The Sydcast

Episode Summary

Climate change is here, from wildfires to hurricanes and a gradual rise in temperatures. Carbon offsets have become prominent weapons in the war against climate change, but what does it really mean in practice? And on the ground in Brazil? Maron Greenleaf is an anthropologist studying these very questions. What is she learning about the economics, science, and politics that underpin the battle for global sustainability?

Sydney Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Maron Greenleaf

Maron Greenleaf is a sociocultural anthropologist, political ecologist, and legal scholar studying climate change, forests, and green economies. Maron is completing an ethnographic book manuscript on carbon offsets in the Brazilian Amazon and is starting new research on reforestation in post-industrial England. She also co-founded Dartmouth’s Energy Justice Clinic, where she works with community partners and Dartmouth students to understand and support socially just transitions to renewable energy. Maron holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Stanford University, a JD from New York University, and a BA in Political Science from Yale University. She is an Assistant Professor in Dartmouth College’s Department of Anthropology.

Insights from this episode: 

• Maron becoming a professor
• Maron’s Buddhist practice and how it helped spark interest in sustainability
• Maron’s life growing up
• Growing up in a Buddhist home in America
• Developing interest in anthropology
• Insights into carbon offsets
• Maron’s work in Brazil
• Concerns of creating concerns

Quotes from the show:

• “I went to law school with the intention of studying carbon markets, and how markets and law could address this looming crisis” —Maron Greenleaf [8:38]
• “One thing my parents taught me, I think this does come from the Buddhist tradition, is that boredom is okay. It’s okay to be bored and out of boredom comes a lot of creativity and self-sufficiency” —Maron Greenleaf [11:45]
• “It was (Buddhist practice) very nurturing and the kind of basic teaching was that everyone is basically good, but there’s inherent desire to live a good life” —Maron Greenleaf [12:34]
• “One way for a company to reduce or eliminate their emissions is through, actually, polluting less, but another way is through buying offsets so that other people pollute less” —Maron Greenleaf [25:27]
• “Forests are not empty of people, even though they are often imagined to be. In fact, hundreds of millions of people are connected to tropical forests” —Maron Greenleaf [31:42]
• “They (Brazilians and their ancestors) spent a lot of time in the forest, and so, they understand that the forests can be very valuable economically: so they don’t really want to deforest, but that’s the only way that they have been able to make money” —Maron Greenleaf [41:36]
• “That book is an account of what I have been talking about. It’s not optimistic in a lot of ways, but I think understanding the way the efforts to create green economies have worked so far, their limitations, but also their successes (…) I think that can help inform the measures that are going to be taken in the future” —Maron Greenleaf [43:20]

Stay connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Maron Greenleaf

Website: Maron Greenleaf – Anthropology and Environment Society

Twitter: Maron Greenleaf 

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary

Two women – one studying economics with her own fashion line (Avalux) and a member of the US 2020 Olympic team in rugby, the other a first-generation low-income Latina college student in bioengineering looking to increase representation in academia while studying developmental genetics in women’s health. An up-close conversation with Olympian Ariana Ramsey and aspiring PhD student Samantha Carranza, on The Sydcast.

Sydney Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Ariana Ramsey

Ariana Ramsey was born in Philadelphia and raised outside the King of Prussia. She is an Economics major at Dartmouth College and a Division I Women’s Rugby team member. She recently was named and participated in the 2020 Olympic Games on Tokyo's Women’s USA Rugby team. 

Samantha Carranza

Sam is a senior at Dartmouth College pursuing her Bachelor of Arts in Engineering Sciences and her Bachelor of Engineering in Biological Engineering. On campus, she’s a QuestBridge Scholar and dedicates much of her time to advocating for equity and inclusivity in the spaces she takes part. Upon graduating, she aspires to obtain her Ph.D. in biological engineering with a focus on developmental genetics in women’s health. As a first-generation low-income Latina, her ultimate goal is to increase representation and equity in academia while making impactful contributions to the biological field.

