The IVY Podcast

We're excited to connect you with Afdhel Aziz, globally renowned founder of the influential brand purpose consultancy firm Conspiracy of Love, to learn how to do away with outdated marketing models and embrace environmental, civic, and economic issues in a way that will grow our brand awareness and business, while still insisting on cutting-edge products with on-trend design.

Bringing in insights from a new generation of marketers, social entrepreneurs, and leaders of brands like Zappos and The Honest Company, as well as culture creators working with artists like Lady Gaga, Pharrell, and Justin Bieber, Aziz will chart a path for how to change a business and change the world for the better.

In this special conversation hosted by IVY CEO and YPO Metro NY Chapter Chair Beri Meric, we will explore Aziz’s 7 principles, ranging from “Treat People as Citizens, Not Consumers,” to “Lead with the Cool”--distilled from his new book Good Is The New Cool, to provide us with actionable steps toward a new business model for the twenty-first century

After a life-changing experience during the devastating tsunami in his native Sri Lanka, Aziz left a comfortable corporate job to focus on purpose. Now he works with Fortune 500 brands like Adidas, Facebook and Microsoft, focusing on the link between purpose and success, and how to revolutionize marketing to serve the increased social responsibility Gen Z and millennials demand from brands.

Join us with world-renowned author, entrepreneur, and 5-time CEO Margaret Heffernan for a thought-provoking conversation on how leaders can best navigate and shape our uncertain future.

We are addicted to prediction, desperate for certainty about the future. But the complexity of modern life won’t provide that; experts in forecasting are reluctant to look more than 400 days out. History doesn’t repeat itself and even genetics won’t tell you everything you want to know. Tomorrow remains uncharted territory, but Heffernan will enable us to learn how we can forge ahead with agility.

Drawing on a wide array of people and places, our conversation will trace long-term projects that shrewdly evolved over generations to meet the unpredictable challenges of every new age. Heffernan will also share radical exercises and experiments that redefined standard practices by embracing different perspectives and testing fresh approaches. We’ll see how preparing to confront a variable future provides the antidote to passivity and prediction.

Ranging freely through history and from business to science, government to friendships, this important conversation will challenge us to mine our own creativity and humanity for the capacity to create the futures we want and can believe in.

Heffernan's book Willful Blindness was named one of most important business books of the decade by the Financial Times. Following her career as the CEO of several multimedia companies, Heffernan has become one of the most influential thought leaders on organizational psychology and leadership topics working today, her TED talks having been seen by more than nine million people.

Join us with the legendary Bode Miller, the most decorated male skier in U.S. history with 33 World Cup wins, two overall titles, four world championships, and six Olympic medals, for an inspiring session on How to Perform & Keep Improving Like an Olympic Gold Medalist.

Bode Miller innovated a racing technique that was uniquely matched to his athletic strengths and fearless style. Miller’s risk-taking and keen ability to correct mistakes by adapting in real-time – at full speed – are characteristics that made him an unparalleled competitor on the world ski stage, and now as a disruptive entrepreneur and business leader who has collaborated with noteworthy apparel and ski companies including K2, Atomic, Kjus, Nike, Head Alpine Equipment, Fischer, Rossignol, and Bomber Ski.

The retired Olympic champion’s go-for-broke, risk-taking style is now breaking down barriers for the next generation of athletes by partnering with the Institute for Civic Leadership Academy to launch a Bode Miller Winter Sports Academy - a first-of-a-kind, full-time online private school for students who are pursuing outdoor sports. Miller is also a key voice in a groundbreaking new documentary, The Weight of Gold, which examines the mental health challenges endured by world-class athletes, and how stigmas around mental health and performance can be overcome.

In a dynamic conversation moderated by IVY CEO and YPO Metro NY Chapter Chair Beri Meric, Miller will share lessons from his tenacious career both on and off the slopes to help us navigate the most difficult sections in the course of our lives. This conversation will leave us inspired, motivated, and ready to perform like an Olympic gold medalist in our own organizations.

