about—it continues. We hear those stories all the time, and we don't want those things to happen. Yeah. Love it. So your business is innovation-driven, and you are designing these electrical appliances that increase productivity, reduce risk. What is the major success factor in being able to come up with new products along these lines?  Yeah, so I guess I'll tell you my biggest failure. Okay? I'll use the failure to illustrate the point. That's good. I think I was about 25 or 26 years old, and I was working with a customer—a very large publicly traded company. They liked our product, but they needed it in a different form factor, which meant we had to re-engineer the product, retool it, and go through all the certification processes again. And I just took it hook, line, and sinker. I thought we were really onto something. I probably had delusions of grandeur and thought I was some Steve Jobs-like figure who could just wave a magic wand. And by the way, I don't think that's actually what Steve Jobs did, so I want to put that out there for a minute. I think what we see from the outside as consumers is often not the reality inside the company. So I just want to say that.  But anyway, instead of taking small iterative steps and quickly prototyping and getting feedback, I did a full design based only on feedback from that one customer before cutting tooling and paying all the certification costs. It ended up being about a $400,000 project. And I think we still have inventory from that project—and this was probably 12 years ago or something.  Oh my gosh.  So what have I learned now? The best innovation happens through rapid iteration. A lot of your listeners have probably seen the Elon Musk SpaceX Raptor engine images, right? You have this incredibly complex engine that goes up into space, and then the next version looks much simpler, and the third one looks like it came out of a sci-fi movie. It's almost like the Picasso bull sketches.  There are nine different bulls until Picasso eventually gets it down to two lines, and you still understand it's a bull. Okay? And I think that's what iteration looks like. What you see as a final product from Apple is actually the result of thousands of prototypes, iterations, and constant testing behind the curtain. For me, I want to test with customers directly, because you get much better feedback that way. I think the more rapidly you can prototype, the more rapidly you can iterate and get real customer feedback, the more innovative your product is going to be. I really think that when you try to make too big of a leap all once, you usually can't get there. And I think 10% compounded over time is a much better strategy than trying to go 10X in a single shot. Yeah. It's kind of the Kaizen principle of continuous improvement through small steps. But actually, I was listening to an interview with Jensen Huang, and he said he hated Kaizen because he wanted more first-principles thinking—completely rethinking things from the ground up. And I think Elon Musk does that too. Although honestly, I think he does both, which is really interesting. But I love Kaizen. I think it's a wonderful concept to continually improve things. We do work with SpaceX. We don't do much with NVIDIA—a little bit, but not much. And while you can think from first principles, you still have to iterate on the prototypes, right? Yeah. You have to constantly try things. So you may have a first-principles vision of where you want to go, but you're not going to get there by designing the perfect thing 100% upfront. You get there through iteration. Yeah. So you really need both. That’s a really good point. So Drew, what is it that you are trying to figure out in your business right now?  So over the last 12 to 18 months, our largest orders have started coming through the data center sector. Back in 2015 or 2016, I tried to push into data centers, and we just had no product-market fit. None. Everybody kept talking about the data center business, and I was like, “Well, they're just not using our products. We tried…” But what suddenly changed was the increase in power density inside data centers. And what I mean by that is this: You can now have a hundred megawatts in a traditional data center hall. That's basically the equivalent of multiple oil and gas refineries worth of electrical load inside a single data center hall. A hundred megawatts—yeah.  And so the electrical risk profile has really changed. And because of that, now there is product-market fit. So now I'm trying to figure out: How do I set up the right distribution channels? How do I build the right sales network? Because data centers definitely buy differently than our traditional industrial customers. And then, as CEO, you always have to decide where you're going to focus your time. I've been very intentional about not losing the core identity of Grace through our industrial business. So I've had to build a separate group that really focuses on the data center market. That also means bringing in a board member who really understands the data center space. Right now, though, it's a huge growth area for us, so figuring that out has been super important.  The other thing is that over the last few years, we've launched an incredible number of new products. But a lot of those were what I'd call necessary innovations—things we had to execute on quickly. So now we're finally getting to a point with the engineering team where we can start from a clean sheet of paper again. We can think more deeply about where we really want to go—maybe even from first principles. Because honestly, I feel like we've been operating in a reactive mode for the last few years. So it's going to be really exciting to finally have some white space again and be able to innovate more intentionally for the future. Yeah. So you want to have that sci-fi engine for Grace Technologies that SpaceX has for the rockets, right?  Yeah. That's the goal. And our mission is to accelerate the industrial world to zero downtime and zero harm. Until we get there, it's a pretty lofty goal. And I think it's going to require a lot of innovation to achieve it. So what's the process when you're trying to get to that kind of innovation—when you're rethinking something from first principles? Is there a process you can follow or work through? Or is it more about letting your imagination wander? Like when Albert Einstein came up with the theory of relativity—he was daydreaming in the patent office and suddenly had these insights. What's your process for getting there? So first, we want to be really clear on the problem statement. Getting absolute clarity on what problem we're solving is the first step, right? If you don't know what problem you're solving, there's no amount of engineering you can throw at it that's going to make sense. Second is understanding the constraints. For one of our new product development efforts, we decided to move away from a digital platform and go to a fully analog electrical platform because we realized one of the main constraints was size. And size is really determined by the power supply.  When you run a digital circuit, you're operating at something like 100 to 300 milliamps. If you go to an analog circuit, you're operating at the microamp level. So you're literally at around 10% of the power requirement. And if you're at 10%, you can make the power supply about 90% smaller. Now, it's much easier to do things digitally because you just program the microcontroller. You're not dealing with the art of analog circuitry. So I think that's a good example of thinking from first principles. Okay—we're solving this problem. One of the major problems inside that problem is the size of the unit. How do we reduce the size? Well, we have to reduce the power supply. How do we reduce the power supply? Reduce the power draw from the circuit. How do we reduce the power draw? Go analog. And that's how we got there.  But even then, the amount of prototyping and iteration we've done on that over the last 12 months has probably involved 75 major iterations of the circuit, tons of prototypes, tons of testing, and countless tweaks that probably never even hit my radar. I know I'm getting a little nerdy for the podcast, but I think it's a really good example. And if you take it out of engineering for a minute and look at our sales engine, it works similarly. Ultimately, what drives sales? You have to have unique selling conversations with customers. So everything I focus on becomes: How do I maximize those conversations?  Getting people interested in the product and actually getting to the point where we can sit down and fully tell our story—that's kind of my North Star.Share on X I know that if we increase the number of those conversations, sales will increase. And of course, there's optimization on both sides of the meeting—follow-through, follow-up, competitiveness, lead quality, all of that. But the big North Star in our sales function is: How many unique selling conversations are we having with customers? Okay. I love it. So this is a framework that I’m more excited about than the flywheel because we are almost 400 episodes in. Here is what I heard. So be clear on the problem, step number one. Understand the constraints, step number two. Think from first principles, that’s step number three. Build the prototype, step number four, and perform iterations. Step number five, essentially the optimization. And with the sales engine, it’s kind of a similar process that you described, but less technical perhaps.  Yeah. And one other piece too is that all of this has to be time-constrained.  What do you mean by that?  I think people miss that point. If you don't have a time constraint, it will literally take forever. So inside of your framework, you need a time box, and I think that's really critical. I like what Elon says about timelines. He assigns timelines that he believes have about a 50% probability of being achieved. I think that's actually a really smart way to think about it. And that means that about 50% of the time, you're going to miss the target. But that's okay, because you want that level of tension and flexibility in the system. You still have to be aiming at something. If you don't put a time box around iteration, if you don't set launch dates, product development can drag on forever. For example, we have a major trade show every fall, and we always try to have products ready for that event. That creates a really effective natural time box for us. And if your business doesn't already have natural time boxes, then as CEO, you need to create them. Yeah.  Otherwise, iteration, product development, and even sales initiatives can lose momentum. Sales naturally has monthly, quarterly, and annual cycles. But in engineering especially, having that time box is really important. Yeah. And what I read about Jensen Huang is that one of the innovations he introduced was creating two overlapping time boxes. So instead of having just a single one-year cycle, he created two teams working on separate one-year cycles that were staggered by six months. That way, they could effectively iterate on the product twice as fast. I thought that was amazing. And I also had a client—an engineering software company—whose challenge was that they couldn't launch a product for three years because they were such perfectionists. So we talked about putting a stake in the ground and committing to a release every year. Maybe the scope would have to change, maybe they'd have to narrow it or simplify it, but the release date itself would become a forcing function. And once they did that, their product suddenly started gaining much more traction. That's a fantastic point. Yeah. I was advising one of the companies we're invested in. I was actually on a call with them yesterday, and they're starting to run out of time a little bit, right? And that was literally the conversation we had. “Okay, we had this wish list. We had this dream product-development idea. Now what can we realistically get done in three months?” So we started stripping out everything that couldn't be completed in that timeframe, and those items will move into the next iteration cycle. But I think it's super critical. You've got to put a stake in the ground and force things through. Yeah. Constraints create creativity. Yeah. that's fantastic. So, penultimate question—I have one more just to wrap things up. If you had a magic wand, what would be the one thing you'd want to fix inside your company over the next 12 months? I think we have a lot of relatively new and young salespeople. We operate in a very technical field, and trying to get them to really understand the application space from a technical perspective is difficult. And when you're selling to engineers, they can immediately tell if you don't know what you're talking about. So the challenge becomes: How do you compress 20 years of experience into a brand-new sales or business development person in just a few months? Trying to accelerate that learning curve is probably one of our biggest challenges. We're trying to use AI to help visualize the kinds of equipment our products go on.  And frankly, even after doing this for years, I still run into things I don't fully understand. But I have enough experience that I can have a relatively technical conversation, understand the constraints, and work through the problem set. But compressing that knowledge into a faster training process—that's definitely been hard. I'm also opening a sales and engineering office down in Austin, so I'll be moving there in June. The plan is to build out another R&D facility there. That's one of my major time boxes over the next 12 months—getting that operation fully up and running. But from a more holistic perspective, I think really solving that sales knowledge-transfer problem is critical. And on one of our product lines, honestly, I'd love ideas from listeners.  We have an IoT condition-monitoring product, and we've been very successful at selling pilot programs. What we've found, though, is that it's been much harder than expected to convert those pilots into broader expansion deployments. So we're asking ourselves: Are we making the barrier to entry for the pilots too low? Are we attracting the wrong type of customer—people who don't actually have the authority to make a larger purchase decision? Or are we missing something in the sales process that would better position the expansion after the pilot succeeds? Those are a few of the areas we're really trying to figure out right now. Yeah. Love it. That’s fascinating. So if the listeners would like to learn more about Grace Technologies—or maybe you spark something in their mind and they want to reach out and communicate to you, or have access to someone in your company to answer the questions about the products. Maybe they want to have more safety and more productivity with their electrical safety equipment. Where should they go, and where can they find you? Yeah. You can reach me at drewa@gracetechnologies.com or find me on LinkedIn. I think it’s Allen-Drew is my handle, but Drew Allen on LinkedIn. I love hearing from people. I really enjoy advising startups, especially in the industrial electrical space. If you have a product idea or you’ve got a startup, I do a lot of advisory work, and we’ve invested in a number of startups as well. We’re really passionate about having more innovation in the industrial world. I believe that the reindustrialization of America is super important, and I’m a big proponent, and so love to support companies that are doing cool things in our space.  Oh, that’s fantastic. So if you’re listening to this and you have a startup in the engineering space, then definitely this is your opportunity to get mentored by Drew, and maybe to get opportunities that you don’t have yourself. So reach out to him. And if you just enjoyed this conversation with an entrepreneur who’s innovating fast and who is working from first principles and time boxes and and leveraging constraints, then definitely stay tuned on this channel because I have more wonderful guests coming on every week. So thank you Drew for coming, CEO of Grace Technologies, the leading innovator of electrical safety products and predictive maintenance solutions. So thanks for sharing your wisdom and thanks for listening. Important Links: Drew's LinkedIn Drew's website Drew's email: drewa@gracetechnologies.com

“Every new technology has a hype cycle, so your use case and business rationale must stay the North Star. No flashy AI solution replaces fixing your foundations, processes, and underlying business challenges first.”Katya Lobynko is IT & Data Director at Danone and a digital transformation leader with 15+ years of experience across FMCG and pharma in EMEA and Asia, with expertise spanning commercial operations, data & analytics, conversational AI, and emerging technologies. Before Danone, she spent several years at Sanofi leading innovation and emerging technology initiatives, including helping build the company's conversational AI capability. Katya began her career at Procter & Gamble as a Project Delivery Manager for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, leading global media planning transformation initiatives for the world's largest advertiser, before earning her MBA through the Asia School of Business, a partnership with MIT Sloan School of Management and the Central Bank of Malaysia. Originally from the Russian Far East and now based in Paris after years living and working across Asia and Europe, Katya brings a deeply international, people-centered perspective to conversations about digital transformation, AI, international careers, and women in tech.This conversation is hosted by podcast co-founder and P&G Alum Drew Tarvin, Founder & CEO of Humor That Works. Drew spent six years at P&G leading IT + brand initiatives before turning his background in engineering, improv, and stand-up comedy into a career helping organizations use humor to improve leadership, communication, and workplace culture. He's the author of Humor That Works and his TEDx talk on "the Skill of Humor" has been viewed more than 16 million times.

