Outthinkers

Ajay Banga is the 14th President of the World Bank Group. Prior to this he was Vice Chairman at General Atlantic, which he joined after 12 years at the helm of Mastercard, leading the company through a strategic, technological and cultural transformation over 11 years as president and chief executive officer and one year as executive chair of the board of directors. Under Ajay leadership, Mastercard’s stock price grew from $30 to $350 per share.

Ajay began his career at Nestlé, India, where for 13 years he worked on assignments spanning sales, marketing and general management. He also spent two years with PepsiCo before joining Citigroup, where he rose to the role of chief executive officer of Citigroup Asia Pacific. 

Over the course of his career, he’s become a global leader in technology, data, financial services and innovating for inclusion. Ajay also serves as Chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce and is an Independent Director at Temasek and for Exor, where he serves as Chair of the company’s Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance Committee. He became an advisor to General Atlantic’s BeyondNetZero venture at its inception in 2021. 

He is a co-founder of The Cyber Readiness Institute, Vice Chair of the Economic Club of New York, a former member of the World Economic Forum’s EDISON Alliance, and served as a member of President Obama’s Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity, and a past member of the U.S. President’s Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations, among many other roles he has served.

In this podcast, he shares: 

• How under his leadership, he significantly grew Mastercard’s stock price 
• How to connect your company’s message to a global purpose 
• What advice Ajay would offer as a CEO to CSOs Best career advice he ever received as a CEO 
• How he structures his day in juggling so many responsibilities

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"Strategy is a way to create a shining city on the hill, for you to know where you want people to go and to define a way to climb that hill, and to give them the tools and resources to get there. If you do that well and if you do it with simplicity and you do it with clarity—If you do that well, Kaihan, then you have what I call strategy." 

-Ajay Banga

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Episode Timeline:

00:00—Introducing Ajay + The topic of today’s episode

2:30—If you really know me you know that...

3:17—What is your definition of strategy?

6:01—Could you share the strategies you used when significantly growing Mastercard's stock price?

9:25—Could you talk about the brand messages you've championed, and how they were transcendent messages that elevated both the business and world?

15:18—What is the best advice you ever received in your career?

17:33—Do you have an advice for strategy officers from a CEO?

20:29—Do you have any tips for amplifying informal influence?

22:47—How do you introduce urgency in a way that moves people to action, not panic?

24:17—How do you structure your day to be efficient as a CEO?

26:26—What is your secret to staying on top of communications and email?

28:31—What are you working on now

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Additional Resources: 

Bio: https://newsroom.mastercard.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Ajay-Banga-Bio.

Pete Newell is a nationally-recognized innovation expert whose work is transforming how the government and other large organizations compete and drive growth. He is the CEO of BMNT, an innovation consultancy and early-stage tech accelerator that helps solve some of the hardest real-world problems in national security, state and local governments, and beyond.

Pete is a founder and co-author, with Lean Startup founder Steve Blank, of Hacking for Defense (H4D)®, an academic program that focuses on solving national security problems. It has in turned created a series of sister courses—Hacking for Diplomacy, Hacking for Oceans, Hacking for Sustainability, Hacking for Local and others—that use the H4X® framework to solve critical real-world problems

Pete is also the Co-Founder and Board Director of The Common Mission Project, a 501c3 non-profit responsible for creating an international network of mission-driven entrepreneurs, including through programs like H4D®.

Pete served as the Director of the US Army’s Rapid Equipping Force (REF). Reporting directly to the senior leadership of the Army, he was charged with rapidly finding, integrating, and employing solutions to emerging problems faced by Soldiers on the battlefield and was responsible for the Army’s first deployment of mobile manufacturing labs, smart phones merged with tactical radio networks, and tactical drones.

