What does it take to protect the world’s most powerful financial institution for nearly three decades?

In the fifth episode of Earn The Right, Apoorv Agarwal sits down with Greg Palm, the legendary former General Counsel of Goldman Sachs. The story of this small-town bred lawyer is a striking departure from the typical Wall Street pedigree. 

Growing up in Chenango Bridge, New York, Greg was the son of parents who never attended college. His path was paved by merit and curiosity, sparked by the national push for science education following the launch of Sputnik. 

He attended MIT on a scholarship before completing a joint JD/MBA at Harvard. Before joining Goldman, Greg honed his legal expertise as a clerk for Hon. Judge Henry Friendly and Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., followed by a prestigious partnership at Sullivan & Cromwell. 

Over a 27-year tenure spanning five CEOs, Greg served as Goldman Sachs’ top lawyer, navigating the bank through its 1999 IPO, the 2008 financial crisis, and aggressive regulatory battles. This conversation provides unparalleled insight into high-stakes leadership, the intersection of law and business, and building structural integrity when the global economy is on the brink of collapse.

In this episode, we explore:

• The 2008 Financial Crisis: A behind-the-scenes look at survival strategies, the Abacus settlement, and the emotional weight of leading through a black swan event.

• The Power of Focus over Networking: Why Greg considers himself an outlier who prioritized merit and deep work over intentional networking early in his career.

• From Theory to High Stakes: How a student of theoretical physics and economics at MIT became one of the architects of the modern Goldman Sachs Group.

• Investing in the Unknown: Why a lawyer now bets on the future of space and biology to keep his mind sharp.

• Empowering Autonomy: Greg’s philosophy on building a massive legal department by hiring partners who refuse to be looked over their shoulder.

• The Myth of Gordon Gekko: Why the sleazy Wall Street stereotypes portrayed in movies couldn’t be further from reality.

For more deep dives into the crucial decisions and character-defining moments of world-class leaders, subscribe to Earn The Right.

Teresa Barreira leads marketing at Publicis Sapient, with prior tenures at IBM, Accenture, and Deloitte. She has seen every major technology shift. AI is different.

In this episode of Earn The Right, Apoorv Agarwal sits down with Teresa Barreira, Global Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Publicis Sapient, to unpack how AI is fundamentally reshaping marketing, leadership, and the future of human work.

Teresa is one of the most influential marketing leaders operating at the intersection of enterprise transformation, AI adoption, and creative strategy. With more than 25 years of global leadership experience, she has built and scaled marketing organizations inside some of the world’s most complex enterprises, often during periods of rapid technological change.

But this conversation goes beyond tools and tactics.

Born and raised in a small village in northern Portugal, Teresa emigrated to the United States as a teenager. She learned English by watching soap operas. She began working in her family’s business at the age of ten. Those early experiences shaped a leadership philosophy grounded in accountability, adaptability, and human judgment. These are qualities she believes matter even more as AI becomes embedded in everyday work.

At Publicis Sapient, Teresa is redefining modern marketing by building AI-first operating models, experimenting with agentic systems, and rethinking roles around tasks rather than titles. Her mandate is clear. AI should not replace humans. It should elevate them.

This is a conversation about what actually changes inside companies once AI moves from theory to operations. It explores how decisions are made, how teams are structured, and where human judgment still defines impact.

In this episode, we’ll explore

• Why every company is becoming a software company: AI is not just automating marketing tasks. It is forcing organizations to learn how to build, test, and iterate systems as a core capability.

• Why creativity beats consistency in the age of AI: When execution becomes automated, originality and judgment become the true competitive advantage.

• Why AI replaces tasks, not jobs: Breaking roles into tasks reveals where humans create value and where automation actually helps rather than threatens.

• Why most AI pilots fail inside enterprises: They optimize existing workflows instead of redesigning how work should happen in the first place.

• Why CMOs must become builders, not just operators: Modern marketing leaders are expected to design systems, not just oversee outputs.

• Why exploration matters more than specialization: AI rewards curiosity, adaptability, and learning speed over narrow expertise.

Subscribe to Earn The Right for unfiltered conversations with leaders redesigning work culture to create impact during technological shifts.

What does it take to lead when systems fail? Timothy Mayopoulos has spent his career answering that question.