This week, Traci sits down with Rob Gallaher, Entrepreneur and Founder of ProfitX, to dig into how profit sharing actually works, why most businesses aren't doing it, and what it takes to build a program that genuinely transforms how a team operates.What We Cover:What profit sharing actually is and why no real how-to guide existed before Rob wrote oneWhy his first program was a complete disaster and what he rebuilt from scratchThe difference between profit sharing and employee stock ownership plansWhy monthly payouts change daily employee behavior in ways quarterly or annual bonuses simply cannotHow a profit sharing culture helps teams self-identify and resolve underperformanceThe retention math that makes profit sharing employees effectively earn above market rateWhy Christmas bonuses and annual payouts are financially inefficient for growing businessesHow companies like Procter and Gamble and Southwest Airlines approach shared success modelsThe "gas tank" analogy that explains why payout timing is everythingWhen this strategy becomes critical and why most business owners don't discover it until it's overdueConnect with Rob Gallaher: Profit Sharing, The Power of Shared Success | Website and course: https://profitx.co | Instagram and Facebook: @RobGallaher | LinkedInConnect with Traci here:https://linktr.ee/HRTraciDisclaimer: Thoughts, opinions, and statements made on this podcast are not a reflection of the thoughts, opinions, and statements of the Company by whom Traci Chernoff is actively employed.Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products or services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode.

The market is balancing strong corporate fundamentals with rising macro risks, as AI winners pull ahead while others lag, according to Tiffany McGhee, CEO and CIO of Pivotal Advisors. She highlights pressure on forward guidance amid higher costs and points to defensive names like Procter & Gamble (PG) as key ways to navigate a more volatile environment.======== Schwab Network ========Empowering every investor and trader, every market day.Options involve risks and are not suitable for all investors. Before trading, read the Options Disclosure Document. http://bit.ly/2v9tH6DSubscribe to the Market Minute newsletter - https://schwabnetwork.com/subscribeDownload the iOS app - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/schwab-network/id1460719185Download the Amazon Fire Tv App - https://www.amazon.com/TD-Ameritrade-Network/dp/B07KRD76C7Watch on Sling - https://watch.sling.com/1/asset/191928615bd8d47686f94682aefaa007/watchWatch on Vizio - https://www.vizio.com/en/watchfreeplus-exploreWatch on DistroTV - https://www.distro.tv/live/schwab-network/Follow us on X – https://twitter.com/schwabnetworkFollow us on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/schwabnetworkFollow us on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/schwab-network/ About Schwab Network - https://schwabnetwork.com/about

In this episode, we kick things off by examining Union Pacific's massive eighty-five billion dollar acquisition of Norfolk Southern and the railroad's newly disclosed conditions for walking away from the deal. UP has made clear it will abandon the merger if the Surface Transportation Board orders widespread trackage rights or line sales as approval conditions, though it would accept a requirement to spin off one duplicative main line between Kansas City and St. Louis. If burdensome conditions trigger Union Pacific's exit, it will owe Norfolk Southern a staggering two point five billion dollar breakup fee. Meanwhile, out on the water, a critical geopolitical milestone unfolded in one of the world's most strategic maritime chokepoints. A Maersk ro-ro carrier became the first U.S.-flag vessel to safely exit the Strait of Hormuz under American naval protection after months in the Persian Gulf. The Alliance Fairfax, operated by Farrell Lines and part of the Maritime Security Program, completed the high-stakes transit at a fraught time as the U.S. and Iran exchanged threats amid a fragile ceasefire. Finally, we explore Amazon's aggressive expansion into third-party logistics as the e-commerce giant officially rebranded its freight and fulfillment services under the unified Amazon Supply Chain Services umbrella and opened them to all businesses. Backed by over eighty thousand trailers and one hundred freighter aircraft, the move transforms Amazon into a direct competitor to traditional carriers, with early clients including Procter & Gamble and American Eagle Outfitters. Wall Street reacted sharply, sending UPS stock down nine point five percent on fears of massive disruption to the freight transportation industry. Follow the FreightWaves NOW Podcast Other FreightWaves Shows Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, we kick things off by examining Union Pacific's massive eighty-five billion dollar acquisition of Norfolk Southern and the railroad's newly disclosed conditions for walking away from the deal. UP has made clear it will abandon the merger if the Surface Transportation Board orders widespread trackage rights or line sales as approval conditions, though it would accept a requirement to spin off one duplicative main line between Kansas City and St. Louis. If burdensome conditions trigger Union Pacific's exit, it will owe Norfolk Southern a staggering two point five billion dollar breakup fee. Meanwhile, out on the water, a critical geopolitical milestone unfolded in one of the world's most strategic maritime chokepoints. A Maersk ro-ro carrier became the first U.S.-flag vessel to safely exit the Strait of Hormuz under American naval protection after months in the Persian Gulf. The Alliance Fairfax, operated by Farrell Lines and part of the Maritime Security Program, completed the high-stakes transit at a fraught time as the U.S. and Iran exchanged threats amid a fragile ceasefire. Finally, we explore Amazon's aggressive expansion into third-party logistics as the e-commerce giant officially rebranded its freight and fulfillment services under the unified Amazon Supply Chain Services umbrella and opened them to all businesses. Backed by over eighty thousand trailers and one hundred freighter aircraft, the move transforms Amazon into a direct competitor to traditional carriers, with early clients including Procter & Gamble and American Eagle Outfitters. Wall Street reacted sharply, sending UPS stock down nine point five percent on fears of massive disruption to the freight transportation industry. Follow the FreightWaves NOW Podcast Other FreightWaves Shows Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

She didn't pick one path—she picked all of them.From Cornell to Procter & Gamble, to entrepreneurship, to raising a family, to running a tennis program for 500 kids a year—Lisa Ullmann is the definition of a doer.In this episode, we talk about: Springsteen, Slope Day, how she built a career and still stayed deeply involved in her community, why she's never been afraid to ask for money, and the mindset behind a life that just doesn't slow down.Plus: tour guide hot takes She's incredible.Special thanks to past guest Mary Grainger!!LinkedIn: Lisa Kremer UllmannNot sponsored by or affiliated with Cornell University

More regulators are concerned about private credit  The bad news just keeps coming for the private credit industry. If you're not sure what private credit is, it is mostly middle market business loans extended by asset managers. People often don't realize that these asset managers don't have the same strict supervision that banks have on their loans. Investors may be starting to realize the risk because in the first quarter of 2026, private credit investors requested $20 billion from some of the private credit funds. Unfortunately, they only got a little bit over 50% of what they requested or about $11 billion. This could lead to higher redemption requests above $20 billion in the second quarter as more investors become disenchanted with private loan funds. The Securities Exchange Commission over the past few months has opened several enforcement investigations of large private credit managers. The Treasury department is also requesting information from private fund managers and insurance firms to understand their businesses more. The Securities Exchange Commission is the primary regulator for the private credit industry, but the private funds don't regularly disclose holdings and don't reveal much about private credit on the forms that are used by the SEC. It is quite the dilemma for these private credit funds, and I do believe it will continue to get worse because I am confident that the SEC and the Treasury department will find areas that could really hurt the individual investor due to the lack of disclosures.    Could prediction markets be available in your IRA soon?   Bitwise, Roundhill, and GraniteShares have filed applications with the SEC to launch exchange-traded funds tied to event contracts. If approved, these products could potentially be held in self-directed IRAs. The initial proposals appear relatively narrow in scope, focusing on outcomes like which party wins the White House in 2028 and which party controls the House and Senate after this year's midterm elections. While these types of products can sound appealing—and successful bets could generate strong returns—they also carry a clear risk: if you're wrong, you lose your entire investment.  One of the main concerns is how complex and speculative these instruments are, especially in the context of retirement accounts. Event contracts are fundamentally different from traditional investments like stocks or bonds, and their all-or-nothing nature makes them more like betting rather than than long-term investing. Are we going to soon allow withdrawals from retirement assets in Vegas so people can blay blackjack? The odds may be better there than on some of these “event contracts.”  There are also broader legal and regulatory questions still being debated. Some states argue that certain event contracts—particularly those tied to sports outcomes—should be classified as sports gambling, which would place them under state jurisdiction rather than the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Tribal groups have also raised concerns, arguing that such products could infringe on their sovereign rights to regulate gambling on tribal lands.  At the moment, sports-related event contract ETFs are not part of these filings, but that could evolve depending on how the legal landscape develops. If courts ultimately allow these types of products and current applications move forward, it's possible that similar filings tied to sports outcomes could follow.  Regardless of how regulation unfolds, it's important to understand the nature of these products. While they may be packaged as ETFs, their structure and risk profile differ significantly from traditional investments. Anyone considering them should be clear on one point: this is not investing in the conventional sense—it's a high-risk, all-or-nothing proposition that is really just gambling.    Who offers a better reward program? The big gas stations or Costco?  When I pull into a Shell gas station, I always see a pitch on the screen about getting up to $0.30 back per gallon. Other stations like Chevron run similar promos, which got me wondering: how many people actually sign up—and are these deals better than Costco's credit card with 4% cashback on gas?  Right off the bat, gas station rewards programs feel overly complicated. Once you dig in, you'll find caps, conditions, and purchase limits that make it tough to consistently get the maximum benefit. In the best-case scenario, you might get around $0.35 off per gallon. If gas is $6 per gallon, that works out to roughly a 5.8% discount. Not bad—but actually hitting that number regularly is another story.  Costco's credit card, on the other hand, offers a straightforward 5% cashback at Costco gas stations and 4% cashback at other gas stations (up to $7,000 per year). At $6 per gallon, that's about $0.24 back per gallon; at $5 per gallon, it's $0.20. To hit the annual cap, you'd need to buy around 22.4 gallons per week at $6 per gallon, or about 26.9 gallons per week at $5.  If you're filling up at a Costco station, the math can tilt even more in your favor. Gas there is often $0.10–$0.30 cheaper per gallon to begin with. Pair that with 5% cashback, and your effective savings climb even further: about $0.25 per gallon at $5 gas, or $0.30 at $6.  So, when you're standing at the pump at Shell or Chevron and see an offer for a flashy rewards program, it's worth pausing. The headline numbers can look appealing, but the real-world value often depends on how much you drive and how closely you follow the program's rules. For many people, a simple, consistent cashback card—especially one tied to already lower fuel prices—may end up being the better, less stressful option.    Is there a bubble in sports teams?  We've spent plenty of time talking about stretched valuations in stocks, the frenzy in crypto, and the rise of prediction markets—but sports teams may deserve a spot in that conversation too. Valuations across major leagues are climbing at a remarkable pace.  The NFL is leading the charge, with the average team now valued at $7.65 billion, up from roughly $1 billion in 2010. NBA franchises tell a similar story: the average team is worth $5.52 billion, an 18% jump from just last year. Go back 15 years, and the average NBA team was valued around $369 million—an increase of 1,396%. By comparison, the S&P 500's roughly 425% return over that same period looks modest.  Major League Baseball is seeing it too, with the San Diego Padres reportedly finalizing a record sale at $3.9 billion. As prices climb, fewer buyers can afford entry into the top leagues, pushing capital into smaller or emerging sports that may carry more risk.  Rick Horrow, CEO of Horrow Sports Ventures, highlighted this trend: “Major League Cricket was at $5 million. Now the value's at $30 million and going higher. Major League Pickleball two years ago was at $5 million. Now the value is at $15 million or higher.”   Women's sports are also experiencing rapid growth. The National Women's Soccer League recently awarded an expansion franchise in Columbus, Ohio for $205 million—a $40 million increase over the fee paid by Arthur Blank (The Falcon's owner) for Atlanta's team in November. That deal itself was a sharp jump from the $110 million paid by Denver in January of last year. For perspective, expansion fees were around $2 million as recently as 2022.  The key question is whether these valuations are supported by underlying fundamentals. While interest is rising—about 1.2 million people watched the NWSL final, up 22% year over year—it still trails far behind the audiences of major leagues. Game 7 of the NBA Finals drew 16.4 million viewers, the World Series drew 25.9 million, and the Super Bowl surpassed 127 million.  Media rights are central to this dynamic. The NFL signed an 11-year, $111 billion deal in 2021 and is already eyeing further increases. The NBA followed with its own 11-year, $77 billion agreement starting in 2025. If these massive contracts continue to absorb the bulk of media spending, smaller leagues may struggle to sustain their current growth trajectories.  Most people will never be in a position to buy a sports franchise, but the broader trend is still worth watching and I believe is just yet another example of excessive valuations in today's markets.     Financial Planning: Understanding the Relative Cost of IRMAA  IRMAA (Income-Related Monthly Adjustment Amount) is best understood not as a flat cost, but as an additional marginal tax rate layered on top of federal and state income taxes. When your income exceeds certain thresholds, your Medicare Part B and Part D premiums increase, and because the adjustment applies for the entire year once you cross the threshold, even by $1, it creates a “tax cliff.” For example, in 2026 the first IRMAA tier for married couples begins at $218,000 of income. At that point, Part B premiums increase from $202.90 to $284.10 and Part D increases $14.50, resulting in an additional annual cost of $2,296.80. Since this tier spans $56,000 of income (from $218,000 to $274,000), that cost translates to roughly a 4.1% marginal “tax” on income within that range, but only if you fully utilize the entire bracket. If you only exceed the threshold by a small amount, you still incur the full $2,296.80 cost, which means the effective marginal rate on those extra dollars can be extremely high. When layered on top of a 22% federal bracket and 9.3% California tax rate, the true marginal rate is about 35.4% if the bracket is filled, but can be significantly higher if it is not. This framing is critical when evaluating strategies like Roth conversions or large withdrawals, because it highlights that the decision isn't just about stated tax brackets, it's about the all-in marginal rate including IRMAA. In practice, this means it is often beneficial to either stay below an IRMAA threshold or intentionally “fill up” the bracket once crossed, ensuring the additional premium cost is spread across the full income range rather than concentrated on just a few dollars.    Companies Discussed: Tractor Supply Company (TSCO), Intel Corporation (INTC) & The Procter & Gamble Company (PG)