Insights from this episode: 

• Samantha and Ariana’s lives growing up
• Samantha’s experience at Dartmouth College
• How their parents impacted their lives
• How Samantha found a support group in college
• How Ariana started playing rugby 
• Joining the Olympic team
• Building resilience in their lives 
• Discrimination in campus
• Ariana's entrepreneurial journey

Quotes from the show:

• “When we think about what these great schools can do for students, for young people, when we bring in more people that have not had all kinds of advantages, the first kids in their families to go to university, the impact, the depth of that impact is really gigantic” —Syd Finkelstein [2:47]
• “I have always known that I wanted to go to college and my mom, she has always encouraged me to go, and my father always encouraged me to go, as well as my grandparents” —Ariana Ramsey [13:36]
• “That year of training, 5 hours a day, is crucial for improvement and development. I think that applies to anything that people are trying to accomplish. If you put those hours in every day, daily for every week, I think you can really accomplish a lot” —Ariana Ramsey [16:44]
• “It’s because of those people who came from backgrounds like mine, who came before me that I have the opportunity to be in a school like this, and I have the opportunity to do things I do and to engage in all these activities on campus” —Samantha Carranza [21:02]
• “It’s so hard for me to address what the actual discrimination is because it’s so deeply ingrained that you can’t really put it into words” —Ariana Ramsey [25:41]
• “One thing I think that is very prominent here that people don’t talk about is the implication behind the beauty standards of being a woman of color around this campus. I feel like being a woman of color on this campus means that we are held to much different almost more intense beauty standards than white women. It’s really unfortunate” —Samantha Carranza [27:20]
• “It’s really remarkable how just having someone that looks or acts or behaves or thinks the way you do makes such a difference” —Syd Finkelstein [38:51]

Stay connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Ariana Ramsey

Website: https://arianaramsey.com

Instagram: Ariana Ramsey

Samantha Carranza

LinkedIn: Samantha Carranza

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary

University students and Covid. Scholar-athletes fighting to preserve their sport in a diminished resource environment during Covid. African-American students willing to have the “uncomfortable” conversations with classmates, professors, and administrators. Competing to get better every day. Kevin Boyce from Brown University, on The Sydcast.

Sydney Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Kevin Boyce 

Born and Raised in Columbus, Ohio, Kevin Boyce is a Brown student. He most recently graduated undergrad studying Business, Entrepreneurship, and Organizational studies and intends to complete his master's in Public Affairs this spring. He is a sprinter on Brown’s track and field team doing his college career. Outside of Track, he has also been involved in community building and advocacy for marginalized communities at Brown, most recently serving as a staffer for the Brown Center for Students of Color and having been appointed to Brown’s Anti-Black Racism Task Force, whose goal was to best address how the university handles issues of racism in a way that reflects Brown’s mission of education, scholarship, and service to society.

Insights from this episode: 

• The impact of Kevin’s classes on his life
• Diversity in campus
• Kevin’s life on campus
• Studying during COVID-19
• Kevin’s copying mechanisms during COVID-19
• The importance of setting boundaries
• What it takes to be a fast learner
• Kevin’s definition of winning

Quotes from the show:

• “It (studying during COVID-19) was such a chaotic experience just particularly the way that everything unfolded so fast” —Kevin Boyce [15:19]
• “For me personally, it was hard to not be as active as I had been. I had to find new ways to be active” —Kevin Boyce [18:24]
• “It was still nice to have some sort of social interactions. I personally appreciated and appreciate my friends a lot more than I have before. I am not saying I didn’t appreciate them, but we really take that for granted when you have it and it’s taken away from you” —Kevin Boyce [20:26]
• “Sprinting in particular is a very technical experience. It’s not just going out there and just running as fast as you can. A lot of it is form, a lot of it is positioning of your body, a lot of it is general strength” —Kevin Boyce [26:28]
• “For me personally, and I think for a lot of people on the team, it’s not always just about being the very best of the best, but what it’s about is just being better incrementally each and every day. I go to practice every single day just trying to be a little better than I was the day before, a little better than I was the week before, and that progress gets me to be able to win” —Kevin Boyce [30:38]
• “I just think that in general if you know you are not going to be the very best of the best, you have to 1) believe that you can be and 2) work to get incrementally better every single day” —Kevin Boyce [33:19]
• “We as a community need to have conversations that do make us feel a little uncomfortable from time to time” —Kevin Boyce [42:42]
• “I think that putting ourselves in a position to have uncomfortable conversations allows us to really have the progress we seek to make as a collective group, as a human race in general” —Kevin Boyce [43:25]

Stay connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Kevin Boyce 

Twitter: Kevin Boyce

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary

Diversity in the workplace is top-of-mind for my MBA students and senior leaders alike. In this episode of The Sydcast, I want to profile one organization that’s on the front lines, creating opportunities for women in particular to fulfill their career potential. Kristy Wallace, up until very recently head of the Ellevate network, talks about unequal pay between men and women, transparency at work, imposter syndrome, and how to help women in the workforce break through these barriers.

