In this week’s Thought Sparks Podcast episode, Rita McGrath, a Columbia University Business School Professor, C-Suite strategist, business founder and best-selling author, welcomes Sylvia Acevedo,  a trailblazer with experience spanning NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to executive roles at Apple, Dell, and IBM, and serving as the CEO of the Girl Scouts.  

1:56: The Trailblazer’s Playbook: From a Dirt Road Town to NASA and the C-Suite 

4:33: Sylvia’s Origins: A Girl Scouts Model Rocket and Lessons in Failure 

8:31: Breaking Big Goals into Smaller Pieces 

11:25: “Don’t Leave a Cookie Sale Until You Hear No 3 Times”: Lessons in Tenacity from the Girl Scouts 

14:01: “Girls Like You Don’t Go to College”: Becoming One of the First Hispanics to Earn a Graduate Engineering Degree from Stanford 

18:06: Innovating Above and Beyond at IBM 

21:23: A Mental Checklist to Reach the C-Suite 

30:50: Building Back Better after Failure at Autodesk 

33:58: “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There”: The Link Between Personal and Professional Growth 

36:58: Family Tragedy, and Sylvia’s Transition from Technology to Education 

39:05: The Power of Influence in Changing Opinion 

42:09: Leading the Girl Scouts: Empowering Girls in Civics, Technology, and Entrepreneurship 

46:11: Historically Women’s Colleges and the Girl Scouts: The Role of Single-Gender Spaces 

48:49: Leadership in Chip Manufacturing 

53:07: The Story of Sylvia’s Name, and Bilingual Systems Thinking 

54:46: The Power of Taking Even Small Actions 

Thought Sparks are the brainchild of Rita McGrath. They are insightful actions, strategic ideas, actionable suggestions and innovative approaches that help organizations and leaders master the future with less fear and more confidence.  

New episodes of the Thought Sparks Podcast are released every other Tuesday at 11am Eastern.  

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