Off the Rak

Are you prepared for the future of work? Off the Rak welcomes Rishad Tobaccowala, a global business advisor, author, and futurist, to explore what transformative leadership looks like in a fast-moving, AI-enabled world. Drawing on four decades of helping leaders reinvent themselves, Rishad shares insights from his book Rethinking Work on how leaders must evolve to thrive in a dramatically transforming modern age, and how creativity and meaningful connection become true competitive advantages. It’s more than theory; reimagining work, purpose and progress offers critical and practical actions leaders can take today to rethink how they lead and live tomorrow.

About the Guest

Rishad Tobaccowala is the author of “Rethinking Work: Seismic Changes in the Where, When and Why” and “Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in the Age of Data.” Additional writings can be found in the “The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the Past” read by 30,000 leaders around the world. 

Rishad most recently was the Global Strategist and Chief Growth Officeer of the 80,000 person marketing and business transformation Publicis Groupe and has been named by BusinessWeek as one of the top business leaders for his pioneering innovation and TIME magazine dubbed him one of five “Marketing Innovators. 

He regularly presents keynotes at industry conferences and speaks at well-known global organizations, such as Kellogg’s, IBM, Amazon, Google, and Facebook.

Links in this Episode

Subscribe to Rishad’s Substack

Learn more about Rishad at his website, rishadtobaccowala.com

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Learn what it’s like being a professional female athlete from the recently retired LPGA golfer and two-time U.S. team captain. Lewis announced that she will be stepping away from full-time competitive golf at the end of the 2025 season — let's look back at her conversation. 

Can adversity help you find your greatest strengths? That’s just one of the topics we’re exploring as I welcome one of my favorite professional golfers, Stacy Lewis! The LPGA golfer and two-time Solheim Cup captain is here to talk team leadership and managing success, women in professional sports, and the transformative influence we can have on communities, in our backyard and around the world. Golf is not a game of perfect — neither is being a leader — but we can still train to be great. And it’d be great if you joined us!

About the Guest

Stacy Lewis is an American professional golfer in the U.S.-based LPGA Tour. She has won two major championships: the Kraft Nabisco Championship in 2011 and the Women’s British Open in 2013. She has ranked number one on the Women’s World Golf Rankings for 25 weeks throughout her career, and has 13 career wins.

Lewis was diagnosed with Scoliosis when she was 11 and was treated with a spinal fusion when she was in high school, missing her first collegiate golf season to recover. 

Lewis was a decorated All-American at the University of Arkansas and redshirted her first year while in recovery. She won the Southeastern Conference Tournament and was named SEC Freshman Golfer of the Year. 

Lewis turned professional in 2008 and has played in nearly 400 tournaments throughout her career, including the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Links in this Episode

Stacy Lewis’ LPGA profile

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How do you make the journey from being given last rites in a hospital bed to founding an organization that has saved thousands of lives through medical innovation? Dr. David Fajgenbaum is a physician-scientist, Castleman disease survivor, and the co-founder of Every Cure. From medical student to patient to leader, David shares how he turned personal health challenges into a driving force for innovative research, drug repurposing, and AI-driven discovery to help rare-disease patients. Tune in to explore what resilient leadership looks like and what future breakthroughs he’s hopeful to see on his purpose-driven mission to cure the incurable.

About the Guest

David Fajgenbaum, MD, MBA, MSc, is Co-Founder & President of Every Cure as well as a groundbreaking physician-scientist, disease hunter, speaker, and national bestselling author of Chasing My Cure: A Doctor’s Race to Turn Hope Into Action.

Best known as the ‘doctor who cured himself’ (Doctor Cure Thyself, NY Times), Fajgenbaum went from being a beast-like college Quarterback to receiving his last rites while in medical school and nearly dying four more times battling Castleman disease. To try to save his own life, he spearheaded an innovative approach to research through the Castleman Disease Collaborative Network (CDCN) and discovered a treatment that is saving his life and others.

