Few American cities have carried the weight of the past five years quite like Minneapolis. In the aftermath of George Floyd's murder, the city became a symbol of grief, reckoning, and the immense difficulty of rebuilding trust between police and community when both sides are carrying trauma. Leading an institution through that kind of transformation, in real time and under the world's watch, demands a rare combination of humility, resolve, and clarity of purpose.

In this episode, Dr. Antonio Oftelie sits down with Brian O'Hara, the first police chief appointed in Minneapolis after 2020 and now a distinguished fellow at the Rutgers Center on Public Security. O'Hara reflects candidly on what it took to restore pride and purpose among officers who felt abandoned, why returning to policing fundamentals and meeting community demands for change turned out to be the same goal, and how shifting culture—not just policy—required decision by decision, day by day work. He also speaks openly about leading through a relentless string of crises: the murder of Officer Jamal Mitchell, the Annunciation Catholic school shooting, and the disruption of Operation Metro Surge, when thousands of federal agents descended on the city. Together, they explore what steady, imperfect, and courageous leadership looks like through years that tested a city's soul.

The Chief Growth Officer Podcast has moved! You can now find the work continuing at The Bending Steel Podcast: Conversations with Leaders Shaping the Future with Dr. Antonio Oftelie, available now on your favorite podcast source.

In this special kickoff episode of Bending Steel, host Dr. Antonio Oftelie flips the script and becomes the guest. Interviewed by longtime collaborator Lauren Hirshon — Director of Learning and Development at Leadership for a Networked World at Harvard — the two explore the vision behind the podcast and why now is the time for bold ideas in the public and social sectors.

Together, they reflect on the urgent need for new frameworks, principles, and leadership tools in a world teetering between potential progress and persistent challenges. This introductory episode sets the tone for the season ahead — one designed to help leaders navigate complexity and drive meaningful change. 

Breakthrough outcomes often need a catalyst – a way to see not only challenges on the horizon, but also solutions that will make the world better. A case in point is the “Live Well San Diego” initiative in San Diego County California, which helped officials respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in novel ways and created a platform to improve equity and health in the future. 

In this episode, we’ll learn from Nick Macchione, Director of Health and Human Services for San Diego County, about his leadership experience during the pandemic, and how he and other leaders built the systems, structures, and overall collaboration of the Live Well San Diego Initiative.

Evolving an organization is easier said than done. The noise and distraction of a highly changeable and uncertain environment can make it a challenge to get much done at all, let alone stay focused on what matters or create new ways of doing things. As a leader, how can you harness this moment to drive positive change? How do you bring everyone—employees, customers, partners—along on that growth journey?

In this episode of the Chief Growth Officer Podcast Anaplan CEO Frank Calderoni, and Adobe CFO John Murphy discuss how to keep a company moving forward in a period where the safe play appears to be waiting out the storm.  These two transformational leaders share their tools and strategies to ensure their organizations continue on a successful trajectory.

Growth is one thing. Purposeful growth another. Can the two be linked? And what does it take to move not only an established firm but also its people to embrace the required change?  One thing is certain – it’s not easy. Can we learn how to approach purposeful growth by applying lessons learned from a top innovator?

In this episode of the Chief Growth Officer Podcast, Adobe CFO John Murphy discusses how he and his colleagues stay innovative by systematically working with customers to learn and sense what’s on the horizon, moving ideas through a framework that shakes out the winners from the losers, and harmonizing the organization’s capabilities and culture in order to best deliver results. 

The world is constantly changing and at a rapidly accelerating rate.  And a breakthrough technological transformation can quickly propel an organization into the future expanding its growth and financial capital exponentially.  How does a company continuously balance the need to drive innovation while at the same time managing the risk? How does a leader of an organization create the culture necessary to embrace rapid change? 

In this episode of the Chief Growth Officer Podcast, Don Allan, Executive Vice President and CFO of Stanley Black & Decker discusses the importance of the CFO as a Chief Transformation Officer.  He shares his thoughts on moving innovation along not only internally but also through partnerships and ecosystems. He discusses how his special forces teams are working to accelerate innovation while balancing both current and future demand. 

To effectively build capacity for future challenges and opportunities, leaders must often seek out new ways to co-create solutions through partnerships with other organizations, coalitions, and network-building. This form of collaboration is a keystone of Catalyst Miami, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to build social and economic mobility for individuals and families in Miami-Dade County.

In this podcast, Catalyst Miami CEO, Gretchen Beesing, opens up about the strides she’s made leading the organization, as well as how the organization is looking to take on the impact and inequities of climate change. Gretchen shares the organization’s unique approach to co-creating policy and outcome goals for the community and building a robust platform of services for the future. 

Leaders often need to shape their mission while balancing the demands of stakeholders, building a team that embodies this mission and ensuring the outcomes they seek remain in focus.  

For over 20 years, the mission of Joe Jones, Founder and CEO of the Center for Urban Families (CFUF), has been to invest in the whole family. His overarching goal has been to lift up and empower fathers and to ensure that they are receiving the guidance and resources they need to become and remain an integral part of their family. 

In this insightful podcast, Joe candidly shares his vision to “dismantle poverty” and opens up about some of the challenges he’s faced, barriers he’s had to break through and the valuable lessons he’s learned along the way. 

A major pivot in any organization takes time and unwavering commitment.  And it takes adaptive leadership to create an environment that can start and sustain transformation.

In this podcast episode, Kirsten Lodal, founder and former CEO of LIFT shares leadership insights on the organization’s transformational journey.  Kirsten started LIFT, a national nonprofit organization that works to break the cycle of poverty for young families, in 1996. As the organization evolved and grew over a decade, they wanted to improve their outcomes and impact – particularly around racial equity. As a result, Kirsten took a hard look at LIFT’s mission, practice model, and organizational design, and with her team built a model for the future.