Today on the show, we're launching a special series on finance business partnering - exploring different facets of modern finance business partnering. Today's special guest is Tunc Tezel VP group FP&A, Ontax, bringing 30-years of lessons from Ontex, Pladis, British American Tobacco, Procter & Gamble, and Gillette - business partnering with marketing, sales, and operations to reach common goals and bringing some of the most popular CPG products to market.  From “spy” to “strategist” in business partnering    Secrets to storytelling  Embedded vs. centralised FP&A business partnering  Working capital as a partnering tool Breaking bad news in business partnering  When business partnering breaks down

In this bonus episode, Professor Karen Cheng shares more thoughts about Working Girl (1988), a movie she loves. We discuss the cinematography, Harrison Ford's character, and other movies that would pair well with Working Girl for a potential double feature.-Cheng is the author of Designing Type, a comprehensive, systematic guide to the design of letters, published by Yale University Press. Since its initial publication in 2006, Designing Type has been translated into German, Spanish, French, Ukrainian, Chinese, Japanese and Korean, and it has been ranked #14 on a list of "Top 50 Typography Books of the Last 50 Years" in the journal Visible Language. As a researcher, Cheng has investigated how scientists can collaborate with designers to aid public and interdisciplinary communication. She is co-author of the widely referenced "A Brief Guide to Designing Effective Figures for the Scientific Paper" and has published on the positive impact of visual design on scientific communication and the role of visual design critiques in research practice, in the Information Design Journal. Cheng holds a Master's Degree in Design from the University of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning and an Honors Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from Penn State. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Washington in 1997, she worked in Brand Management at Procter & Gamble.https://art.washington.edu/people/karen-chenghttps://vimeo.com/52861172 Designing Typehttps://amzn.to/4dZeNYv -Working Girl (1988)https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096463/ -Other movies and shows discussed:All the President's Men (1976)Betty Blue (1986)Delicatessen (1991)The Little Mermaid (1989)Miss Sloane (2016)9 to 5 (1980)Powers of Ten (1977)Trading Places (1983)Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989)-As an Amazon Associate, DESIGNERS ON FILM earns commissions by sharing product links.

Haley Sacks didn't grow up knowing what a 401k was. She was nannying for a kid named Winthrop on the Upper East Side, doing comedy at night, and getting paid cash under the table. Then she sat in an HR meeting and her eyes glazed over -- and she decided that was the last time she'd be caught unprepared with her own money. Today she's Mrs. Dow Jones, with millions of followers and a new book. The basement finally got her in the chair, and she did not hold back. What You'll Walk Away With The "future rich person" framework -- what separates people quietly building wealth from everyone else performing it Why the biggest wealth trap isn't overspending -- it's the psychological pull of looking rich before you are How automation is the real secret behind Haley's path to millionaire status -- and why willpower alone was never going to get her there The action movie analogy that finally makes the debt-versus-investing debate make sense -- and which one you tackle first Why your fixed expenses might be the actual problem -- and the two levers you can pull when the math doesn't work The "money date" habit that keeps Haley on track -- and how to make it something you'll actually do every month What a mise en place approach to your finances looks like -- and the four accounts every future rich person needs in place before anything else Why cutting spending has a floor but earning more doesn't -- and how to think creatively about your income ceiling The mortgage volatility conversation hiding in this episode -- including OG's take on where rates actually belong historically and why "date the rate" might be the most useful three words in real estate right now Why comparison is derailing more financial plans than bad investments ever could Why This Matters Now If you're in your 40s and you still feel like the millionaire milestone belongs to someone else's story -- someone who started earlier, earned more, or just had better instincts -- this episode is a direct challenge to that belief. Haley Sacks didn't have better instincts. She had a glazed-over HR meeting and a determination not to be caught unprepared twice. The foundation she built after that moment is exactly what she walks through today. From the Basement Mrs. Dow Jones herself -- Haley Sacks -- finally makes it down the stairs and does not disappoint. Joe and OG close the episode with a Wall Street Journal headline on mortgage rate volatility and what it actually means for anyone trying to buy, move, or refinance right now. OG lands what may be the cleanest take of the season: when should you borrow money? When you need to borrow money. Doug arrives with Dow Jones trivia about the longest-tenured company in the index, which turns out to have been added in 1932 and is hiding in plain sight on every household shelf. Whether the basement scoreboard had anything to do with Procter & Gamble is a question best answered with your earbuds in. Resources Mentioned Future Rich Person by Haley Sacks (Mrs. Dow Jones) -- pre-order with $700 in bonuses at mrsdowjones.com/book; releases May 12th Mrs. Dow Jones on Instagram and YouTube -- @MrsDowJones Mrs. Dow Jones podcast -- Financial Therapy Wall Street Journal mortgage volatility article by Veronica Dagher and Ben Eisen -- linked at stackingbenjamins.com Stacking Benjamins Vault -- stackingbenjamins.com/vault Stacking Benjamins Meetups -- stackingbenjamins.com/bad Stacking Benjamins Community -- stackingbenjamins.com/basement FULL SHOW NOTES: https://stackingbenjamins.com/interview-with-mrs-dow-jones-1835 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Haley Sacks didn't grow up knowing what a 401k was. She was nannying for a kid named Winthrop on the Upper East Side, doing comedy at night, and getting paid cash under the table. Then she sat in an HR meeting and her eyes glazed over -- and she decided that was the last time she'd be caught unprepared with her own money. Today she's Mrs. Dow Jones, with millions of followers and a new book. The basement finally got her in the chair, and she did not hold back.What You'll Walk Away WithThe "future rich person" framework -- what separates people quietly building wealth from everyone else performing itWhy the biggest wealth trap isn't overspending -- it's the psychological pull of looking rich before you areHow automation is the real secret behind Haley's path to millionaire status -- and why willpower alone was never going to get her thereThe action movie analogy that finally makes the debt-versus-investing debate make sense -- and which one you tackle firstWhy your fixed expenses might be the actual problem -- and the two levers you can pull when the math doesn't workThe "money date" habit that keeps Haley on track -- and how to make it something you'll actually do every monthWhat a mise en place approach to your finances looks like -- and the four accounts every future rich person needs in place before anything elseWhy cutting spending has a floor but earning more doesn't -- and how to think creatively about your income ceilingThe mortgage volatility conversation hiding in this episode -- including OG's take on where rates actually belong historically and why "date the rate" might be the most useful three words in real estate right nowWhy comparison is derailing more financial plans than bad investments ever couldWhy This Matters NowIf you're in your 40s and you still feel like the millionaire milestone belongs to someone else's story -- someone who started earlier, earned more, or just had better instincts -- this episode is a direct challenge to that belief. Hailey Sacks didn't have better instincts. She had a glazed-over HR meeting and a determination not to be caught unprepared twice. The foundation she built after that moment is exactly what she walks through today.From the BasementMrs. Dow Jones herself -- Haley Sacks -- finally makes it down the stairs and does not disappoint. Joe and OG close the episode with a Wall Street Journal headline on mortgage rate volatility and what it actually means for anyone trying to buy, move, or refinance right now. OG lands what may be the cleanest take of the season: when should you borrow money? When you need to borrow money. Doug arrives with Dow Jones trivia about the longest-tenured company in the index, which turns out to have been added in 1932 and is hiding in plain sight on every household shelf. Whether the basement scoreboard had anything to do with Procter & Gamble is a question best answered with your earbuds in.Resources MentionedFuture Rich Person by Haley Sacks (Mrs. Dow Jones) -- pre-order with $700 in bonuses at mrsdowjones.com/book; releases May 12thMrs. Dow Jones on Instagram and YouTube -- @MrsDowJonesMrs. Dow Jones podcast -- Financial TherapyWall Street Journal mortgage volatility article by Veronica Dagher and Ben Eisen -- linked at stackingbenjamins.comStacking Benjamins Vault -- stackingbenjamins.com/vaultStacking Benjamins Meetups -- stackingbenjamins.com/badStacking Benjamins Community -- stackingbenjamins.com/basementSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How fortunate we are to be the children of Hashem. He is there to help us twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and He loves each and every one of us more than a parent could ever love a child. We should feel proud to merit being the ones who follow His Torah. The pasuk says: כִּי הִיא חָכְמַתְכֶם וּבִינַתְכֶם לְעֵינֵי הָעַמִּים . When we live our lives according to the Torah, we are showing the world what true wisdom is. The Torah makes us a nation of kings and queens, and it is our greatest privilege to serve Hashem. Therefore, we should never be embarrassed to follow any mitzvah. If a gentile buyer asks a person to go to a non-kosher establishment, he should not say, "I'm not in the mood for that kind of food right now." Rather, he should say, "I'm sure the food is great, but my religion only permits me to eat in kosher establishments." If an executive asks for a meeting at a time that would cause a person to miss his set time for learning Torah, he should not be embarrassed to say, "I set aside time every day to learn and cannot miss it." All success comes from Hashem, and when we stand up for His honor and follow His Torah, He sends His blessings. The pessukim tell us about Daniel, who was taken as a young man to serve in the palace of Nebuchadnezzar. An official in charge told him he had to eat the finest foods from the royal table—rich meat and wine—so that he would appear strong and refined for service. Daniel said he wanted only grains and water, for kashrut reasons. The official explained that he would get in trouble if Daniel did not look robust like the other servants. Daniel suggested a ten-day test: give him grains and water and compare him to the others. At the end of the ten days, Daniel looked healthier, stronger, and more vibrant than the servants who ate the king's finest delicacies. Health and appearance come from Hashem, and He is the only One who needs to be impressed. Chazal tell us that because Daniel kept kashrut under duress, he merited protection later, even when he was thrown into the lion's den. Anyone who knows who the real Boss is will never compromise any level of Torah for any reason, especially in business. On the contrary, he will keep Torah even more carefully, knowing that success comes only from Hashem. Once a year, the largest retailer in the world, Walmart, holds a massive gathering for its top 1,500 suppliers, including Apple, General Mills, Frito-Lay, Procter & Gamble, and many more. They give awards for the best suppliers in each category, culminating in the Vendor of the Year award. At the last gathering, there were many Jews in attendance but an overwhelming majority of gentiles. The top award went to a religious Jew who keeps all halachot meticulously. On stage were many executives, including women, who normally extend their hands to congratulate winners—but in this case, they were instructed by the executive vice president to respect his religion and not do so. When he spoke, he did not praise his product or his skill. Instead, he said, "I attribute all of our company's success to the One Above." Later, other gentile vendors expressed how impressed they were that he publicly recognized G-d. This man does not own a smartphone. He appeared on that stage with a full Omer beard and does not compromise his Torah learning for work. Over the decades, many people have felt pressure to compromise standards to impress companies like Walmart—but this is unnecessary. Companies will respect Torah principles. In this instance, Walmart was more concerned with respecting his religion than he was with impressing them. All success comes from Hashem. If we are proud to be His people, we should also be proud to follow His Torah. True success comes not from pleasing people, but from standing strong in Hashem's Torah—He will make all things prosper.