In this podcast, he shares:

• Lessons from accelerating innovation in the military that can be applied to business
• The key stages you should be focusing on in your innovation pipeline
• Why driving innovation is sociological problem, not a technical one
• The first step you should take if you want to elevate innovation in your organization

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"Part of the beauty of a pipeline is that you start with a lot of volume and you make hard decisions about the things that go through it. So that increases the velocity, both in terms of speed and pressure, because it allows you to focus your resources on a smaller and a smaller group of things until you pile everything you own on the things that you know are going to win, but you can't get there without having a large pool of things you're sourcing."

-Pete Newell

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Episode Timeline:

00:00—Introducing Pete + The topic of today’s episode

2:11—If you really know me you know that...

3:04—What is your definition of strategy?

3:44—Could you tell us a little bit about your background and what led you to your work?

6:15—Could you walk us through the key 10 steps of your process of innovation?

9:27—Where do you think large organizations most often falter in this process?

11:00—How does an organization flip failure to seeing it as learning?

15:20—Could you share an example of an organization that gets this process more right than others?

17:18—How do you balance speed and killing ideas off?

17:57—What are the first steps a Chief Strategy Officer should take in their organization?

19:08—How can people connect with you and learn more about what you're working on?

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Additional Resources:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/peteranewell

LinkedIn: htt

*Note to listeners* This episode is part of a special sub-series on business ecosystems.

Felix Oberholzer-Gee is the Andreas Andresen Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. An award-winning instructor, his academic work has been published in the very best, peer-reviewed journals of his profession, and he currently teaches competitive strategy in executive education programs. His work is largely focused on helping businesses apply his framework of Value-Based Strategy, in which businesses learn to identify the biggest value drivers.

Within ecosystem-based competition, he’s identified how to specifically leverage ecosystems in maximizing the value delivered to stakeholders.

In this podcast, he shares:

• How Value-Based Strategy applies to ecosystems, and how to identify where to draw and give the most value within one
• Balancing the dynamics and relationships between your company and different players in your ecosystem
• How to identify what complements are best for your business
• Motivating partners in the ecosystem to make investments in complements that would deliver value to your customers
• What adjustments you need to make within your business model and culture to incorporate ecosystems
• Growing your bargaining power and maximizing the value you draw from an ecosystem as you put more value into it

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"When companies vertically integrate the most common reason for that they will say is, 'I get so much more control.' And then you ask people inside your organization, 'What's the hardest thing to do?' And they will tell you, 'Alignment is hard because I don't really have control over everyone.' Well, which is it? Do you have control or do you not have control?"

-Felix Oberholzer-Gee

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Episode Timeline:

00:00—Introducing Felix + The topic of today’s episode

1:35—Could you describe the concept of your 'Value Stick' to us to get familiar?

3:10—Why are ecosystems helpful in staying competitive?

8:34—How the nature and inclusivity of an ecosystem largely depends on who started it, for what purpose, and the capacity to scale

10:42—How do you balance how much you're depending on an ecosystem for complements with giving away customer relationship ownership?

13:52—The two rules the relationship manager working in ecosystems must remember

17:51—How do you manage a changing relationship (buy-out, M&A, etc.) and the effects of that on how much value is being put in vs. received in an ecosystem?

21:51—When is the right time to seek vertical integration?

23:59—How do you translate your idea of the value stick in a model like ecosystems?

29:03—How does the strategy thinking need to change for a company that's starting to embrace the idea of ecosystems?

33:22—What should you consider about switching costs in relation to ecosystems?

35:20—What are some last closing thoughts you'd like to leave us with?

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Additional Resources:

Faculty Page at HBS: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/profile.aspx?facId=251462

LinkedIn: https:

Richard P. Rumelt is one of the world’s most influential thinkers on strategy and management. McKinsey Quarterly described him as “strategy’s strategist” and “a giant in the field of strategy.”

He is the author of Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters, reviewed by the Financial Times as “the most interesting business book of 2011” and by Strategy + Business as “the year’s best and most original addition to the strategy bookshelf.”

Richard received his doctoral degree from Harvard Business School and is the Harry and Elise Kunin Chair Emeritus at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. His new book, The Crux, goes on sale May 3, 2022, from PublicAffairs.