Sydney Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Kristy Wallace

Kristy Wallace is the former CEO of Ellevate Network, where she was responsible for executing Ellevate Network’s mission to close the gender achievement gap in business by providing professional women with a global community to lean on and learn from. She directed the Network’s staff, was responsible for business growth and strategy and worked closely with Ellevate's chapter leaders, business partners, and champions to further Ellevate's impact. She stepped down as CEO in July 2022 to pursue new opportunities. 

Insights from this episode: 

• Details about Ellevate network
• Kristy’s thoughts on the stakeholder capitalism idea
• Effects of COVID-19 on employees
• What a social movement is
• Insights into activism
• How we can impart change in the world
• Differences between women and men in the workplace
• Diversity in the workplace
• Why women are still being paid less in the workplace
• Overcoming the imposter syndrome

Quotes from the show:

• “As we go through our career, oftentimes the people within our networks might not have the expertise or the insights that we need” —Kristy Wallace [9:36]
• “As a leader myself, I recognize that the greatest strength for us as a business is our employees” —Kristy Wallace [16:50]
• “Each of us individually do have some degree of agency, some power, some influence. If a billion people speak up and start talking, and caring, and asking, more progress could be made” —Syd Finkelstein [19:49]
• “I think if people believe that they actually have the opportunity to make a difference, even as one individual, I think it would be a big thing” —Syd Finkelstein [26:48]
• “What women bring to the workplace is diversity” —Kristy Wallace [29:13]
• “I think as humans: always best intent, always hold yourself accountable, create trust in lines of communication” —Kristy Wallace [47:03]
• “Always stay curious. What I mean by that is just continue to learn and grow as a human, as a leader, and look out for inspiration everywhere in life” —Kristy Wallace [54:33]

Stay connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Kristy Wallace

LinkedIn: Kristy Wallace 

Twitter: Kristy Wallace (@kristyawallace) 

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary

Cannabis is booming. Whether for medicinal or recreational purposes, more and more US states have legalized the business. How did we get here and where are we going next? A conversation with cannabis insider Chris Walsh on regulation, public policy, market growth, and which established industries will be the first to enter the game.

Sydney Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Chris Walsh 

Chris served as the founding editor of Marijuana Business Daily during the company’s launch in 2011, becoming the first journalist in the United States to focus exclusively on covering the business of cannabis. As CEO, he now guides the company's strategic vision and its sister publication – Hemp Industry Daily – while educating mainstream industries about the marijuana and hemp sectors. Chris has been quoted as one of America’s foremost cannabis industry analysts by dozens of media outlets, including Harvard Business Review, NPR, CNBC, and the New York Times. He earned an MBA in international business from Regis University.

Insights from this episode: 

• How Chris got involved in the cannabis industry
• Insights into the cannabis industry
• The evolution of the cannabis industry
• Differences between the U.S and Canadian markets
• The biggest companies in the US market
• Differences in the growing and development of cannabis

Quotes from the show:

• “When it comes to cannabis, every state in the US has done it (regulations) completely differently” —Chris Walsh [8:18]
• “For many years, when the industry first started to flourish 10/11 years ago, you couldn’t really expand out of state, and you couldn’t really expand outside your city. A lot of the companies were very locally based” —Chris Walsh [9:57]
• “That variety of mechanisms to grow and create a national footprint completely depends on ways to deal with the various state regulations” —Syd Finkelstein [12:22]
• “The U.S market is still growing and is growing rapidly. It actually hit records during COVID” —Chris Walsh [15:12]
• “This industry has professionalized because it’s regulated. It’s still very controversial the types of regulation, but it’s professionalized now, and the latest wave is mainstream professionals coming into the industry” —Chris Walsh [20:49]
• “As an industry gets bigger, and certainly as it becomes more national and there are more choices for consumers, it’s hard to figure out what the right one is. If a doctor is prescribing it, it’s one thing, but if it is recreational, it’s a whole another story” —Syd Finkelstein [25:38]
• “There is plenty of research that shows that in states that have legalized cannabis, opioid abuse has gone down” —Chris Walsh [38:18]
• “It has created hundreds of thousands of jobs. It creates business opportunities, it creates tax money, that if used effectively, can go to schools and roads, and we’ve seen that in many states, and can revive communities” —Chris Walsh [54:09]

Stay connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Chris Walsh 

LinkedIn: Chris Walsh 

MJ Biz Twitter: MJBiz (@MJBizDaily) 

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary

The Music Cognition Lab at Princeton University is where researchers study why we love music, how we process while listening, why we like what we like, and countless other creative questions that combine music, cognitive science, and neuroscience. Our guest on this episode of The Sydcast is the scholar and creative force behind the Lab, Professor (and pianist) Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis.