In this episode, Stafford sits down with Terry Roberts, a man who spent decades navigating the corporate world with companies like IBM, Procter & Gamble, Kimberly-Clark, Boston Scientific, and Medtronic only to walk away and bet on himself.After realizing in his mid-50s that corporate advancement had a ceiling, Terry made a hard pivot. No safety net, no guarantees. Just a decision to learn real estate from scratch. Over the next several years, he built a portfolio strong enough to replace his income and step away from corporate life on his own terms.Now semi-retired, Terry shares what that transition really looked like; the uncertainty, the discipline, and the long game most people aren't willing to play. This is a conversation about reinvention, knowing when to pivot, and building something that actually gives you freedom.Outside of business, Terry is a family man first. He's been married to his college sweetheart Gina for over 40 years, with three daughters, a growing crew of grandkids, and a life centered around family, faith, and Mississippi State athletics. You'll usually find him at a game, at the lake house on the Tombigbee, or in the shop working with his hands.He also co-hosts the Cardiovascular Matters podcast alongside Dr. Craig Walker, where they dig into heart health and real-world medical insights.This one's about what happens when you stop waiting for permission and start building your own path.

BT's chief executive, Allison Kirkby, talks to Sir Richard Harpin about how her working class upbringing and training at Procter & Gamble set her up for becoming CEO. Kirkby built her reputation as a straight-talking turnaround leader and since taking the top job at BT, over two year's ago, she's been cutting costs, reshaping the leadership team, and trying to bring clarity to the business. As its first female CEO in 180 years, she is bringing back BT as a brand and is determined to return the company to growth. Kirkby says more needs to be done to encourage British investment in the UK stock market and reveals what it is like having Sunil Bharti Mittal, the Indian 'telecoms tiger', as the company's biggest shareholder and board member.Business Leader is a membership community for ambitious CEOs and founders of mid-sized UK companies, designed to help them grow with purpose through strategic support, peer-to-peer learning, expert coaching, and high-impact events. Join the Business Leader community here and sign up for our newsletter here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week's episode, we're re-airing one of our top episodes with Monique Rodriguez, the founder and CEO of Mielle Organics, an all natural hair care and beauty brand. Monique created Mielle Organics' first product in her kitchen. Now, the brand has products in over 85 countries – and still pursues the same vision it did from when it operated out of Monique's kitchen, with the same values.Monique worked as a registered nurse for almost a decade. She pursued nursing initially to please her mother and secure a financially stable career. As a wife and mother of two girls, it was a big risk to leave her stable career path to pursue her passion. Yet she always had a love of beauty and haircare, and once she saw the engagement of her online community with the products she was creating in the kitchen, she decided to bet on herself and launch her own product, and that's when Mielle Organics was born.In 2021, Monique became the first Black woman to raise a non-controlling nine-figure investment, over $100M, in a deal with Berkshire Partners. In 2023, Monique made history again when Mielle Organics was acquired by Procter & Gamble in an unprecedented acquisition, the largest exit ever for a Black Female beauty founder, in which she will continue to serve as CEO of the company. As part of her deal with P&G, she also established Mielle Cares, the non-profit arm of her company, with a $10M donation that was matched by P&G. In this week's episode we discuss the many business ventures Monique tried that didn't work out, why she decided to pursue her nursing career and the biggest skills she learned there that have propelled her when starting her own business. We also chat about her process of building a passionate community through social media, how that helped her create product market fit for her product, and the steps she took to find a chemist to work on her first batch that ended up selling out. Monique also ends on sharing insights on manifesting success, the exact steps she took to bring her ideas to life, her advice on navigating challenging situations both personally and professionally, and so much more. In this episode, we'll talk to Monique about:* Confronting fears and building self-belief. [04:06]* Strong women in Monique's upbringing. [07:27]* Leaving her comfort zone. [20:09]* High-risk pregnancy experience in 2013. [22:49]* Funding Mielle's early stages. [31:35]* Starting Mielle at home and the initial orders. [35:24]* Driving Mielle Organics' launch success.[36:41]* Leaving nursing job to focus on Mielle. [37:54]* Manifestation steps and vision importance. [40:41]* Bringing in private equity, alignment with Berkshire. [55:31]* Timeline of P&G acquisition. [58:05]* Journaling and gratitude cultivation. [01:00:26]* Business sale impact on Monique's life. [01:02:33]This episode is brought to you by beeya: * Learn more about beeya's seed cycling bundle at https://beeyawellness.com/free to find out how to tackle hormonal imbalances. * Get $10 off your order by using promo code BEHINDHEREMPIREFollow Yasmin:* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yasminknouri/* Website: https://www.behindherempire.com/Follow Monique:* Website: https://mielleorganics.com/* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mielleorganics/* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/exquisitemo/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Scott Mautz, author of THE MENTALLY STRONG LEADER, is the founder and CEO of Profound Performance, a keynote, training, and coaching company. Mautz is a former Procter & Gamble executive who successfully ran four of the company's largest multi-billion dollar businesses and has been named a CEO Thought-leader by The Chief Executives Guild and a Top 50 Leadership Innovator by Inc. Scott website: https://scottmautz.com/mentallystronggift/ Show notes: https://successgrid.net/sg269/ If you love this show, please leave a review. Go to https://ratethispodcast.com/successgrid Join AI Marketers Club: https://www.successgridacademy.com/3a30d0c6

Aktien hören ist gut. Aktien kaufen ist noch besser. Unser Partner Scalable Capital ist jetzt Bank und bietet euch dadurch jetzt noch bessere Konditionen. Mehr Infos findet ihr unter: scalable.capital/oaws. Iran-Verhandlungen gecancelt. Rüstungsaktien fallen neun Tage. Novo schlägt Lilly. X-Energy startet mit 10 Milliarden Börsenwert. Alphabet investiert in Anthropic. Aleph Alpha x Cohere. Canon & Jungheinrich leiden. SpaceX will KI. Procter & Gamble wird Influencer. Intel (WKN: 855681) legt 24% zu, stärkster Kursanstieg seit 1987. Die CPU-Nachfrage explodiert, Yields verbessern sich schneller als geplant. Trumps 9 Mrd. $ Investition ist jetzt 36 Mrd. $ wert. Brasilien boomt. Der MSCI Latinamerika liegt 20% im Plus. Petrobras (WKN: 541501) profitiert vom Ölpreis, friert aber Inlandspreise ein. Itaú Unibanco (WKN: A0RGKJ) lockt mit KGV 10 und 7% Dividende. Diesen Podcast vom 27.04.2026, 3:00 Uhr stellt dir die Podstars GmbH (Noah Leidinger) zur Verfügung. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The theme for World Intellectual Property Day 2026 is “IP and Sport,” and here on Brand & New we're joining in the celebrations with a close look at the powerful intersection of intellectual property (IP) and sport, and there may be no better stage for that conversation than “the world's game:” football, or as it called in the United States, soccer! The goal of World IP Day 2026 is to highlight how creativity, innovation, and strong IP protection keep sport thriving, dynamic, and accessible worldwide—and few organizations embody that global impact quite like the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA).In this episode of Brand & New, we're joined by Tiffany M. Shepard, Director and Senior Counsel, Brand Rights Protection at FIFA World Cup 2026. In this role, Ms. Shepard leads the North American enforcement strategy to safeguard FIFA's World Cup 2026 IP, retail licensing, and sponsorship rights from ambush marketing, counterfeiting, and unauthorized affiliations. Prior to joining FIFA, Ms. Shepard served in various in-house roles at major global brands, including at BuzzFeed Media Enterprises, The Kraft Heinz Company, and The Procter & Gamble CompanyMs. Shepard joins us today for a timely and wide-ranging conversation about protecting one of the most valuable and visible sports brands on the planet. As excitement builds toward the upcoming 2026 FIFA World Cup, she discusses the importance of safeguarding IP across borders, preserving trust and authenticity for billions of fans around the world, and what's keeping her team busy in the weeks leading up the event. From the challenges of brand protection at large-scale global sporting events to advice for the next generation of IP professionals, this episode explores why IP matters not just to organizations like FIFA—but to creativity, innovation, and the future of sport itself.Related ResourcesAbout Tiffany M. ShepardAbout World Intellectual DayAbout the FIFA World Cup 2026Recent and Related Brand & New EpisodesIP and the SDGs: Building Our Common Future with Innovation and CreativityWomen Leaders Series: Advancing Athlete RightsRelated 2026 Annual Meeting SessionsAmbush Marketing Without Borders: How Sports Rights Are Protected WorldwideDupe Culture: The Imitation Game

“Every time decisions were made, I thought what I would've done differently?  I knew the other path was a bit of a risk — what would I do if I was on the other side?”Sweta Mehra is the National Australia Bank's (NAB) Executive General Manager of Personal Everyday Banking. Before joining NAB in 2025, Sweta spent nearly eight years at ANZ Bank—six years as Chief Marketing Officer across 34 global markets, followed by two years as Managing Director of Everyday Banking, where she held full P&L responsibility. During her tenure as CMO, ANZ doubled its digital sales in four years. Prior to entering financial services, Sweta built a 17-year career at Procter & Gamble in Singapore, where she held senior roles across strategy, brand management, and P&L leadership for global brands including Pantene, Tide, and Head & Shoulders. She also led P&G's Consumer & Market Knowledge function across Asia. Sweta has been recognised on Campaign Asia's Asia-Pacific Power List and featured in Australia's CMO50 for three consecutive years. You'll enjoy this inspiring conversation about the power of being very clear about who you are, and a guiding framework for navigating uncertainty and career change. This conversation is hosted by P&G Alum Sudha Ranganathan, who's spent over 19 years in diverse Marketing leadership roles at companies like P&G, PayPal, and LinkedIn where she's honed her passion for customer-centric marketing and talent development.