We're thrilled to invite you to join us with the legendary Kim Malone Scott, New York Times Bestselling Author and Former Google & YouTube Executive, to explore lessons from her own management experience and award-winning book, Radical Candor that is reshaping modern management.

Scott earned her stripes as a highly successful manager at Google and then decamped to Apple, where she developed a class on optimal management. She has earned growing fame in recent years with her vital new approach to effective management, the “radical candor” method. Radical Candor is about caring personally and challenging directly, about soliciting criticism to improve your leadership, and also providing guidance that helps others grow. It focuses on praise but doesn't shy away from criticism―to help you love your work and the people you work with.

In a wide-ranging conversation with IVY CEO and YPO Metro NY Chapter Chair Beri Meric, we’ll learn Scott’s three simple principles for building better relationships in the workplace: make it personal, get (sh)it done, and understand why it matters. Through actionable lessons, Scott will distill why radically candid relationships with team members enable bosses to fulfill their three core responsibilities: create a culture of Compassionate Candor, build a cohesive team, and achieve results collaboratively.

We’re thrilled to connect you with Dr. Kathryn D. Sullivan, the first American woman to walk in space, for an inspiring conversation about leadership, innovation, and humanity’s journey to the stars.

As a key member of the team that launched, rescued, and maintained the Hubble Space Telescope, Sullivan personally shepherded an innovation that has revolutionized our understanding of the universe, revealing thousands of new galaxies, planets and moons, transforming our knowledge of black holes, and allowing us to actually measure how fast the universe is expanding.

In a wide-ranging discussion, we’ll hear from Sullivan on how she approaches life and work, and what allowed her to succeed as one of the first six women to join NASA's storied astronaut corps. In addition to a fascinating insider’s look into what it’s like to travel and innovate in space, this conversation, moderated by IVY CEO and YPO Metro NY Chapter Chair Beri Meric, will be a wonderful opportunity to reflect on what sets great leaders apart, as well as the practical and symbolic import of the space frontier.

We are proud to connect you with John Mackey, legendary co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods and co-founder of the nonprofit Conscious Capitalism. This will be a deeply inspiring conversation that will challenge us to look past conventional business wisdom, and imagine a bright future with a thriving, purpose-driven, sustainable economy.

Mackey started a movement when he founded Whole Foods, bringing natural, organic food to the masses, leading his company to become a $15.7 billion Fortune 500 company with more than 460 stores and 87,000 team members in three countries. Mackey cut his pay to $1 in 2006 and continues to work for Whole Foods because of his passion for seeing the company exemplify a way of doing business that is grounded in ethical consciousness.

In an exclusive conversation moderated by IVY CEO and YPO New York Metro Chapter Chair Beri Meric, we’ll learn the critical takeaways from Mackey’s leadership journey, and his vision for a more innovative, value-based leadership—in business and in society. We’ll also distill the key lessons from his new book Conscious Leadership, and break down the strategies that have helped Mackey shepherd Whole Foods through four decades of incredible growth and innovation and become internationally renowned as one of the most inspiring business leaders of our time.

This conversation will be an empowering call to action for entrepreneurs and trailblazers to step up as leaders who see beyond the bottom line.

We’re excited to connect you with Jim Kwik, World’s #1 Brain Coach for Will Smith, Google, SpaceX, Nike, Virgin, Zappos, GE, Harvard, United Nations and more! A world-renowned expert in brain optimization, accelerated learning, and memory improvement, Jim will enable us to learn how we can all master the most powerful technology in the world and train our brains for optimal performance.

In this invaluable a conversation moderated by IVY CEO and YPO Metro NY Chapter Chair Beri Meric, we’ll learn specific techniques to form high-reward routines, break negative patterns, eliminate mental fog, vanquish the “super-villains” that hijack our attention and slow us down, and tap into an unlimited source of motivation in order to reach our goals.