Now, he is spreading this approach to other diseases (His method could save millions, CNN) and co-founded Every Cure in 2022 to unlock the full potential of every drug to treat every disease possible. He has advanced 14 repurposed treatments for diseases they weren’t initially intended for. Fajgenbaum also continues to share lessons he learned about life, hope, and resilience from nearly dying through his national bestseller, Chasing My Cure, which has been profiled by Good Morning America, CNN, NPR’s Fresh Air, and BBC News, among others, translated into over five languages, and named one of the “Best Non-Fiction Books.”

Links in this Episode

Donate to Every Cure at everycure.org

Watch David'd TedTalk here at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb34MfJjurc

Learn more and connect with David at davidfajgenbaum.com

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Michael Lee Stallard is president of E Pluribus Partners, and a speaker, teacher, and consultant on leadership, employee engagement, productivity, and innovation. He is the primary author of "Fired Up or Burned Out: How to Reignite Your Team's Passion, Creativity and Productivity" and a contributor to The ASTD Management Development Handbook. He joins me to discuss how leaders must fostering more human connection and empathy, and humanity in the workplace: why we need it and how to foster more human connection and empathy through leadership.

About the Guest

Michael is an author, thought leader, speaker and a widely recognized expert on how effective leaders boost human connection in cultures to improve the health and performance of individuals and organizations.   He is the author of Connection Culture: The Competitive Advantage of Shared Identity, Empathy and Understanding at Work and Fired Up or Burned Out: How to Reignite Your Team’s Passion, Creativity and Productivity, and a contributor to other books.

Articles by or about Michael’s work have been in the media worldwide including The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Leader to Leader, Entrepreneur.com, Forbes.com, FastCompany.com, HR Magazine, Human Resource Executive, Talent Management, SmartBrief, Rotman (Canada), Shukan Diayamondo (Japan), Developing HR Strategy (UK), The Economic Times (India),LiveMint (India), Outlook Business for Decision Makers (India), Smart Manager (India), and Capital (Dubai).

Michael has spoken at many organizations and conferences including the Association for Talent Development, Center for Creative Leadership, Costco, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, General Dynamics, General Electric, Google, Johnson & Johnson, Lockheed Martin, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, NASA, Northwestern Medicine, Qualcomm, Turner Construction, University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and U.S. Department of Treasury. He is a faculty member at the Institute for Management Studies. Texas Christian University created the TCU Center for Connection Culture to advance Connection Culture at TCU and in higher education generally.

Prior to founding E Pluribus Partners, Michael was a managing director on Wall Street. Earlier in his career he worked in the technology sector. Michael is married to Katharine Stallard. They have two grown daughters.

Links in this Episode

https://www.michaelleestallard.com

http://connectionculture.com/book

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Ready to discover what separates truly effective CEOs from those who just look good on paper?

Seasoned CEO advisor Steve Graves shares hard-won insights from three decades of coaching executive leaders. With 20 books on strategy and leadership under his belt, Steve has developed over 100 frameworks specifically designed for CEOs navigating the complex intersection of personal growth and professional demands. In this episode, Steve breaks down leadership through his unique lens of age, miles, and address, introduces his “three H’s” framework for sustainable leadership, and reveals his reverse-engineered approach to the five essential CEO tasks. Tune in for Steve’s battle-tested frameworks that could transform your leadership approach.

About the Guest

Steve Graves is a strategist, CEO advisor and author. At any given time, Steve is working with a handful of remarkable executives leading large global organizations and young, hungry entrepreneurs just starting out. He has authored twenty books and worked with thousands of leaders weaving themes of strategy, leadership and faith hoping to help people flourish in their life and work. Additionally, he co-owns a half-dozen companies ranging from next gen travel to sports media to consumer goods (CPG) ventures. When Steve is not steering notable leaders or creating fresh content and frameworks, you might find him back-casting in the cold clear rivers of Northern Arkansas or chasing an epic fishing adventure somewhere on the planet.

Links in this Episode

• Connect with Steve:
  • stephenrgraves.com
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
• Read Steve
  • On his blog
  • Get his books

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“When I think about the value proposition of higher education… I think about the essence of leadership where they call it the knowing, being, and doing.”

Featuring the first female president of Penn State University, Neeli Bendapudi, we discuss what it means to be a Nittany Lion, how to create “customer” loyalty, and three time-tested leadership practices that have served my guest well at organizations like Proctor & Gamble, the U.S. Army, and, of course, Penn State.