Earnings season is open. We work through Intel's (INTC) bizarre tripling in share price, Tim Cook's exit from Apple (AAPL), Texas Instruments' (TXN) 18% single-day surge, and European earnings from Mensch und Maschine (MUM.DE), L'Oréal (OR.PA), VOPAK (VPK.AS), and Procter & Gamble (PG).Dividend hikes covered: Parker Hannifin (PH) +11%, Nasdaq Inc. (NDAQ) +15%, Otis Worldwide (OTIS) +4.8%, Qualcomm (QCOM) +3.4%, Air Products (APD) +1.1%, IBM +0.6%.Then 20 listener questions such as DRIP strategy, milestone celebrations, renewables vs. oil and gas, European dividend stocks Americans overlook, withholding tax, using AI in your investment process, insurance entry points, Rubis (RUI.PA), and whether Wero poses any real threat to Visa (V) and Mastercard (MA).Join us :Facebook Community - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Dividend Talk Facebook Group⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discord group - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://discord.gg/nJyt9KWAB5⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow us: Twitter - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@DividendTalk_⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Twitter - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@European_DGI⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Become a Premium Member for just 129 Euros a year: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://dividendtalk.eu⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Disclaimer: Educational content only. Not financial advice.

It's not just Intel (INTC) earnings making moves in the tech sector, as Diane King Hall highlights TSMC's (TSM) record high run and Wedbush initiating an outperform rating for Oracle (ORCL). Turning to another corner of the market, Diane later discusses Procter & Gamble's (PG) earnings. ======== Schwab Network ========Empowering every investor and trader, every market day.Options involve risks and are not suitable for all investors. Before trading, read the Options Disclosure Document. http://bit.ly/2v9tH6DSubscribe to the Market Minute newsletter - https://schwabnetwork.com/subscribeDownload the iOS app - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/schwab-network/id1460719185Download the Amazon Fire Tv App - https://www.amazon.com/TD-Ameritrade-Network/dp/B07KRD76C7Watch on Sling - https://watch.sling.com/1/asset/191928615bd8d47686f94682aefaa007/watchWatch on Vizio - https://www.vizio.com/en/watchfreeplus-exploreWatch on DistroTV - https://www.distro.tv/live/schwab-network/Follow us on X – https://twitter.com/schwabnetworkFollow us on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/schwabnetworkFollow us on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/schwab-network/About Schwab Network - https://schwabnetwork.com/about

Israel is on high alert in anticipation of a possible renewed war this weekend, according to Al Arabiya, citing Channel 13.Speaker of the Iranian Parliament Ghalibaf resigns from the negotiating team following the intervention of the IRGC, N12 news reported.US President Trump said the US is to work with Lebanon to protect itself from Hezbollah and that the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire is to be extended by three weeks.NQ futures outperformed after Intel surged over 19% after-hours as the Co. provided a solid Q1 report while raising its guidance.US President Trump said the US will put a tariff on the UK if the digital service tax is not dropped.APAC stocks traded mostly in the red, ex. Nikkei 225; European equity futures are indicative of a softer open with the Euro Stoxx 50 futures -0.7%.Looking ahead, highlights include UK Retail Sales (Mar), German Ifo Survey (Apr), Canadian Retail Sales (Feb), US UoM Survey Final (Apr), CBR Policy Announcement (Apr), Speakers include SNB's Schlegel, Supply from Italy, Earnings from Procter & Gamble & Eni.Read the full report covering Equities, Forex, Fixed Income, Commodites and more on Newsquawk

Nicolás del Río, analista de ActivoTrade sigue de cerca los escenarios de Baker Huhges, la demanda de las CPU, Procter & Gamble, Nike...

Working Girl, directed by Mike Nichols, stars Harrison Ford, Melanie Griffith, Sigourney Weaver, with Alec Baldwin and Joan Cusack. Tess, played by Melanie Griffith, ascends the corporate ladder using her book smarts and street smarts, and by pretending to be somebody she's not. Tess strives to do big things, and has plenty of good ideas to get her foot in the door until she's caught, accused of being an imposter. With Sigourney Weaver as her boss Katharine, and Harrison Ford as Jack Trainer the love interest, the movie has plenty of laughs, and lessons too. Professor Karen Cheng joins the show to talk about what makes Working Girls such a fun, rewatchable movie.-Professor Karen Cheng is the author of Designing Type, a comprehensive, systematic guide to the design of letters, published by Yale University Press. Since its initial publication in 2006, Designing Type has been translated into German, Spanish, French, Ukrainian, Chinese, Japanese and Korean, and it has been ranked #14 on a list of "Top 50 Typography Books of the Last 50 Years" in the journal Visible Language. As a researcher, Cheng has investigated how scientists can collaborate with designers to aid public and interdisciplinary communication. She is co-author of the widely referenced "A Brief Guide to Designing Effective Figures for the Scientific Paper" and has published on the positive impact of visual design on scientific communication and the role of visual design critiques in research practice, in the Information Design Journal. Cheng holds a Master's Degree in Design from the University of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning and an Honors Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from Penn State. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Washington in 1997, she worked in Brand Management at Procter & Gamble.https://art.washington.edu/people/karen-chenghttps://vimeo.com/52861172Designing Typehttps://amzn.to/4dZeNYvType Directors Club book discussionhttps://youtu.be/uEMtKyn1aGA"A Brief Guide to Designing Effective Figures for the Scientific Paper"https://advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/adma.201102518Positive Impact of Visual Design on Scientific Communicationhttps://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/idj.23.1.09cheThe Role of Visual Design Critiques in Research Practicehttps://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/idj.22008.sem-Working Girl (1988)https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096463/https://www.instagram.com/p/DTlPpI8knqNhttps://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/08/working-girl-remake-selena-gomez-Other movies and shows discussed:Anchroman 2 (2013)Freaky Friday (1976, 2003)The Intern (2015)Murderbot (2025)Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989)Shrinking (2023-)Ted Lasso (2020-)Trading Places (1983)

Jeff Strong worked nearly 30 years in the consumer products industry as a senior executive at Procter & Gamble and global president and chief customer officer at Johnson & Johnson. He then taught in the Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University and worked as an advisor to the Church before serving as a mission leader in the Arkansas Bentonville Mission. Jeff has since spent several years doing research on why people are leaving the Church. He recently published the book Torn: Why People We Love Are Leaving the Church and What We Can Learn from Them. Jeff lives in Midway, Utah, and stays busy with a little lavender farm, some business consulting, and enjoying family. Links Torn: Why People We Love Are Leaving the Church and What We Can Learn from Them What to Say When Loved Ones Leave the Church | An Interview with Jeff Strong and Joseph Grenny The Data Behind Church Culture | An Interview with Jeff Strong TornByJeffStrong.com Instagram: @tornbyjeffstrong Facebook Watch the video and share your thoughts in the Zion Lab community Transcript available with the video in the Zion Lab community Highlights 00:02:42 – Competing Narratives in Church Growth and Disaffiliation 00:04:22 – Personal Connection to Disaffiliation 00:06:36 – The Journey to Understanding Disaffiliation 00:09:05 – The Role of Data and Personal Experience 00:10:54 – The Complexity of Disaffiliation 00:12:11 – The Challenge of Measuring Disaffiliation 00:15:09 – Research Methodology and Findings 00:17:29 – Understanding the Audience for “Torn” 00:19:30 – The Importance of Accurate Understanding 00:20:36 – Celebrating Strengths While Facing Challenges 00:22:03 – The Impact of Local vs. Global Growth 00:25:41 – The Role of Missionary Work 00:27:06 – The Need for a Balanced Perspective 00:29:26 – The Misconception of Resurgence Among Young People 00:31:03 – The Data on Disaffiliation 00:35:02 – The Four Waves of Disaffiliation 00:40:53 – Wave One: Lifestyle and Depletion 00:43:17 – Personal Anecdote on Depletion and Church Experience 00:44:19 – Wave Two: Doubt and Disbelief 00:46:05 – Wave Three: Cultural and Social Factors 00:48:12 – Wave Four: Institutional Issues 00:50:00 – The Importance of Understanding and Addressing Disaffiliation Key Insights Competing Narratives: The church is experiencing growth in certain areas, such as baptisms and missionary work, but disaffiliation remains a significant concern, with many individuals quietly stepping away from their faith. Personal Connection: Jeff shares his personal journey of grappling with his son’s disaffiliation, highlighting the emotional impact and the need for a deeper understanding of why individuals leave the church. Research Findings: Jeff’s research indicates that approximately 40% of active members have disaffiliated since 2000, with various reasons categorized into “waves,” including lifestyle challenges and deeper faith crises. Cultural Dynamics: The discussion emphasizes the importance of recognizing the cultural pressures within the church that may lead to feelings of depletion rather than spiritual fulfillment for some members. Engagement vs. Disaffiliation: While many active members report strong engagement and purpose, a significant portion of young adults are less affiliated with organized religion, indicating a complex relationship with faith. Leadership Applications Fostering Understanding: Leaders can benefit from understanding the reasons behind disaffiliation to create a more inclusive and supportive environment for those struggling with their faith. Encouraging Open Dialogue: By promoting open conversations about faith challenges, leaders can help bridge the gap between those who feel fulfilled in their faith and those who are struggling. Addressing Cultural Pressures: Leaders should be aware of the cultural dynamics that may lead to feelings of depletion among members and work to create a more nurturing and understanding community that supports individual spiritual journeys. The award-winning Leading Saints Podcast is one of the top independent Latter-day Saints podcasts as part of nonprofit Leading Saints’ mission to help Latter-day Saints be better prepared to lead. Find Leadership Tools, Courses, and Community for Latter-day Saint leaders in the Zion Lab community. Learn more and listen to any of the past episodes for free at LeadingSaints.org. Past guests include Emily Belle Freeman, David Butler, Hank Smith, John Bytheway, Reyna and Elena Aburto, Liz Wiseman, Stephen M. R. Covey, Benjamin Hardy, Elder Alvin F. Meredith III, Julie Beck, Brad Wilcox, Jody Moore, Tony Overbay, John H. Groberg, Elaine Dalton, Tad R. Callister, Lynn G. Robbins, J. Devn Cornish, Bonnie Oscarson, Dennis B. Neuenschwander, Kirby Heyborne, Taysom Hill, Coaches Jennifer Rockwood and Brandon Doman, Anthony Sweat, John Hilton III, Barbara Morgan Gardner, Blair Hodges, Whitney Johnson, Ryan Gottfredson, Greg McKeown, Ganel-Lyn Condie, Michael Goodman, Wendy Ulrich, Richard Ostler, and many more in over 800 episodes. Discover podcasts, articles, virtual conferences, and live events related to callings such as the bishopric, Relief Society, elders quorum, Primary, youth leadership, stake leadership, ward mission, ward council, young adults, ministering, and teaching.

