The Sydcast

Who makes admissions decisions at the world’s elite universities? Luke Peña does. He is the Executive Director of Admissions and Financial Aid at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

Luke Peña’s life has been defined by education – whether during homeschooling in his younger years, watching his mom complete both college and medical school, or working in a variety of university admissions departments at Stanford and elsewhere. Luke understands what it takes to get into a top university b-school, and in this episode of TheSydCast he casts aside the opaque veil that is the Admissions process to explain what he looks for, why he looks for it, and what you can do to increase your odds of getting the call you’re dreaming of.

What do an Iraqi prison camp leader, a Naval Officer, a McKinsey consultant, a Tuck Business School graduate, and a single mom by choice all have in common? Meet Jen Tietz.

By the time Jen Tietz was 13-years-old she knew what she wanted to do: Go to university at the United States Naval Academy and enter a life of service. Strong-willed, smart, and driven by a need to achieve at the highest level, Jen’s story is a classic one of not settling for good enough. For anyone whose gone down this path, or would like to know what it takes to do it, this episode of The Sydcast will provide the road map. Except, along the way, things sometimes change. Discoveries are made, failures are challenged, and people grow and change in ways they might never have thought possible. Jen’s story is all of this, a very human story, and as a result her story holds some key lessons for all of us.

To play a sport is to have fun, whether recreationally or professionally. But competition can also drive us to take risks, sometimes with catastrophic consequences. Meet Rick Greenwald, one guy who is out to make sports safer for all.

Have you ever seen the aerialists at the Winter Olympics? Those skiers who launch themselves off massive jumps flipping and twisting enough to make the viewer get a little dizzy? Well, Rick Greenwald saw these athletes too, and wanted to know what happens when a landing comes in hard, or worse. Rather than assume what was happening, Rick - a PhD scientist in Bioengineering and founder of the company Simbex - started to collect and analyze the data. And use that data to gain insight to what protective gear any athlete might need to compete in their chosen sport. Rick still plays, and coaches in his favorite sport (soccer), so his work is really his passion. Today on The Sydcast we talk to Rick Greenwald about sports, injuries in sports, and how to prevent those injuries without taking away the love of the game.

Audiobook narrator and pitbull trainer: two careers, one person. How'd that happen?

Sarah Mollo-Christensen is unique. She is a vocal performer in a way many people are familiar, but know very little about. She narrates audiobooks - all genres. It’s an art, an acting performance, and Sarah tells us all about it. She even mentions her work in some more risqué books and what it’s like to act under a pseudonym. If you've ever listened to a book on Audible or even the old-fashioned way on CDs (no, I will not mention audiotape), wouldn't it be interesting to take a peek behind the curtain to see what's really going on?

Now, if that isn’t unique enough, consider Sarah's other career: her work as a professional trainer - specializing in pitbulls, no less - for some of New York City’s wealthiest dog owners. It's probably a career you barely knew existed, isn't it? An engaging personality, at once thoughtful and dynamic, Sarah discusses her time in the world of dogs and how she's blended this work with narrating books. 

On the Sydcast we interview unique and inspiring people. Like Sarah.

Doctor, Policy Maker, CEO, and President. These are just some of the titles that Joanne Conroy has held during her medical career. Whether she was working as an anesthesiologist in South Carolina or helping to write the Affordable Care Act, she has impacted the world of healthcare in many ways. Now as the leader of the largest employer in the state of New Hampshire, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, she has to figure out how to operate at a world-class level every day. Second tries don't work so well in medicine. On this episode of the Sydcast, we discuss the intricacies of running a hospital and the direction of some of the most pressing problems in medicine. Joanne’s knowledge and leadership experience make her the ideal guide to help us get behind the curtain to see what really goes on in a hospital. It's a powerful journey that anyone who has ever been to a doctor will want to hear about.

