All around us, risk is increasing along with growing instability and volatility. Cyber crime, climate change, and social division are just some of the major threats we face. Thomas Buberl, CEO of AXA, one of the world’s largest insurance and financial services companies, says that the company’s success hinges on helping customers reduce their risk to threats. In an industry that has historically leveraged risk to its own advantage, Buberl believes it’s time for a new approach: move from payer to partner. Building a partnership with customers, he says, helps them to live better (and less risky) lives. For a Fortune 50 company like AXA, which serves more than 100 million customers in 63 countries, how exactly does that happen? Buberl joins the podcast to explain how his role and the company mission is changing in “the golden age of insurance.”

Listen to this podcast episode to learn:

• Real-world applications of moving from payer to partner

• How the consequences of issues like climate change and societal division affect the risk in our lives

• Why Buberl became a founding member of the Climate Finance Leadership Initiative, and the purpose behind the organization

• The shifting purpose of CEOs (should they focus on “excitement”?)

• Why “iconic moves” can make a brand promise tangible and visible

• Strategies and advice for how business leaders can stay close to global employees

Founded in 1847, the American Medical Association has a long history of advocating for physicians and advancing medicine in the United States. Today, more than 250,000 physicians are AMA members, all hailing from a cross-section of medical specialties. Todd Unger, the AMA’s Chief Experience Officer and SVP of Physician Engagement, is leading a massive digital transformation to expand the AMA’s membership and support its mission. Unger joins the podcast to talk about the ways the AMA is changing how it interacts with its members -- adopting a new content strategy and creating a more human brand.

Listen to this podcast episode to learn:

• What is the AMA, who is its audience, and what is its mission

• How the AMA is transitioning from a “membership” experience to a “subscription-based” experience

• How a lunch with a physician changed sparked Unger’s “ah ha” moment

• How the House of Delegates shapes the AMA’s unifying voice

• The problem of burnout and other obstacles physicians face in getting to patient outcomes

• Lessons from building a member experience infrastructure from the ground up

The Second City is arguably the most renowned and important improv institution in the world. Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Stephen Colbert all honed their craft in Chicago on The Second City stage. Kelly Leonard hired each of them, along with many other budding stars throughout the 1990s and 2000s, when he oversaw Second City’s creative expansion and development. In 2015 he co-authored the book, Yes, And. Today, Leonard is the executive director of applied improvisation at Second City Works, the business arm of The Second City, and he’s the host of the Getting to Yes, And podcast. He joins us to talk about how applying improv to business teaches us to listen and focus effectively, collaborate with others, and be ready for change. Because business life isn’t any different from human life. We just need to listen to each other more, embrace our failures, and keep improvising.

Listen to this podcast episode to learn:

• Why improv is essentially “human being practice” that teaches us how to make something out of nothing -- and that’s what we do in business, too

• How rehearsals and synchronicity create “peak performers” in the arts...and in business

• Why organizations (and the humans within them) have a listening problem, and what we can do to fix it

• How isolation and a “conspiracy of silence” around suffering ultimately hurt us at work

• Why it’s better to incorporate many failures into your success narrative rather than try to beat failure out of you

• The one improv technique you can start using today to create a better connection with your coworkers

For more information: www.secondcityworks.com

Disruptive innovation. Visionary leaders. Innovative culture. All phrases you’ve likely seen before in your LinkedIn feed, heard in TED Talks, or read in business book titles. Forget them all. The one neologism you need to know: loonshot. Unlike its celebrated etymological parent, the moonshot, a loonshot is a great idea that’s widely dismissed as too crazy to ever succeed. That’s according to physicist, former biotech CEO, and ex-Obama Administration science advisor, Safi Bahcall. He joins the podcast to talk about his new book, Loonshots, and discuss why we need leaders with heart who boldly make changes to the structure of a company (not the culture) in order to nurture those crazy ideas.

Listen to this podcast episode to learn:

• The difference between a moonshot and a loonshot, and how to get the latter off the ground

• How business leaders can bridge the divide between a company’s “soldiers” (the doers) and its “artists” (the creators) — while loving them equally

• Why we should all erase the term “disruptive innovation” from our business vernacular

• How the film industry has mastered maximizing franchises and nurturing loonshots

• The need for leaders to be “careful gardeners” and to always avoid the “Moses trap”

• What the physics of a glass of water can reveal about the dynamics of group behavior

For more information: www.bahcall.com

Companies like Disney, Nike, Amazon, and Netflix are all creating continuous relationships with customers by implementing a “connected strategy” — a way to reduce customer barriers; create a better customer experience; all at a lower cost. Any company can do the same, but there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Christian Terwiesch and Nicolaj Siggelkow, professors at the Wharton School and co-directors of Penn’s Mack Institute for Innovation Management, join the podcast to talk about their latest book, Connected Strategy: Building Continuous Customer Relationships for Competitive Advantage. They walk through the four primary types of connected strategies companies use today -- respond to desire, curated offering, coach behavior, and automatic execution — and why connected strategies are the future of business.

Listen to this podcast episode to learn:

• What is a connected strategy, and what are the benefits for companies and customers alike?

• The differences between the four types of connected strategies, and how and when to implement them

• Why effective connected strategies can anticipate certain customer needs — sometimes before customers even know they have one!

• The implications of privacy and trust when building a connected strategy — how do companies even begin to understand what’s acceptable vs. what’s creepy?