In this episode of Corporate Finance Explained, we dive into one of the most critical but overlooked foundations of finance: internal controls and fraud prevention. What starts as a simple reconciliation issue quickly becomes a much bigger question about trust, accuracy, and the systems that keep businesses running. Internal controls are often misunderstood as bureaucratic red tape, but in reality, they function as the immune system of a company. They are the invisible guardrails that ensure financial data is accurate, operations run efficiently, and organizations remain compliant with regulations. Without them, even the largest companies can collapse under the weight of errors or fraud.We break down the three core types of internal controls, preventive, detective, and corrective, and explain how they work together to protect a company's financial integrity. From segregation of duties and access controls to reconciliations and internal audits, you will learn how finance teams design systems that catch issues before they become catastrophic.This episode also explores real-world case studies that show both success and failure. We look at how companies like Microsoft and Procter and Gamble build robust control environments through automation and culture, and contrast that with major breakdowns like Enron and Wirecard, where weak oversight and lack of verification led to massive financial scandals.We also unpack the role of regulation, including the impact of the Sarbanes Oxley Act, and what corporate finance and compliance teams actually do day to day to maintain trust in financial reporting.Ultimately, this conversation reframes internal controls as more than just compliance. They are systems designed to engineer trust, reduce risk, and protect the credibility of financial information in global markets.If you work in finance, analyze companies, or want to understand how businesses prevent fraud and ensure accuracy behind the scenes, this episode will fundamentally change how you think about financial systems.

Nicolas Bailliache is a French-born entrepreneur and marketing tech executive who is widely recognized as an expert in LiveCommerce and shoppable video. He is the Co-Founder and CEO of eStreamly, a SaaS platform that enables brands and retailers to integrate shoppable video directly into their own websites and digital channels.eStreamly: Since founding the company in 2020, Bailliache has been at the forefront of the "video commerce revolution" in the U.S. His platform focuses on helping brands move away from "rented audiences" on social media to "owned audiences" by making their own sites interactive and shoppable.Conversion Expertise: He is known for developing strategies that significantly boost e-commerce conversion rates—often citing data that shows video viewers convert at triple the rate of standard web traffic.Thought Leadership: He is a frequent guest on podcasts (such as Shop Talk and The AD Podcast) and a speaker at industry events like the Esports Summit and Creator Summit, where he discusses the gap between the U.S. and Asian live-shopping markets.Corporate Success: Before his entrepreneurial pivot, Bailliache was a sales leader at Naturex (now part of Givaudan). He is credited with scaling a division from $700,000 to over $40 million by helping major global brands like Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, and Danone transition to natural ingredients.Global Perspective: Often described as a "citizen of the world," he has lived and worked on four continents, including stints in France, the UK, Brazil, Africa, and the U.S. He frequently mentions that his upbringing in a family of French artisanal food entrepreneurs shaped his passion for community-driven commerce.Education: He holds an MBA from Emory University's Goizueta Business School (2016).Bailliache is a strong advocate for responsible AI and authenticity in marketing. He believes that the future of retail isn't just about transactions, but about using video to build a "brick-and-mortar" style relationship with customers online, reducing return rates through better product education.Professional LeadershipBackground & Career PathCore Philosophy

Tackle Takes the Lead at 17 The Detroit Lions Podcast zeroed in on the NFL Draft board. Episode 607 asked the question that matters: what should the Detroit Lions do at 17? The table leaned offensive tackle. A fresh sweep of recent mocks all pointed to a tackle at that spot. Names floated included Procter, Manu, Holmes, Fraley, and Venga. The reasoning was simple. At 17, need meets value. If the Lions stick at that pick, a tackle fits the board and the workload in front of them. The draft room math favors it. Edge Help and the 50 Pick Edge at 17 did not land the same conviction. The group questioned whether an edge would be worth that selection. The hope is that a pass rusher slides to 50. If not, trade flexibility stays on the table. Up for a target. Back for a pocket of value. The expectation laid out was clear: across picks 17 and 50, come away with an offensive tackle and a pass rusher. There was also talk that the front office is weighing defensive end as strongly as tackle. Either way, the path was set. Protect the quarterback. Hit the quarterback. Do both by the end of Day 2. Tight End Talk and a Big-Board Curveball First-round tight end? No. That was the blunt answer. The crew would be stunned if the Detroit Lions opened with a tight end. A twist came from the show's consensus big board. The 17th-ranked player there is a tight end. But that is a ranking, not a Lions projection. The board explains talent tiers. It does not predict Detroit's card. The Podcast kept circling back to need and value. In this NFL, tackle at 17 tracks with both. Roster Notes, Anzalone Chatter, and What's Next There was a sidebar on Alex Anzalone's recent comments. He discussed returning, with the head coach wanting that outcome, while ownership and the front office reportedly felt otherwise. Quarterback talk surfaced too. A first-round quarterback did not feel imminent. That room is heavy, and health for the young pieces matters before any verdicts. Late in the segment, a pair of names came up as unlikely options at 17, with the belief that one of them might be gone anyway. The show closed with a programming note. A bigger draft roundtable is planned for early next week, with a full mock on deck. The Detroit Lions Podcast will line up the scenarios and run them, pick by pick. #detroitlions #lions #detroitlionspodcast #nfldraft #offensivetackle #passrusher #pick17 #pick50 #tightendfirstround #alexanzalone #dancampbell #mockdraftroundtable #consensusbigboard #mattmiller #procter #manu #venga Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Randy and Rich with you this week. The 2026 NFL Draft is inching closer and the rumors coming in hot. Offensive Tackle Kayden Proctor is the hot topic this week with multiple draft heads speaking his name and the Lions in the same sentence. Whether you feel he's the right choice or not this is a good opportunity to explore the option. Is it a smoke screen or is moving Sewell to left tackle the smoke screen. Do they need to trade up and other scenarios two week out from the draft. Remember to follow, download, rate and review The M-66 North Detroit Lions Podcast. We are always available on Apple Podcasts, Castbox, Anchor.FM, Spotify, and anywhere you listen to your podcasts. Check us out and give us a follow on Twitter at @M66NDLP, @woodentunes2, @TwitrTom, and @pisspoorpackers. Thanks for listening and #Watch for deer #OnePride #Go Lions! Non-scripted, loosely planned, totally uncredentialed, and currently commercial free

▶️ Connect with Richard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardatherton-firsthuman/   Richard is joined by Rupert Brown, a fractional Chief Transformation Officer.    In January 2005, Rupert was driving down a motorway when he heard on the radio that Procter & Gamble had just bought his company, Gillette, for $57 billion. Nobody had thought to tell the employees first, and so started Rupert's quest to figure out how to do change well.   Rupert has since penned Lost in Transformation: Discover the Leadership Blind Spots Derailing Change, detailing his time at Gillette and elsewhere. He has over 30 years of HR experience across some of the world's most complex organisations.    Rupert's experiences taught him something most change stalls because leaders can't see their own blind spots: the arbitrary deadlines that crush emotional processing, the flattery that makes us say yes without thinking, the inner voice we never make time to hear. We dive into the wisdom gained from Rupert's interviews with over 30 executives as well as his own formidable track record.   We discuss: Five blind spots derailing change Kairos vs Kronos timing Why empathy disappears at work Three levels of resistance explained Leading with integrity under pressure   Links: Rupert's Website

Jim Lancaster is the CEO and owner of Lantech, LLC. The company has sales and manufacturing headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky, along with sales and manufacturing facilities in The Netherlands, sales and service operations in Australia and China. Lantech manufactures packaging and material handling machinery, including stretch wrappers, conveyors, and case forming machinery. This machinery is sold worldwide through a distributor and partner network or directly to large consumer goods companies such as Procter & Gamble, Lever Brothers, Nestlé, Miller Brewing, and Pepsi. Annual gross sales exceed $200 million and the company employs approximately 650 associates.Before joining Lantech, Jim worked in the financial industry with Catalyst Energy in New York City. In 1990, Jim joined Lantech as a Sales Manager in the Custom Machinery Group. After several promotions, he became President/CEO in 1995.Lantech is known as the leader in stretch wrap technology and innovation, as well as Case handling equipment. Lantech is also one of the earliest companies to implement the Toyota Lean Principles, as chronicled in Lean Thinking by James Womack, the Harvard Business Review and other publications. Jim has been leading the Lantech Lean Journey for the past 25 yearsJim personally supports and advocates for improved education in Louisville, through his longtime involvement and board Chairman position at Jefferson Community and Technical College as well as involvement in numerous entities with Jefferson County Schools and with many other educational related efforts.• Member and former Board Vice Chair of Impetus• Former Trustee Chair and Administrative Council Chair at Christ Church United Methodistin Louisville.Link to claim CME credit: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/3DXCFW3CME credit is available for up to 3 years after the stated release dateContact CEOD@bmhcc.org if you have any questions about claiming credit.

What should a company do with billions in cash? Reinvest in growth, pay down debt, or return it to shareholders?In this episode of Corporate Finance Explained on FinPod, we break down one of the most important decisions in corporate finance: dividend strategy. Using real-world case studies and corporate finance frameworks, we explore how companies decide whether to pay dividends and what that decision actually signals to investors.At first glance, dividends seem simple. But once a company commits to a recurring payout, it creates a long-term obligation that fundamentally changes how the market values the business. This episode unpacks how dividends act as a powerful financial signal, shaping investor expectations around stability, growth, and future cash flow.We dive into the core mechanics behind dividend sustainability, including payout ratios and free cash flow, and explain why profits on paper don't always translate into real cash available for distribution. You'll learn how disciplined companies like Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble maintain decades of consistent dividend growth, while others struggle under the weight of poor capital allocation decisions.The episode also explores more complex scenarios, including how cyclical companies like ExxonMobil maintain dividends through volatile market conditions, and what happens when things go wrong. Using AT&T as a cautionary case study, we examine how excessive debt and misaligned strategy can force companies to cut dividends and trigger significant market backlash.Ultimately, this conversation reframes dividends as more than just a shareholder reward. They are a binding financial commitment that reflects a company's confidence in its long-term cash generation, operational discipline, and strategic priorities.If you want to better understand how companies allocate capital and what dividend decisions reveal about financial health, this episode will change how you analyze stocks and corporate strategy.