In episode three of Earn The Right, Apoorv Agarwal speaks with one of the most trusted crisis leaders in American finance. Tim served as CEO of Fannie Mae and later stepped in as the FDIC-appointed CEO of Silicon Valley Bridge Bank during its 2023 collapse. He is also a lawyer who built his early career inside some of Wall Street’s most demanding legal environments.

This is a conversation about leadership under pressure: decision-making at velocity, empathy in moments of fear and how to find purpose when the world shifts overnight.

Before leading large financial turnarounds, Tim built his foundation as a litigator at Davis Polk. He later became General Counsel across several global financial institutions, including Bank of America, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse. His legal career shaped the analytical discipline and empathy he became known for. 

Tim went on to serve as President and CEO of Fannie Mae, where the company returned 167 billion dollars in dividends to the U.S. Treasury. After that, he led Blend Labs to a market-leading position in mortgage and consumer banking technology.

Today, Tim sits on the boards of Blend Labs, LendingClub and SAIC. He also advises several VC-backed fintech companies, including Bilt Technologies, Valon and Roam Homes. In addition, he serves on the FDIC Systemic Resolution Advisory Committee.

• Crisis leadership: How to step into uncertainty, take charge and guide teams through fear.

• Turning Risk Into Opportunity: Why running toward a crisis can accelerate your career and expand your leadership capacity.

• Insights from the SVB & Fannie Mae Frontlines: What actually causes institutions to fail and why liquidity, not business model, is often the real culprit.

• Decision-Making Velocity: Why great leaders separate “quality of inputs” from “quality of outcomes.”

• Housing & The American Dream: Why homeownership is still central to wealth-building and what must change for the next generation.

• Leadership at Scale: How leading at Fannie Mae differs from leading at a startup and why small companies demand faster judgment.

• AI, Work & The Future: Why AI is the “electricity of the century” and what it means for the next generation of lawyers, bankers and knowledge workers.

For more conversations with leaders reforming industries, subscribe to Earn The Right. 

How do we power the world without blackouts? The answer may be green ammonia.

On the second episode of Earn The Right, we’re joined by Joel Moser, CEO of First Ammonia. His climate tech firm is at the forefront of producing green ammonia, a sustainable fuel crucial for solving the biggest challenges in renewable energy.

This is a conversation about what’s next: for Earth, for technology and the next century of human progress.

An entrepreneur, lawyer and adjunct professor at Columbia University, Joel has led the financing and execution of major infrastructure and renewable energy initiatives. His expertise spans both public and private sectors, having advised institutions from NASA and the World Bank to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation on rebuilding New York after 9/11. He also serves on the executive committee of Columbia’s Center on Global Energy Policy and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

On the podcast, Joel shares what it takes to lead through disruption, why the U.S. is losing the energy race and how AI could transform the future of infrastructure and sustainability.

In this episode, we explore:

• Green Ammonia: What it is and why it could solve renewable power’s biggest challenge.

• The Global Energy Race: How the Inflation Reduction Act and U.S. policy shifts are reshaping the power landscape.

• AI & Infrastructure: Why AI can transform how large-scale infrastructure is designed, financed and operated.

• Leadership Through Uncertainty: What it takes to lead, from rebuilding Ground Zero to scaling climate tech.

• Excelling in Transition: How to keep learning and adapting in an industry that’s constantly evolving.

Subscribe to Earn The Right for more forward-thinking conversations with leaders who are shaping the future and setting new benchmarks.

The first episode of Earn The Right features Marla Persky, former General Counsel at Baxter International and Boehringer Ingelheim, two of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies. Now the CEO and President of WOMN LLC, she helps lawyers and business professionals build stronger leadership and commercial acumen.

She joins host Apoorv Agarwal, an AI scientist and entrepreneur (Text IQ, acquired by Relativity). Apoorv is a former IBM Watson researcher with a PhD from Columbia University. He now advises Fortune 500 leaders on AI for digital transformation.

With a career spanning pharma, law and theater, Marla has navigated complex global challenges, led high-stakes corporate decisions, secured billion-dollar deals and served on multiple boards. In this conversation, she reflects on the pivotal choices that shaped her career: from her early days as a theater major to leading legal and by business teams at the highest levels.

Subscribe to Earn The Right for more conversations with leaders redefining how the world’s most impactful people think, decide and build.