In this podcast, he shares:

• Why so many organizations practice “Bad Strategy” and how to spot it when you see it
• Why strategy is fundamentally about solving problems
• How the secret behind the strategies of SpaceX and other breakthrough companies rests on finding the “crux” of the problem and how to choose a crux that others are not paying attention to
• Why we see so much vertical integration today and when that will change
• The three skills of: figuring out what is critical, constraining what is critical vs. what is controllable, and focusing energy on that

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Episode Timeline:

00:00—Introducing Richard + The topic of today’s episode

1:46—If you really know me you know that...

2:20—What is your definition of strategy?

6:38—What are some of the ideas or concepts you are most well-known for?

9:17—How do you recognize bad strategy?

10:39—Could you explain the concept of "crux"?

14:50—How to narrow down on actual challenge being solved

16:40—Do you think you've seen a rise in vertical integration, and what is your opinion on it?

18:48—Where can people find you and connect with you?

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Additional Resources:

Faculty Page: https://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty-and-research/strategy/faculty/rumelt

Newest book: https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/richard-p-rumelt/the-crux/9781541701243/

Last book: http://goodbadstrategy.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-rumelt-18520828/

*Note to listeners* This episode is part of a special sub-series on business ecosystems.

Ben Gomes-Casseres has been studying ecosystems since before the term as we know it existed. He is an expert on business combinations, in particular alliance strategy and management, having researched this topic for 30 years.

He has published five books and many articles and case studies on M&A, alliances, and joint ventures, and his views have appeared widely in the business press. Ben helps companies create value from external resources by improving the way they manage partnerships. He holds degrees from Harvard, Princeton, and Brandeis. A native of Curaçao, he speaks four languages, and his work can be found at www.remixstrategy.com.

Drawing from his experience at the beginning of the development of business ecosystems while studying computer companies in the early 90s, Ben has followed the development of ecosystems from a research standpoint since its infancy. In this discussion, Ben shares the in-depth insights he has learned over his time as a cutting edge—and early—expert of ecosystem study. In this discussion, Ben shares his insights on

In this podcast, he shares:

• What he learned from the earliest industries that adopted ecosystems and ecosystem-based competition as a business model
• The background and development of the term “ecosystems” as we know it today
• The various types of ecosystems, and the different terms used to describe these groups
• His Remix Strategy he developed as a result of his long-term research, including the three laws of business combinations
• How to play fairly in an ecosystem, ensuring that you add to its value rather than take away from it
• A practical set of questions that will help you determine where you can draw value from joining an ecosystem, and in what ways

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"So, it has really been this interesting shift that kind of 2000, this chasm was crossed around opening up ecosystems to different kinds of partners as well, the opportunity to reach different kinds of customers in new ways through new channels."

-Ben Gomes-Casseres

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Episode Timeline:

00:00—Introducing Ben + The topic of today’s episode

1:47—How did you fall into studying ecosystems before it was even a known area?

7:26—How constellations (ecosystems) have evolved in the way they're perceived and defined over time

9:10—Could you walk us through your model of the three laws of business combinations?

12:07—The first law of business combinations

13:10—The second law of business combinations

15:41—The third law of business combinations

18:41—What kind of changes does an organization need to make to be effective in ecosystem-based competition (mindset, capabilities, key success, factors, organizations, structure, incentives)?

21:45—How do you decide what ecosystem to plug into if you're not yet in one?

23:18—How does an ecosystem become more fragemented at the ecosystem or constellation level? What factors go into deciding is?

26:08—How different ecosystems can be organized depending on their needs

26:08—How different ecosystems can be organized depending on their needs

28:32—What is the difference between a platform and a constellation or ecosystem?

30:42—Do you think ecosystem-based competition is becoming more popular and essential to business' success, or has

Amy Webb is a quantitative futurist and a bestselling, award-winning author. She is a professor of strategic foresight at the NYU Stern School of Business and the Founder of the Future Today Institute, a leading foresight and strategy firm that helps leaders and their organizations prepare for complex futures.