What is different about leading in corporations, NGOs, and entrepreneurial environments – and what remains the same? In this episode of the LEITWOLF® Podcast, Stefan speaks with Till Wahnbaeck, one of the most versatile leaders you will meet. His career spans Procter & Gamble, Wella, serving as CEO of Welthungerhilfe, and now founding IMPACC. He brings a unique perspective on leadership across business, development, and entrepreneurship. They explore key moments that shaped his leadership, what great leadership truly means, and how to recognize leadership talent. Till shares insights on the differences and similarities between corporate and NGO environments, how leadership varies across cultural contexts, and what European leaders can learn from Africa. A central theme is the discipline of prioritization, the ability to say no, and the importance of continuous self-development. One thing becomes clear: effective leadership requires clarity, strong values, and the willingness to take responsibility – regardless of the environment. A conversation about leadership across worlds, about creating impact beyond systems, and about what truly matters when it counts. ––– More about Till: // LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/till-wahnbaeck-35b1018/ // Impacc: https://impacc.org/de/ ––– Do you like the LEITWOLF® Leadership podcast? Then please rate it with a star rating and review it on iTunes or/and Spotify. This will help us to further improve this LEITWOLF® podcast and make it more visible. ––– Book your access to the LEITWOLF® Academy NOW: https://stefan-homeister-leadership.com/link/leitwolf-academy-en Would you like solid tips or support on how to implement good leadership in your company? Then please get in touch with Stefan via mail: homeister@stefan-homeister-leadership.com Or arrange a free phone call here: https://stefan-homeister-leadership.com/link/calendly-en // LINKEDIN: https://stefan-homeister-leadership.com/link/linkedin // WEBSITE: https://stefan-homeister-leadership.com ® 2017 STEFAN HOMEISTER LEITWOLF® ALL RIGHTS RESERVE ___ LEITWOLF Podcast, Leadership, Management, Stefan Homeister, Podcast, Business Leadership, Successful Leadership, Organizational Management, Leadership Skills, Leadership Development, Team Management, Self-leadership, Leadership Coaching, Leadership Training, Career Development, Leadership Personality, Success Strategies, Organizational Culture, Motivation and Leadership, Leadership Tips, Leadership Insights, Change Management, Visionary Leadership, Leadership Interviews, Successful Managers, Entrepreneurial Tips, Leadership Best Practices, Leadership Perspectives, Business Coaching

Jeff Strong worked nearly 30 years in the consumer products industry as a senior executive at Procter & Gamble and global president and chief customer officer at Johnson & Johnson. He then taught in the Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University and worked as an advisor to the Church before serving as a mission leader in the Arkansas Bentonville Mission. Jeff has since spent several years doing research on why people are leaving the Church. While not a professional researcher, his career involved a large amount of research and the research he shares in this podcast was done with the help of some of the top Latter-day Saint researchers in the world. Today, Jeff lives in Midway, Utah, and stays busy with a little lavender farm, some business consulting, and enjoying family. Joseph Grenny is a lifelong student of social science whose writings are references in major universities around the world. He is a New York Times bestselling author of eight books, including leadership, influence and communication classics Crucial Conversations, Influencer, Crucial Accountability, and Change Anything. His books are available in over 30 languages and have sold over six million copies. Joseph is a co-founder and current board chair of Unitus Labs, an international nonprofit that has helped over 15 million of the world's poorest to move toward self reliance. In 2015 he and his colleagues started The Other Side Academy, a 2.5-year school for those with long histories of crime, addiction and homelessness. The Other Side Academy is free, requiring only a desire to change for admission. In April 2021, Joseph and the leaders of The Other Side Academy announced their intention to build The Other Side Village, a 400-home community for those who are chronically homeless based on principles of self-reliance and peer accountability. Joseph is married to the former Celia Marie Waldron. They have six children and eight grandchildren and live in Salt Lake City. Links Watch the video and share your thoughts in the Zion Lab community The Data Behind Church Culture | An Interview with Jeff Strong Joining Moroni's War on Addiction | An Interview with Joseph Grenny Creating Change | Interview with Joseph Grenny Messy Conversations: When Loved Ones Leave the Faith, by Joseph Grenny Transcript available with the video in the Zion Lab community Highlights Social science expert Joseph Grenny and researcher Jeff Strong discuss the high-stakes nature of “faith transitions” within the Church . The conversation centers on how leaders and family members can navigate these emotionally charged discussions to preserve and strengthen relationships. 00:04:45 – The Importance of High-Stakes Conversations 00:06:17 – The Challenge of Faith Transitions 00:08:31 – The Need for Open Dialogue 00:09:50 – The Emotional Weight of Conversations 00:11:13 – The Impact of Poor Responses 00:12:21 – Preparing for Difficult Conversations 00:13:35 – Research Insights on Conversations 00:15:48 – Identifying Positive Deviants 00:16:29 – Learning from Successful Conversations 00:18:06 – The Role of Fear in Conversations 00:20:06 – Talking Under the Influence of Stress 00:22:40 – The Importance of Taking a Breather 00:25:23 – Three Key Steps for Effective Conversations 00:27:00 – Feeling Your Feelings 00:29:40 – Fixing Your Story 00:31:40 – Finding Your Motive 00:33:13 – The Transformative Power of Relationships 00:35:11 – Embracing the Messiness of Life 00:38:11 – The Role of God in Our Growth 00:40:45 – The Journey of Self-Discovery Key Insights The “Devoutness Paradox”: Research involving 15,000 participants found that the more devout a person is, the less likely a conversation about faith transition is to go well. If the recipient is a church leader, the odds of a negative outcome are 4.5 times higher than average. High Intensity of Need: Approximately 83% of individuals going through a faith transition reach out to others, typically contacting four to five people, indicating a deep desire for connection and resolution during the process. The Trap of “Problem-Solving”: Many leaders and parents react out of fear and an immediate impulse to “fix” the individual or bring them back to the church. This motive often leads to the other person feeling judged, berated, or suspected. The “Positive Deviant” Model: Some leaders and family members manage to maintain their own religious commitment while creating a safe, robust space for dialogue. These “positive deviants” prioritize the relationship over immediate theological conformity. Long-Lasting Consequences: The first few seconds of a conversation are pivotal; words spoken in moments of shock or vulnerability can endure for years and dictate the future trajectory of the relationship. Leadership Applications Shifting Motives: Leaders must move from a mindset of “correcting” to one of “listening and processing”. Recognizing that fear often drives the impulse to solve a problem can help leaders stay present and supportive rather than confrontational. Validating the Struggle: Leaders should normalize the reality that faith transitions are common and often a healthy part of a person’s individual journey . By acknowledging the difficulty without judgment, they empower the individual to feel heard rather than controlled. The award-winning Leading Saints Podcast is one of the top independent Latter-day Saints podcasts as part of nonprofit Leading Saints’ mission to help Latter-day Saints be better prepared to lead. Find Leadership Tools, Courses, and Community for Latter-day Saint leaders in the Zion Lab community. Learn more and listen to any of the past episodes for free at LeadingSaints.org. Past guests include Emily Belle Freeman, David Butler, Hank Smith, John Bytheway, Reyna and Elena Aburto, Liz Wiseman, Stephen M. R. Covey, Benjamin Hardy, Elder Alvin F. Meredith III, Julie Beck, Brad Wilcox, Jody Moore, Tony Overbay, John H. Groberg, Elaine Dalton, Tad R. Callister, Lynn G. Robbins, J. Devn Cornish, Bonnie Oscarson, Dennis B. Neuenschwander, Kirby Heyborne, Taysom Hill, Coaches Jennifer Rockwood and Brandon Doman, Anthony Sweat, John Hilton III, Barbara Morgan Gardner, Blair Hodges, Whitney Johnson, Ryan Gottfredson, Greg McKeown, Ganel-Lyn Condie, Michael Goodman, Wendy Ulrich, Richard Ostler, and many more in over 800 episodes. Discover podcasts, articles, virtual conferences, and live events related to callings such as the bishopric, Relief Society, elders quorum, Primary, youth leadership, stake leadership, ward mission, ward council, young adults, ministering, and teaching.

#218 - At 92, Jim Paulk doesn't sound like someone looking back. He sounds like someone still chasing the next idea, the next project, the next person worth learning from. Our conversation starts with a dream delayed, how a kid from Brunswick, Georgia missed his Naval Academy appointment, kept pushing, then got the call that changed everything. From day one at Annapolis, Jim learns what many of us learn the hard way: you don't need a perfect plan, you need the willingness to keep choosing forward.We follow Jim through a life of service and reinvention, from qualifying on submarines to building a second career at Procter & Gamble. Then the story swerves into marine conservation in Southern California, where he's asked to take over a struggling gill net initiative and turn it into a winning campaign. Jim breaks down what leadership looks like when the clock is real: rallying volunteers, creating momentum, earning media, raising money, and building programs that actually last, including fish hatchery work that produces measurable results decades later.The heart of the conversation is storytelling and relationships. Jim's book, Shaking Up the World, collects 80 true stories by 59 Naval Academy classmates from the class of 1957, from “janitor to admiral” to survival through WWII internment camps to astronaut Charlie Duke's Apollo 16 memories. Jim also shares how he met his wife Pat and why love and friendship are the ultimate measure of a life well lived. He donates all royalties to charity, because giving back is the point.Subscribe for more human stories, share this with someone who loves leadership and history, and leave a review so more people can find the show.To get a copy of Jim's book, Shaking Up the World, check out Amazon. Get connected with The Human Adventure. Check out my website www.thehamanadventure.net and give me a follow on Instagram @humanadventurepod.Want to be a guest on The Human Adventure? Send me a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/journeywithjake Xploreum connects you with authentic wilderness expeditions led by trusted local experts. Browse real adventures, book directly with experienced guides, and get $200 off your first trip using code HumanAdventure2026 at xploreum.io/humanadventure. 

Disruption expert Scott Anthony explains why innovation alone isn't enough—and why the real work of disruption is making things simpler, cheaper, and more accessible. Drawing on decades of research and stories from companies like Procter & Gamble and Apple, he breaks down why success so often becomes the enemy of reinvention.We also explore ideas from his new book, Epic Disruptions, including why disruption is a team sport, why data often arrives too late, and how leaders can cultivate “optimistic paranoia” to survive—and thrive—through change.--Guy Kawasaki is on a mission to make you remarkable. His Remarkable People podcast features interviews with remarkable people such as Jane Goodall, Marc Benioff, Woz, Kristi Yamaguchi, and Bob Cialdini. Every episode will make you more remarkable.With his decades of experience in Silicon Valley as a Venture Capitalist and advisor to the top entrepreneurs in the world, Guy's questions come from a place of curiosity and passion for technology, start-ups, entrepreneurship, and marketing. If you love society and culture, documentaries, and business podcasts, take a second to follow Remarkable People.Listeners of the Remarkable People podcast will learn from some of the most successful people in the world with practical tips and inspiring stories that will help you be more remarkable.Episodes of Remarkable People organized by topic: https://bit.ly/rptopologyListen to Remarkable People here: **https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/guy-kawasakis-remarkable-people/id1483081827**Like this show? Please leave us a review -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!Thank you for your support; it helps the show!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of Take-Away with Sam Oches, Sam talks with Kevin Hochman, president and CEO of Brinker International, parent company to Chili's Grill & Bar. Chili's has been the buzziest restaurant chain of the past two or three years, having recorded 19 consecutive quarters of same-store sales growth with help from value deals like its $10.99 3 for Me and viral videos like its mozzarella stick cheese pull. That success took off when Kevin joined Brinker in 2022 and implemented a turnaround plan that focused first on operational improvements and then on effective marketing to drive customers into the newly improved stores. Sam recently sat down with Kevin in a Dallas area Chili's for an episode of the Signature Series, powered by The Coca-Cola Company; this is part one of that interview, where they cover Kevin's career in the lead-up to Chili's and in particular the lessons that he picked up working for two iconic American institutions: Procter & Gamble and Yum Brands. Next week we'll share part two, where they get in the weeds on how Kevin and his team have transformed Chili's into the hottest thing going in foodservice.In this conversation, you'll find out why:You're never a finished productClear communication is critical to executing with excellenceThe answers are in the room, you just have to listen and ask the right questionsBrands have a DNA and personality that you can't lose sight ofIf you do the right thing for the business, no matter the ROI, you'll win in the long termHave feedback or ideas for Take-Away? Email Sam at sam.oches@informa.com.