• Challenges organizations face when designing and implementing a connected strategy

• Why trust can only be earned when a company shows how it creates value for the customer — it happens incrementally over time

• Examples of successful connected strategies in different industries, including health care, transportation, retail, and entertainment

For more information: www.connected-strategy.com

From direct-to-consumer to augmented reality shopping, the retail industry is experiencing massive – and rapid – change. It’s not just new retailers that are disrupting the industry. Some of the best and most innovative retail experiences are happening at iconic brands that have been around for generations. The Hudson’s Bay Company, founded in 1670, is the oldest company in North America. It has more than 3,00 stores, 40,000 employees, and iconic brands like Saks Fifth Avenue and Hudson’s Bay. Bari Harlam, Chief Marketing Officer at Hudson’s Bay Company, joins the podcast to take us inside the company’s “radically better” customer-centric culture. She explains how the company is merging online and in-store experiences to create a highly personalized, “unified shopping” experience.

Listen to this podcast episode to learn:

• Why the physical store and the personal sales associate are even more important in a digital world

• What went into the company’s biggest research project ever: understanding the entire customer journey

• The value of being “vaguely right” vs. “precisely wrong” when it comes to data

• How General Stanley McChrystal’s “team of teams” strategy has helped Hudson’s Bay launch pilot programs across its stores that keep the company nimble

• Why how you use loyalty data is what matters most

An identity theorist is someone who studies how people come to adopt certain visions or desired images of themselves. It’s a term created by Americus Reed II, Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School of Business. Branding and marketing are fundamentally about persuasion, he says, but both can have implications beyond traditional tactics and thinking. Reed joins the podcast to talk about “identity loyalty” -- how a person’s psychological and emotional connection to what a brand means and stands for gets internalized and becomes a part of who they are.

Listen to this podcast episode to learn:

• The upside for brands that are willing to take a leap of faith and relinquish control

• Why “segmentation” and “targeting” aren’t bad things, it just depends on how marketers treat them

• Was Milton Friedman wrong? Or has our moral imperative changed?

• How innovation can be part of a brand’s story and identity

• How to use branding as a meaning system inside a company, to create employee buy-in and strengthen culture

• Amid politicization of brands and business, when (and should) brands take a stand?

• Why consumers are demanding a new skill set in the C-suite: authentic communication of vision and values

For more information: americusreed.com

These days, it seems like most companies are talking about their “purpose.’ Those that aren’t are searching for one. But how does purpose get defined? Who defines it? And how can a company make sure its purpose isn’t just “words on a wall”? Jeremy Schwartz has some thoughts on the matter. He’s the former CEO at The Body Shop and the former joint CEO at Pandora. He’s also held leadership roles at Coca-Cola, Sainsbury’s, and L'Oréal UK. Schwartz visits the podcast to share his perspective on how, when properly crafted around customers, purpose provides a reference point that can springboard new ideas and innovation. He says companies should ditch hollow “mission,” “values,” and “vision” statements and instead replace them with a clear, timeless, and actionable purpose.

Listen to this podcast episode to learn:

• Why creating a purpose takes guts, courage, and, above all, the willingness to listen to – and learn from – customers

• What all companies (especially FMCGs) can learn from the Silicon Valley tech giants about customer-centricity

• How brands like Costa Coffee are getting purpose right

• Why big companies can no longer afford to operate with a “production mindset”

• The value of “intrapreneurship” and how it can accelerate growth at big companies competing with nimble disruptors

• What Jeremy has learned from Tesco’s Terry Leahy and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos

Any company can detect early warning signs of a looming inflection point. They just need to know where to look and when to act. So says Columbia Business School professor and author Rita McGrath. She returns to the podcast for a discussion about her new book, Seeing Around Corners – giving advice on how to spot inflection points early, decide what to do, and get an organization on board. She shares stories of how companies like Nike, Netflix, and Microsoft have all taken advantage of inflection points, and common barriers to spotting them.

Listen to this podcast episode to learn:

• What is an inflection point?

• Advice for business leaders on how to position yourself at the “edges” of your organization

• How inflection points make the “taken-for-granted assumptions about a business irrelevant”

• The three inflection points that propelled Netflix to success -- and the fourth one on the horizon

• How Satya Nadella transformed Microsoft’s future by rethinking its “leading indicators”

• Why climate change is one inflection point businesses can no longer afford to ignore

For more information: seeingaroundcornersbook.com

Money isn’t “male.” But men certainly have more of it. Without enough money to live independently and fund their retirement, it’s women who will suffer. After spending more than 20 years as one of Wall Street’s top executives, Sallie Krawcheck is now on a mission to put more money in the hands — and retirement accounts — of women. She’s CEO and co-founder of Ellevest, a digital investing platform for women. Krawcheck joins the podcast for a frank discussion about how the financial industry has failed women, and what she and her diverse team at Ellevest are doing differently to close the gender investment gap and empower “Elles” everywhere.

Listen to this episode to learn:

• Why the retirement savings crisis in America is a women’s crisis

• What financial companies get wrong about female investors

• Why it’s not about marketing existing investment products to women, it’s about designing better ones for them

• That despite concrete economic benefits, gender diversity on Wall Street has regressed since the financial crash

• The relationship between the gender pay gap and the gender investment gap — and what we can do to fix it

• Who is “Elle,” and what does she mean for Ellevest?

• How algorithmic bias hurts women, society, and the economy

• What is the “Pink Tax”?

• Career advice for entrepreneurs and young women