About the Guest

As Penn State’s first woman president, Neeli serves the University’s modern land-grant mission of teaching, research, and public service across 24 campuses and the online Penn State World Campus. She has built a 30-year-career in higher education and business bolstered by her purpose-driven, people-first leadership style. She’s committed to student success, academic excellence, and creating opportunities for students, faculty, and staff to thrive.

Even as a child, Neeli always valued education. For her family, like so many others, education is so much more than a degree—it’s a pathway to a better life. She’s delighted to have the opportunity to help every Penn State student succeed academically, begin a meaningful career, and benefit their family and community.

After earning her bachelor’s degree and MBA from Andhra University in India, Neeli came to the U.S. to pursue her doctorate in marketing from the University of Kansas (KU). She launched her teaching career and is proud to have earned national and university recognition for her contributions in the classroom.

Prior to coming to Penn State, Neeli was president of the University of Louisville. She has also served as provost and executive vice chancellor at KU, dean of the School of Business at KU, and as founding director of the Initiative for Managing Services at The Ohio State University.

Her research—focused on how organizations can best serve their customers—has appeared in Harvard Business Review, Journal of Academic Medicine and Journal of Marketing, among other publications. With a background in customer loyalty and consumer behavior, Neeli has consulted some of the world’s largest companies and organizations—from Procter & Gamble to the U.S. Army—and became the executive vice president and chief customer officer for Huntington National Bank.

Links in this episode

Dr. Bendapudi's profile on LinkedIn

Penn State profile

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Let's tackle a broader disease that needs eradicating: entitlement.

Joe Sanders is a thoughtful and focused leader who brings a wealth of experience serving youth to Colorado Uplift as its CEO. Not only is he a retired Air Force Colonel and Director of the Air Force Academy’s Leadership and Character Development activities, but he has also shaped the moral and ethical growth of more than 13,000 cadets and staff. He joins Off the Rak to talk about his new book,  Unreasonable Responsibility: Eradicating the Disease of Entitlement. His new project is here to help free us from the traps of our self-focused desires that blind us to the higher purpose opportunities right in front of us.

About the Guest

Joe Sanders is a renowned character leadership development expert. He is a retired Air Force Colonel and the former Director of the Center for Character and Leadership Development, United States Air Force Academy. Joe earned his PhD in Leadership and Human Resource Development from Colorado State University in 2003. He has authored and published several articles and book chapters on topics ranging from transformational leadership and servant leadership to organizational spirituality and moral development. In addition, Joe has delivered over 2,000 lectures and workshops on these topics to a variety of audiences.

Joe has served his community in multiple capacities. In addition to currently serving as CEO of Colorado UpLift, Joe is an adjunct professor at UCCS. He is also the founder of Touchstone Leadership Academy, which focuses on creating new possibilities for current and future leaders in underserved communities. He has regularly hosted and keynoted church conferences and retreats, taught Bible classes, and led a local ministry for the homeless in Colorado Springs, CO. However, Joe’s most significant contribution to the community is his family. He and his wife, Lourdes, are the proud parents of Isaiah, Jasmine, and Josiah.

Links in this Episode

Visit Joe Sanders website at www.drjoesanders.com

Order Joe’s new book, Unreasonable Responsibility, on Amazon

Learn more about Colorado Uplift at coloradouplift.org

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In honor of Stacy Lewis' retirement at the end of the 2025 LPGA season, Off the Rak rewinds to a special minisode from September 2024 honoring TEAM USA's win in the Solheim Cup — the first since 2017! You don't want to miss these two inspirational stories from a Season 3 episode about success and influence with team captain Stacy Lewis — LGPA pro and leadership role model.

About the Guest

Stacy Lewis is an American professional golfer in the U.S.-based LPGA Tour. She has won two major championships: the Kraft Nabisco Championship in 2011 and the Women’s British Open in 2013. She has ranked number one on the Women’s World Golf Rankings for 25 weeks throughout her career. 

Lewis was diagnosed with Scoliosis when she was 11 and was treated with a spinal fusion when she was in high school, missing her first collegiate golf season to recover. 