Amy has advised CEOs and heads of strategy of some of the world’s largest companies, three-star generals and admirals and executive government leadership on strategy and technology. She was also a Delegate on the former U.S.- Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission, where she worked on the future of technology, media and international diplomacy.

She is the author of several popular books, including The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity, which was longlisted for the Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year award, shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Digital Thinking Award, and won the 2020 Gold Axiom Medal for the best book about business and technology. She also wrote The Signals Are Talking: Why Today’s Fringe Is Tomorrow’s Mainstream, which won the Thinkers50 Radar Award, was selected as one of Fast Company’s Best Books of 2016, Amazon’s best books 2016, and was the recipient of the 2017 Gold Axiom Medal for the best book about business and technology.

Amy was named by Forbes as one of the five women changing the world, listed as the BBC’s 100 Women of 2020, and the Thinkers50 Radar list of the 30 management thinkers most likely to shape the future of how organizations are managed and led.

In this podcast, she shares:

• Why we should be doing 'back-casting' rather than forecasting
• Why strategizing for the future is NOT about predicting it, but instead about shifting your mindset to be prepared for the future’s uncertainty
• Some practical advice about who should be doing the kind of future planning work that that is so critical for today for any organization that wants to remain relevant

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"If you're on a three-year strategic planning cycle, typically...you're marking milestones and KPIs...on that corporate strategy. The problem is that it doesn't account for uncertainty. This is where a lot of companies fall short, and they don't have the ability to recalibrate. So I do not use a line, I use a cone it's a different shape. So the intersecting vectors where that cone begins on the left that represents today. And the further out in time, you go, the wider, the angle becomes on the inside of that cone. And that represents uncertainty over time."

-Amy Webb

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Episode Timeline:

00:00—Introducing Amy + The topic of today’s episode

2:10—What is your definition of strategy?

3:32—A model for thinking about time and foresight

6:05—What's a tip or go-strategy for getting people to appreciate the importance of thinking of long-term horizons?

8:15—Could you explain the difference between predicting the future vs. being ready for many possible futures. Could you explain the difference?

10:22—Using data and evidence to model out plausible next-order impacts

12:24—The term and history of the futurist

13:50—Could you describe your work in synthetic biology?

17:16—You mentioned that synthetic biology will become as commonplace a term as AI, could you explain how other industries could be affected that seem unrelated?

19:27—Do you have any other tips for how people can learn more about this topic?

Prof. Dr. Christian Busch is the bestselling author of The Serendipity Mindset: The Art & Science of Creating Good Luck. Arianna Huffington called it “a wise, exciting, and life-changing book” that Paul Polman says “provides excellent practical guidance for all.”

Christian is an internationally-known expert in the areas of innovation, purpose-driven leadership, and serendipity. He is the director of the CGA Global Economy Program at NYU, and also teaches at the London School of Economics. He is a cofounder of Leaders on Purpose and the Sandbox Network, and a former director of LSE's Innovation Lab.

His work has been featured by outlets such as the Strategic Management Journal,Harvard Business Review, Forbes, The Guardian, Washington Post, and the BBC. He is member of the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Expert Forum, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and on the Thinkers50 Radar list of the 30 thinkers "most likely to shape the future.

In this podcast, he shares:

• His concept that luck (or serendipity) is not random, but can actually be cultivated
• Some of the specific characteristics and practices of organizations that are able to turn unexpected events, trends, market developments into opportunity
• Some really practical ways you can start generating more luck, for yourself, your life, and your organization

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"That...idea that we have to stick to the plan is something that...portrays authority, portrays the idea that we are reliable and dependable, but actually a lot of times it does the opposite in the end because we now have an incentive to hide numbers, to somehow try to figure out how we can tweak the budgets to still look good. And so actually from a performer perspective, we actually a lot of times do the opposite."

-Christian Busch

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Episode Timeline:

00:00—Introducing Christian+ The topic of today’s episode

2:23—What is your definition of strategy?