Despite what others may have told us, and whatever our age or background, our potential is infinite when we know how to use your brain. For more than 25 years, Kwik has coached top CEOs, athletes and super-achievers from all walks of life to unlock their true capabilities with science-based practices and field-tested techniques. We hope you will join us for this once in a lifetime opportunity!

Join us for a crucial conversation on how we can revive dialogue in a polarized time with the legendary Irshad Manji, prize-winning professor, New York Times bestselling author, winner of Oprah's "boldness" award, and founder of the Moral Courage Project!

Manji believes America’s true founding genius is diversity of thought. Having experienced censorship and prejudice in her own life, Manji brings her experiences as a refugee from Africa, a Muslim immigrant to the U.S., and a scholar of moral courage to her passionate advocacy for turning disagreement into engagement.

In the United States, discord appears to be hitting emergency levels. Yet for Manji, it isn’t cultural or racial differences that make an enterprise more or less successful. "Honest diversity" recognizes that we are all multifaceted and worthy of being heard, not herded.

In a conversation moderated by IVY CEO and YPO Metro NY Chapter Chair Beri Meric, Manji will share key lessons to overcome tribalism and why we can never win by labeling those who disagree with us.

This will be a taboo-busting conversation about identity, power, and finding common ground even while standing one's ground. Together with Manji, we’ll chart a path for how to open the hearts of opponents for the sake of sustainable progress. 

We’re honored to invite you to connect and learn with legendary Harvard Business School Professor Frances Frei in a transformative conversation on How We Can All Become Better Leaders By Empowering Others!

Through inspiring stories from ancient Rome to Silicon Valley, we’ll discover the origins of great leadership, showing how the boldest, most effective leaders use a special combination of trust, love, and belonging to create spaces where other people can excel. You’ll leave with practical battle-tested tools—based on their work in companies such as Uber, Riot Games, and others--for unleashing greatness in other people and, ultimately, in yourself.

When leaders seek out advice, they’re often told to fix themselves. In this conversation, we’ll imagine a modern leader who succeeds not by turning inward to address their own strengths and flaws, but with an unrelenting focus on other people’s potential. We’ll dig into the key concepts from Frei's new book Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader’s Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You, in which Frei argues that the most important thing you can do as a leader is build others up. Leadership is about how effective you are at empowering other people—and making sure that this impact endures even in your absence.

Frei is a star professor at Harvard Business School, and recently served as Uber’s first SVP of Leadership and Strategy, helping the company navigate a very public crisis in leadership and culture. Frei is a world-renowned expert that has worked with early-stage tech founders to Fortune 50 executives to public-sector leaders.

We’re thrilled to invite you to connect with the world’s leading networking expert Keith Ferrazzi to learn how to master the future of work relationships! Keith is the NYT bestselling author of ‘Never Eat Alone’ and ‘Who’s Got Your Back’.

According to the legendary Peter Diamandis, Founder of XPrize, “Keith Ferrazzi is that rare speaker who combines an infectious energy with inspiration and great stories to lift the audience. No matter how engaged people are when they enter the room, Keith grabs their attention immediately and takes them on a ride where they will leave wanting not only to transform their teams, but transform their lives to be more honest, open and of service to others. I always know we’ll have an amazing experience when Keith speaks.”

The tools we have at our disposal have dramatically changed the ways in which we can work. No longer tied to a desk or even a location, we are now able to collaborate across countries and disciplines with only our imagination holding us back. With years of experience working for and with Fortune 500 companies, Keith is uniquely positioned to help our organizations transition from a top-down hierarchy focused on incremental growth and limited flexibility to one where innovation thrives as departments and disciplines work in concert to raise the entire organization higher. Though the course of our conversation, we’ll learn how to:

• Collaborate and align to make every team in your organization more responsive to the market and your customers
• Transform high-performing individuals into a high-impact team leaders that take responsibility for every member’s success
• Empower internal service and indirect sales teams to become trusted advisors who shape customer experience
• Turn your people leaders into coaches who work with the specific strength and style of each team member
• Grow large strategic accounts faster by aligning your sales ecosystem behind the deepening of key relationships