Lewis was a decorated All-American at the University of Arkansas and redshirted her first year while in recovery. She won the Southeastern Conference Tournament and was named SEC Freshman Golfer of the Year. 

Lewis turned professional in 2008 and has played in 341 tournaments throughout her career, including the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Learn more about Off the Rak and watch past episodes at waltrakowich.com/offtherak

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Two good friends and two icons in the world of baseball talk creating a positive culture

Colorado Rockies legends Clint Hurdle and Dan O’Dowd join Off the Rak to share their experiences leading diverse teams, the Colorado Rockies trip to the 2007 World Series, leadership lessons learned on the diamond and beyond, and more!

About the Guests

Clint Hurdle
The cover of the March 20, 1978, annual baseball preview issue of Sports Illustrated featured a picture of Kansas City Royals rookie Clint Hurdle looking ready for action, with the caption “This Year’s Phenom” in bold yellow letters right next to his smiling face.

Appearing in 515 games over 10 seasons for the Royals, New York Mets, Cincinnati Reds, and St. Louis Cardinals, Hurdle batted .259 with 32 home runs and 193 RBIs. In only three of those seasons did he make more than 200 plate appearances in major-league games.

Hurdle made more of a mark in baseball as a successful manager, for both the Colorado Rockies and the Pittsburgh Pirates. Both teams were in the midst of prolonged periods of losing at the time Hurdle took over. He led each to a level of success including postseason play — once with the Rockies in 2007, when they went to the World Series, and three times with Pirates in 2013 through 2015.

Dan O’Dowd
Dan O’Dowd was a baseball man from the beginning. A nose-shattering line drive during his sophomore year virtually ended his playing days and by his senior year he had transitioned into a coaching position assisting Rollins coach Boyd Coffie and soaking up every ounce of baseball knowledge and nuance available.

After graduation, O’Dowd was accepted into the executive development program with Major League Baseball and from there secured employment in the Baltimore Orioles’ front office in 1983 and more importantly with his baseball mentor, Orioles general manager Hank Peters. He instantly got to savor the sweet taste of victory as the Orioles won the 1983 World Series.

Dan O’Dowd’s foundation was built in Baltimore, where he learned the business and sales functions of a major-league organization before moving into the baseball operations/player development side of the house. Moving to the Cleveland Indians with his mentor Hank Peters, his career blossomed; he gained acclaim as one of the top baseball operations minds as part of the historic Indians teams of the ’90s. Success in Cleveland allowed O’Dowd to leverage his substantial reputation into a 15-year stint as the general manager and eventually president of the Colorado Rockies. The overall body of work can be scrutinized by detractors but the 2007 World Series appearance and 2009’s incredible second-half run can be noted as key highlights. In the end, Dan O’Dowd’s analytical mind and opinionated persona found a great fit at the MLB Network as he became a top analyst who speaks his mind and draws upon his life as a baseball man to provide wonderfully insightful commentary.

Links in this Episode

ClintHurdle.com

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What does it take to build high-trust organizations and cultures through your leadership? The former chairman of JetBlue Airways and professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, Joel C. Peterson tells us that the high trust leader is one who can be influenced. In this look back at season one, Off the Rak features an insightful discussion about being at a critical juncture of trust in our professional lives, in our public and private institutions, and in our politics — and how to overcome it.

About the Guest

Joel Peterson is the former chairman of JetBlue Airways and the founding partner of Peterson Partners, a Salt Lake City-based investment management firm.

Joel has a long history of successful growth capital investments in a variety of industries. He currently teaches Entrepreneurial Management at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, is the Chairman of the Board of Overseers at the Hoover Institution at Stanford as well as the Chairman of the Board at JetBlue Airways, and serves as a Director of Franklin Covey. He served formerly as Managing Partner of Trammell Crow Company. He holds an MBA from Harvard Business School. Joel is the author of The 10 Laws of Trust: Building the Bonds that Make a Business Great.

Links in this Episode

Joel Peterson’s Twitter

Joel Peterson’s LinkedIn

Learn more about Off the Rak and watch past episodes at waltrakowich.com/offtherak

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