Chris Stevens has built a career spanning corporate innovation, social entrepreneurship, and education. He's best known as one of the three original developers of the Keurig Premium Coffee System, a product that transformed how millions of Americans enjoy their morning coffee.He has had many different roles, including working at Procter and Gamble and Anheuser-Busch. In 2012, he brought his experience to Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business, where he now serves as a professor. He teaches courses in business problem solving, change management, and entrepreneurship. Chris is also the founder and CEO of CS 74 Ventures, which oversees more than 20 initiatives that commit at least 50% of profits to charitable and social causes. He's an angel investor, an actor, a broadcaster, and also the executive producer of the award winning film Three Days of Hamlet. Follow To Dine For:Official Website: ToDineForTV.comFacebook: Facebook.com/ToDineForTVInstagram: @ToDineForTVEmail: ToDineForTV@gmail.com Thank You to our Sponsors!American National InsuranceFollow Our Guest:Official Site: Chris Stevens - Notre Dame ProfileLinkedIn: Chris StevensFollow The Restaurant:Official Website: Ciao's Restaurant - South Bend, INFacebook: Ciao's Catering and CakesInstagram: @CiaosCatering Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“What's the end outcome? Focus on the results — not on how I'm doing it. I don't need to talk tough, I don't need to shout. There is an alternate way in solving for things.”Mansi Tripathy is Chairperson of Shell Group of Companies in India and Senior Vice President for Shell Lubricants Asia Pacific. She oversees a $2.5 billion P&L spanning 22 countries, and 9 manufacturing plants. Before Shell, Mansi spent 15 years at Procter & Gamble in roles including Global Director for Gillette and Asia-Pacific Head for Consumer and Market Knowledge. She led the post-acquisition transformation of Gillette's business model and held assignments across India, Singapore, Australia, Geneva, and the US. Mansi holds board positions at Hankook Shell (South Korea), JOSLOC (Saudi Arabia), and MRPL Aviation. Mansi's been recognized among Fortune's Most Powerful Women Asia (2025), Business World's Most Influential Leaders (2025), and received the Woman of the Decade Award from the Women Economic Forum. A trained classical dancer and marathoner with 59 half-marathons completed, Mansi holds degrees from NIT Kurukshetra, SPJIMR, and Kellogg. She lives in India with her husband and two children. You'll enjoy this candid conversation on conviction not as the absence of fear, but as something that overrides it. Whether you're navigating a career pivot, building your leadership style, or just trying to figure out how to balance ambition with boundaries, this one's for you.This conversation is hosted by P&G Alum Sudha Ranganathan, who's spent over 19 years in diverse Marketing leadership roles at companies like P&G, PayPal, and LinkedIn where she's honed her passion for customer-centric marketing and talent development.

Part 2 of 2 | Continued from: Continuous Improvement Leadership: Women's Career Guide 2026Executive SummaryWomen leaders continuous improvement culture succeeds or fails based on one variable: the leader's personal commitment. Olaf Boettger's 27-year framework reveals the CEO's 90-day launch plan, two fatal CI mistakes, women's natural CI advantage, and the 10-minute personal Kaizen practice that compounds career results starting today.Quick Takeaways70% of CI initiatives fail — almost always due to leader behavior, not methodology (Olaf Boettger, 27 years P&G/Danaher)Women leaders continuous improvement culture succeeds because women's natural humility and collaborative style align with CI requirementsThe CEO's first 90 days: Gemba ? Top-10 Problem List ? 5 Whys ? Impact-Effort Matrix ? Daily HuddlesPersonal Kaizen takes less than 10 minutes per day and starts compounding career results immediatelyLaid-off women can apply CI directly to job search — turning a demoralizing process into a systematic, controllable oneIn Part 1 of this conversation, Olaf Boettger revealed the foundations of women leaders continuous improvement culture — Kaizen philosophy, Gemba principles, and the three capabilities that make it work: courage, humility, and discipline. But knowing the philosophy is not the same as executing it.Most organizations have heard of Kaizen. Most have tried it. Most have failed.According to Olaf, who spent 27 years at Procter & Gamble and Danaher mastering this system, the failure is rarely about the methodology. It is almost always about the leader.In Part 2 of our Women's Leadership Success Podcast interview, Olaf reveals exactly what a successful women leaders continuous improvement culture launch looks like — the CEO's first 90 days, the two fatal mistakes that kill every initiative, why women bring a genuinely underappreciated competitive advantage to this work, and the personal Kaizen practice that takes less than 10 minutes a day and starts compounding results immediately.As an executive coach with over 30 years of experience (MA, MFT, PCC) and host of a podcast ranked in the top 1.5% globally with over 750,000 downloads, I have seen this framework transform the careers of women who stopped waiting to be recognized and started building systems that made them impossible to overlook. Building a women leaders continuous improvement culture is not only a leadership strategy — it is a career survival strategy in 2026.Ready to make yourself the standout candidate in 2026's competitive market?Download our FREE Leadership Branding Blueprint Accelerator and discover:The exact 5-step system to position yourself as indispensable (not just competent)How to document CI results in a format that gets you promoted 3x fasterThe personal achievement tracker that turns invisible work into visible impactScripts for self-advocacy conversations that feel natural, not pushyDOWNLOAD FREE — womensleadershipsuccess.com/blueprintThe CEO's First 90 Days: Your Continuous Improvement Culture Launch PlanIf you are stepping into a new leadership role — or finally ready to build a women leaders continuous improvement culture in your existing organization — the first 90 days set everything. Olaf's approach is structured around a deceptively simple insight: the problems you can solve are already visible if you are willing to go look at them.Step 1: Go to Gemba — The Real Place (Days 1–30)Gemba is the Japanese term for the real place — where the work actually happens. For a CEO or senior leader, Gemba might mean riding along with a salesperson, observing operations on a floor, sitting with engineers reviewing prototypes, or speaking directly with customers about how they use your product.This is not a listening tour. It is a fact-gathering mission. The gap between what leadership believes is happening and what is actually happening is, in most organizations, enormous. The only way to close that gap is to go see for yourself.For women building a women leaders continuous improvement culture, this Gemba-first approach is especially powerful: it signals humility and curiosity before authority — the exact combination that earns trust fast in new organizations.Step 2: Build Your Top-10 Problem List (Days 15–30)After Gemba, the next move is prioritization. A former Danaher colleague of Olaf's — who became CEO of a large Anglo-American corporation — used exactly this method: he created a numbered top-10 problem list and began working through it methodically with his teams.The discipline here is critical. You are not solving all problems. You are sequencing them. Problem 1 gets your full attention and resources until it is resolved. Then Problem 2. Then Problem 3. This focus prevents the scattered, multi-initiative paralysis that kills most CI attempts before they produce results.Step 3: Apply the 5 Whys to Find Root Causes (Days 20–60)Once you have your prioritized list, the next step is diagnosis. Olaf uses the 5 Whys — a Toyota-originated technique where you ask 'why does this problem exist?' and then ask 'why?' to each answer, five levels deep. By the fifth 'why,' you are nearly always at the systemic root cause rather than a surface symptom.The difference is critical. Treating symptoms produces temporary fixes. Addressing root causes produces permanent improvement. This is why organizations that chase the first obvious solution — like a $50 million ERP system — often spend enormous resources only to discover the original problem persists.Step 4: Use the Impact-Effort Matrix to Sequence Solutions (Days 30–60)Not all solutions are equal. Olaf teaches leaders to categorize every potential solution across two dimensions: impact (does it actually solve the problem?) and effort (how much time, money, and energy does it require?).Solution CategoryPriority Action? High Impact + Low EffortDo these FIRST — quick wins that build momentum and credibility? High Impact + High EffortPlan carefully — these are your strategic projects? Low Impact + Low EffortDo only if capacity allows — don't let these consume bandwidth? Low Impact + High EffortEliminate — these drain your CI culture before it startsStep 5: Run Daily Red/Green Huddles as Your Standard Management Meeting (Days 1–90)As described in Part 1, the 15-minute daily red/green huddle is not a CI activity added on top of normal business. It IS the management meeting. Red means a problem is identified and being addressed. Green means performance is on track. Run without exception every day, it signals that the improvement culture is real — not a program that fades at the next crisis.What Your Organization Sees by Day 90When you execute this plan, three things happen simultaneously: your team sees you are committed enough to observe their actual work; they see the organization's most painful problems being addressed systematically; and they begin to internalize what a good solution looks like. This is how women leaders continuous improvement culture takes root — through behavior modeling, not value announcements.The 2 Fatal Mistakes That Kill Continuous Improvement InitiativesOlaf estimates there is a graveyard of failed CI initiatives in nearly every large organization. The causes are almost never about the methodology. Here are the two patterns he sees repeatedly — and what women leaders can do differently.Fatal Mistake #1: The Leader Who Wants Results Without ChangingIn German, there is a phrase for this: 'Wash my fur, but don't make me wet.' The leader wants the outcomes of CI — better numbers, more efficient teams, fewer crises — but is unwilling to personally change how they operate. They hire consultants, launch programs, run trainings. And then they return to their previous behavior.This is fatal because culture follows behavior, not announcements. If the CEO does not go to Gemba, the SVP will not go to Gemba. If the SVP does not go, the VP will not go. By the time the directive reaches managers who are supposed to implement CI, it has been diluted into a program that nobody owns.For women leaders specifically: the antidote is your natural advantage — the willingness to be publicly humble, to admit what you do not know, and to go see before you decide. A women leaders continuous improvement culture that the top leader personally models is one that spreads without a mandate.Fatal Mistake #2: Treating CI as a Separate ActivityThe second pattern is more subtle but equally deadly: organizations that run CI as a parallel track alongside their 'normal' business. Friday afternoon training. Quarterly workshops. A dedicated CI team that other leaders do not engage with.This is the wrong model entirely. At Toyota, Danaher, GE, and every organization where CI works long-term, continuous improvement is not something you do in addition to running the business. It IS how you run the business. The 15-minute daily red/green huddle is not a CI activity — it is the operational meeting. The improvement system and the management system are the same system.The practical implication: if your organization has a CI initiative that exists separately from how work is actually managed, advocate for integrating the two. That single structural change will determine whether your women leaders continuous improvement culture produces lasting results or joins the graveyard.Why Women Leaders Build Continuous Improvement Culture BetterOne of the most powerful moments in our conversation came when I asked Olaf directly: do women bring unique strengths to continuous improvement culture?His answer was unequivocal — and grounded in 27 years of observing what actually works in organizations around the world."There is a lot less ego involved in a lot of women I've worked with. And if we look at the three capabilities for successful continuous improvement — courage, humility, and discipline — I've seen women bring more to the table, especially on the humility side. Being more open to say: let's bring others in,

Before Spinbrush became the top selling toothbrush in the U.S—and before Procter & Gamble paid $475M for it—John Osher was a teenager selling earrings for $4.99. In this episode, John walks through the strange, scrappy, but disciplined path that led to one of the fastest consumer-product breakouts ever: from a six-year stint in a commune (where he learned plumbing and carpentry), to selling baby products and battery-powered spinning lollipops. Finally, the big bet: a $5 electric toothbrush that was cheap enough to compete with manual brushes, and good enough to become a best-seller.You'll hear the make-or-break moment that many founders can't survive: the decision to scrap 400,000 defective brushes before they hit the shelves. And then, the stealth move that turned a “licensing pitch” into a buyout —with one perfectly timed bluff.What you'll learn:Why pricing is about what the market will pay, not what your product costsThe hidden power of packaging (How “Try Me” changed everything)How to recover from “entrepreneurial terror” Why scrapping inventory can be the most important decision you'll ever makeThe acquisition formula: you get a lot more money when they want to buy… than when you want to sellTimestamps: 07:01 - A pricing lesson that John used forever: The 19-cent earrings that sold for $4.99.12:04 - Six years in a commune and the unexpected skill stack: plumbing and construction.22:09 - “Entrepreneurial terror” and a lifeline from Toys R Us 29:11 - Spinning lollipops lead to a $166 million Hasbro exit.35:54 - What's the real competition: $80 electric toothbrushes, or cheap manual ones?38:42 - The design breakthrough: fixed + oscillating bristles.55:43 - P&G admits: “We've bought three companies like yours… and ruined them all.”58:07 - The earnout problem: What happens when Spinbrush performs much better than expected? Hey—want to be a guest on HIBT?If you're building a business, why not get advice from some of the greatest entrepreneurs on Earth?Every Thursday on the HIBT Advice Line, a previous HIBT guest helps new entrepreneurs work through the challenges they're facing right now. Advice that's smart, actionable, and absolutely free.Just call 1-800-433-1298, leave a message, and you may soon get guidance from someone who started where you did, and went on to build something massive.So—give us a call. We can't wait to hear what you're working on.This episode was produced by Katherine Sypher, with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei.It was edited by Neva Grant, with research by Rommel Wood. Our engineers were Patrick Murray and Kwesi Lee. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.