4:23—How did you get into the idea of serendipity?

5:28—How can serendipity be applied to business?

7:10—What are the barriers to seeing these opportunities that serendipity affords?

10:52—What are other leverage points to embed serendipity into a company's culture?

13:05—How companies can encourage or kill serendipity

21:30—What is something people get wrong?

17:40—Could you explain your concept of casting hooks?

19:04—How can people connect with you?

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Additional Resources:

Company Page: https://theserendipitymindset.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/chrisserendip

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/christianwbusch

*Note to listeners* This episode is part of a special sub-series on business ecosystems.

Tiffani Bova is the chief growth evangelist at Salesforce and the author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling book GROWTH IQ: Get Smarter About the Choices that Will Make or Break Your Business.

Tiffani has been named to the latest Thinkers50’s list of the world’s top management thinkers and is a welcomed guest on Bloomberg, BNN, Cheddar, MSNBC, and Yahoo Finance, among others. She also contributes her thinking to publications including Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Quora, Thrive, among others.

She is a change-maker who’s thought-provoking and forward-thinking insights have made her a frequent guest on a variety of industry-leading podcasts and live broadcasts.

Tiffani Bova began her career as a sales, marketing and customer service executive for startups and Fortune 500 companies where she was recognized as being one of the first to develop a robust go-to-market model for cloud-based solutions and indirect channel strategies. This experience brought her to Salesforce where she became global growth evangelist, driving customer success through a vast network of customer and partner ecosystems. She has consistently been a leader in witnessing, understanding and helping shape the relationship with ecosystems across various organizations. In this discussion, Tiffani shares her insights on:

In this podcast, she shares:

• What defines an ecosystem, and why it’s more common than you may think
• The history of ecosystems, as she witnessed them on the frontlines, and how the internet and digital technology have accelerated their prevalence
• A practical set of steps and questions to decide if an ecosystem is right for your company, where to draw value from it, and deciding how it will help close your gaps
• The importance of putting the customer first when making the decision to join an ecosystem
• The different types of relationships you can develop with partners in an ecosystem
• How ecosystems can become a significant part of your profitability—and why this is critical to your success

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"So, it has really been this interesting shift that kind of 2000, this chasm was crossed around opening up ecosystems to different kinds of partners as well, the opportunity to reach different kinds of customers in new ways through new channels."

-Tiffani Bova

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Episode Timeline:

00:00—Introducing Tiffani + The topic of today’s episode

1:58—What are your thoughts on the future of ecosystem-based competition?

5:28—How partnerships in ecosystems are different than traditional business partnerships

7:03—How the internet has changed ecosystems by connecting different players to customers

8:17—Are there more ecosystem-based companies now?

9:57—What are sources of competitive advantage of key success factors that companies need to add to their strategic toolkit in light of ecosystems becoming more prevalent?

15:54—What can you tell us about ecosystem players that just join an ecosystem, vs. have to do a lot of the heavy lifting to build it?

21:29—What are the first steps in evaluating how to enter an ecosystem?

23:00—Could you tell us about organizations that have started organizing themselves like ecosystems internally?

28:46—Thinking of how to build ecosystems regardless of your business or industry

30:09<

Whitney Johnson is the CEO of human capital consultancy WLJ Advisors, an Inc. 5000 2020 fastest-growing private company in America. She is an expert at helping high-growth organizations develop high-growth individuals, and recognized as one of the 50 leading business thinkers in the world (#14) as named by Thinkers50.

Having worked at Fortune 100 companies, been an award-winning equity analyst on Wall Street, invested with Harvard’s Clayton Christensen, and coached alongside the renowned Marshall Goldsmith, Whitney understands how companies work, how investors think, and how the best coaches coach–––all of which she brings to her work in coaching CEOs and CSuite executives. Whitney works with high growth venture-backed start-ups and Fortune 100 companies across a variety of sectors including consumer goods, technology, higher education and financial services. In 2017, she was selected from more than 16,000 candidates as a “Top 15 Coach” by Dr. Marshall Goldsmith.

