Outside In with Charles Trevail

Chegg may have a funny name, but this fast growing company is breaking all the “stupid rules” of education. It hinges on one mission: students first. Dan Rosensweig, Chegg’s CEO, shares how his company is aligning education with modern life.

Listen to this episode to learn:

• How Chegg grew from a textbook rental company to a leading digital education platform

• The shortcomings of traditional institutions and systems of education

• How technology like AI is making learning easier and more accessible

• Chegg’s student-first culture that attracts, retains, and motivates employees

David Robertson, MIT Sloan Senior Lecturer, speaker, and author explains why any innovation success – whether it’s a sports drink or a plastic brick toy – is cyclical and requires looking both inward, at the brand’s essence, and outward, at customers.

Listen to this episode to learn:

• How Lego, Gatorade, and GoPro have overcome adversity by innovating around their core brand offerings

• The key question every brand must ask themselves before innovation

• Why brands must look at innovation as “dating not fighting" - "dating" your customers not fighting your competitors

• How to innovate within the boundaries of the brand

Hyatt Hotels Corporation is one of the world’s leading hospitality brands. Jennifer Kirby, Managing Director of Innovation at Hyatt, talks about how her team finds, tests, and prioritizes which new ideas to pursue in order to create and deliver the very best guest experiences.

Listen to this episode to learn:

· How to balance customers’ desires against financial feasibility and scalability

· Why adopting technology for technology’s sake is never a good idea

· How to promote innovation ideas internally to create buy-in

· The “megatrends” on Hyatt’s innovation agenda

JetBlue is one of those rare companies that customers simply love. Jamie Perry, Vice President of Marketing at JetBlue, talks about how the company does it through a mission of “Inspiring Humanity” – creating a better flying experience that’s accessible to all.

Listen to this episode to learn:

• How a framework of values can empower employees to do right by customers

• How JetBlue developed its first premium service while staying true to its ethos

• Why breaking from constraints of the industry can spur innovation

Ali Velshi, MSNBC Anchor and Business Correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC, joins the podcast to talk about the big issues of our time: fake news, the global decline in trust, corporate responsibility, wealth inequality, and Donald Trump. It’s all on the table.

Listen to this episode to learn:

• Why we all have to “triangulate” our news from a variety of sources

• What’s contributing to society’s rapid decline in trust, and what we can do about it

• The consequences of wealth inequality and globalism

• Why Donald Trump might be a “brilliant” communicator

Great leaders are made, not born. Harvard Business School professor and historian Nancy Koehn shares lessons in leadership from her new book, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times.

Listen to this episode to learn:

• How leaders like Abraham Lincoln, Howard Schultz, and Ernest Shackleton have overcome great adversity to succeed

• The characteristics and behaviors that all successful leaders share

• Guidance for all who aspire to be great leaders

The Boston Celtics are one of the world’s most popular and valuable pro sports teams. Celtics President Rich Gotham shares how he engages with passionate fans, turning them into profitable customers.

Listen to this episode to learn:

• How Gotham helped turn the Celtics from “an under-managed asset” to a high-functioning business operation

• Why the value of pro sports is increasingly about “creating experiences and access through content”

• How the NBA and the sport of basketball is growing internationally

Citizens Bank CMO and Head of Consumer Strategy Beth Johnson doesn’t rely on a score to get closer to customers. She uses data, insight, and company culture to think differently and grow the business.

Listen to this episode to learn:

• Why Net Promoter Score is one tool in a system to drive customer loyalty

• Practical ways to encourage mid-level colleagues to feel invested in customer success

• Why companies need to think differently about customers and challenge assumptions

Michael Solomon, Professor of Marketing at Saint Joseph's University, is with us to explain why marketing isn’t about finding data patterns and segmentation. It’s about emotions, feelings, and connecting with the human mind.

Listen to this episode to learn:

• Why big data can sometimes mislead

• The value of marketers giving up control of their brand

• Why the line between consumer and producer is blurry

• How consumers’ desires for perfection can work in a brand’s favor

Jaguar Land Rover, the UK’s biggest car maker, is a global icon in luxury, performance, and style. Joanne Pearson, the company’s director of global customer insights, is with us to talk about how Jaguar Land Rover runs a fine-tuned, “customer-first” machine.

Listen to this episode to learn:

• Why “customer-first” is an advantage in the competitive global luxury automotive space

• How to build internal collaborative teams around empathy for the customer

• Practical techniques to employ for getting inside the lives of global customers