When you walk into Toronto Blue Jays CEO Mark Shapiro's office, you see white boards with notes and lists on leadership, motivation, and winning. Some courtesy of New Zealand's famed All-Blacks Rugby Team and some that Mark has developed himself. Mark is one of those rare leaders who has immersed himself into what works and what doesn't in the wild world of leadership, where anyone can call themselves a guru but few can back it up. And to do so in professional sports, dominated by analytics, with endless pressure to just win, well, that's something I was interested in. In this episode of The Sydcast, Mark and I talk about all this, as well as the particular challenges that come from competing in the same baseball division as two of the wealthiest teams (NY Yankees and Boston Red Sox) that have the resources to regularly buy top talent that the Blue Jays can't. 

It’s Major League Baseball’s All-Star Week, so what could be better than slapping on your headphones to listen to Mark and I talk about where advantage comes from in a world where just about everyone has the same information yet your ability to develop world-class talent is nonetheless the single most important determinant of the bottom line - getting to the World Series, and winning it.

How, and why, does a military vet flying helicopters in the Middle East transition to owning an iconic diner in rural New England?

If your town or neighborhood has a coffee shop, diner, or local hangout that everyone knows then you already know about Lou's. Sometimes a place like Lou's even becomes an institution - local movers and shakers couldn't make a deal without first having breakfast there, Dartmouth College students couldn't imagine spending four years in Hanover, NH and not going there, and local kids coming back to visit make sure they meet up there. But have you ever gone behind the scenes, talked to the person who owns the place, and spent some time to understand why he's chosen to be there? What his story is? Well, we did. Jarett Berke is the 4th owner of Lou's since its founding in 1947, and has a backstory you might not be expecting. Graduate of the Naval Academy and one of the top MBA programs in the world, a helicopter pilot flying ops all over Africa and the Middle East, and a young officer with responsibility for the lives of the men who served under him. On this episode of The Sydcast we talk to Jarett about his journey, and even manage to sample one of those amazing Lou's crullers that would even give Dominique Ansel a run for his money. So, grab a cup of coffee and pull up a chair. 

You know there’s something to Jessica Wolf when you learn she’s entering Columbia’s Executive MBA program only 5 years after graduating college. Then you discover that she started a company designed to disrupt how high-end real estate in New York City is marketed to buyers and that she’s a 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30. And don’t forget to add into the mix another venture that curates invitation-only events around the world for entrepreneurs, academics, athletes, artists, astronauts, authors, chefs, explorers, philanthropists, spiritual leaders, and scientists, among others. Don’t you love talking to people who just make things happen, and never seem to stop? That’s Jessica Wolf. So, after talking lots about millennials, The Sydcast now goes to the quintessential millennial to find out what makes these hyper tech-savvy, entrepreneurial and fearless young leaders tick.

How much does parenting make a difference for a kid's success? Does it really matter which college you go to? How can we get more kids to graduate college? These are the questions my guest on The Sydcast this week has spent years digging into to. Bruce Sacerdote, a prominent economist and professor at Dartmouth College who you may have read about in The New York Times, among other places, goes about answering these questions the old-fashioned way. Like a detective who studies the facts to get at the truth, Bruce digs into the data to provide insights on topics that almost everyone cares about. In this week’s episode of The Sydcast, we learn all about Bruce, some of the questions he asks and answers he finds, and even a few stories about sunken Spanish shipwrecks loaded with treasures.

This is Tony Awards season honoring the best on Broadway, so who better to talk to on The Sydcast then the acclaimed author of Wicked – Gregory Maguire. Listen in as I talk to Gregory about the creative process, where meaning and motivation come from, how our past shapes our present and future, and how a book becomes one of the most successful Broadway shows in history (one of the three highest grossing of all time). Gregory is wonderful to talk to because he is not only extraordinarily articulate but he is also emotionally with us in a way that perhaps only our closest friends might be. When you clip on your earbuds to tune in you’ll see what I mean – a man intellectually and intimately engaged with his audience. Gregory Maguire.