She is an award-winning author, world-class keynote speaker, and frequent lecturer for Harvard Business School's Corporate Learning. She is a popular contributor to the Harvard Business Review, has 1.8 million followers on LinkedIn, where she was selected as a Top Voice in 2018, and her course on Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship has been viewed more than 1 million times.

Whitney joined us last year in our podcast as a guest speaker and she introduced us to how the S Curve or adoption curve can be applied to yourself and your career. But in her books so far, the S Curve was sort of a “supporting character.” Now, in her new book, Smart Growth, she puts the S Curve front and center and lays out with remarkable precision and clarity the milestones along that S Curve.

In this podcast, she shares:

• Points out that without landmarks, people literally walk around in circles
• Provides a map of six landmarks you can use to help you avoid walking around in circles in your career
• How to know if you have plateaued in your career or your business, and whether it's time to get uncomfortable or find a new adventure
• How to then know if you are the right next s-curve

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"And when you know where you are, you increase your capacity to grow and the more you grow, the more you can grow. And so, you can use this for yourself, if you're willing to grow yourself, then you're going to be able to grow your people. And if you can grow your people, then you can grow your organization"

-Whitney Johnson

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Episode Timeline:

00:00—Introducing Whitney + The topic of today’s episode

3:00—Why did you decide to write your third and newest book?

3:56—Could you unpack the metaphor from your book?

8:22—How can you know if you've plateaued, whether in your life or career?

10:45—How do you know if the next S Curve you're stepping on to is the right path?

12:28—Digging deeper into the "Explorer" phase of the S Curve

16:00—The sweet spot of the S Curve

18:05—How can you know when you've reached the mastery phase vs. you're actually just in the beginning phase?

20:10—Are there any last thoughts you'd like to share?

20:48—How can people connect with you?

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Additional Resources:

Email: [email protected]

Personal Website:

Verne Harnish is founder of the world-renowned Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO), with over 16,000 members worldwide, and chaired for fifteen years EO’s premiere CEO program held at MIT, a program in which he still teaches today.

Founder and CEO of Scaling Up, a global executive education and coaching company with over 200 partners on six continents, Verne has spent the past four decades helping companies scale up.

He’s the author of the bestseller Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, authored The Greatest Business Decisions of All Times for which Jim Collins wrote the foreword; and wrote Scaling Up (Rockefeller Habits 2.0) which has been translated into 22 languages and has won eight major international book awards including the prestigious International Book Award for Best General Business book. His latest book, Scaling Up Compensation, rocketed to the #1 HR book on Amazon.

Verne also chairs the annual ScaleUp Summits and serves on several boards including vice chair of The Riordan Clinic; co-founder and chair of Geoversity; and board member of the social venture Million Dollar Women, and is a private investor in many scaleups.

In this podcast, he shares:

• Several practical proven tips for designing your growth strategy
• How strategy has evolved over the last few decades and
• How to identify the right customer niche for you
• The key lesson for keeping competitors at bay
• Why you shouldn’t be designing strategy at the office, and where you should do it instead

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"We have the framework: right people doing the right things right. So, it’s figuring out the right things for people to do, and that those right things are different than what everyone else in your industry is doing. That is the essence of strategy: doing it different. "

-Verne Harnish

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Episode Timeline:

00:00—Introducing Verne + The topic of today’s episode

2:23—What is your definition of strategy?

4:02—What do you say to CEOs about going after a big market share vs. a niche market?

5:23—How can a company figure out what their niche is?

7:23—Examples of companies that have dominated their niche

8:22—How to "blackmail" a market

11:00—How have you seen the field of strategy evolve in the last few decades?

12:03—The importance of organizing a council

13:48—Why all great thinkers have a physical space for creative thinking

15:55—What is an important framework you'd highly recommend?

19:04—How can people connect with you?

16:55—How can people connect with you?

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Additional Resources:

Company Page: https://scalingup.com/verne-harnish/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/agilescaleup

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/verneharnish