Sydney Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis

Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis, author of On Repeat: How Music Plays the Mind and The Psychology of Music: A Very Short Introduction, directs the Music Cognition Lab at Princeton University. Her research uses theoretical, behavioral, and neuroimaging methodologies to investigate the dynamic, moment-to-moment experience of listeners without special musical training. She was also trained as a pianist.

Insights from this episode: 

• How Elizabeth got into music cognition
• How music is connected to our cognitive state
• How long it took Elizabeth to write a book
• Insights into repetition in musical listening
• How repetition affects our musical tastes
• How people use music for pleasure
• Similarities between ritual and the repetitive aspect of music
• Effect of adolescence on people’s musical preferences

Quotes from the show:

• “I genuinely feel very comfortable in situations where I have less expertise or people have more experience in a certain area than me. I find that very energizing and exciting” –Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis [8:00]
• “There are all kinds of music, and there are types of music that expressly try to avoid this kind of repetition, as they are trying to explore another aspect” –Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis [18:50]
• “The expectations you have while you listen are important because you need to be familiar enough to generate these expectations” –Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis [23:16]
• “People use music for all these kinds of purposes including mood regulation, sports preparation. You can find untold, enumerable playlists on Spotify whose title is about some function” –Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis [25:46]
• “I think there is something about the way ritual often has this repetitive aspect is connected to music’s repetitive qualities as well” –Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis [27:22]
• “Actually, one of the best ways to teach language is through music” –Syd Finkelstein [28:29]
• “We know that adolescence is the period in life that’s most relevant to setting a person’s musical preferences: so people are seeking out new stuff and discovering it and choosing it actively as adolescents” –Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis [36:50]
• “That’s part of why you get people’s music preferences in their profiles on dating apps and what not: it’s because people really do feel like there’s something about their identity that resides in these kinds of aesthetics and preferences ” –Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis [40:25]

Stay connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis

Website: Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis 

Twitter: Elizabeth Margulis 

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary

Gina Bianchini is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and founder of Mighty Networks, a platform for creators (of anything) to build out and monetize their content. As a past business partner with legendary entrepreneur and investor Marc Andreessen, Gina has deep roots in startup culture. Who is Gina Bianchini, what is Mighty Networks, and what’s it like to be a female entrepreneur in Silicon Valley in the age of Elizabeth Holmes?

Sydney Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Gina Bianchini

Gina Bianchini is the Founder & CEO of Mighty Networks. Her mission at Mighty Networks is to usher in a new era of creative business built on community. Mighty serves “creators with a purpose,” selling experiences, relationships, and expertise to their members via community, content, online courses, and subscription commerce–all offered in one place under the creator’s brand. 

Before Mighty Networks, Gina and Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen launched Ning, a pioneering global platform for creating niche social networks. Under her leadership, Ning grew to ~100 million people in 300,000 active social networks across subcultures, professional networks, entertainment, politics, and education. 

In addition to Mighty Networks, Gina serves as a board director of TEGNA (NYSE: TGNA), a $3 billion dollar broadcast and digital media company, and served as a board director of Scripps Networks (NASDAQ: SNI), a $12 billion dollar public company which owns HGTV, The Food Network, and The Travel Channel that merged with Discovery Communications in 2018. 

Gina and Mighty Networks have been featured in Fast Company, Wired, Vanity Fair, Bloomberg, and The New York Times. She has appeared on Charlie Rose, CNBC, and CNN. She grew up in Cupertino, California, graduated with honors from Stanford University, started her career in the nascent High Technology Group at Goldman Sachs & Co., and received her M.B.A from Stanford Business School.

Insights from this episode: 

• Details about Mighty Networks
• Why it is important to bring communities together
• Details on how private communities can help build connections 
• How creators build their communities
• The importance of creating valuable communities
• How Gina created online courses on Mighty Networks 
• Where Gina’s initial idea for Mighty Networks came from
• How Gina’s childhood shaped her into building communities
• Insights into building sustainable relationships
• Lessons Gina learned from Mark Anderson
• Gina’s experience as a female entrepreneur in Silicon Valley

Quotes from the show:

• “The world needs community innovation, and specifically software that makes each and every one of us better” –Gina Bianchini [8:06]
• “What motivates me as an entrepreneur and a human being is there is all sorts of things that software can do that we have not built yet” –Gina Bianchini [10:02]
• “The things that make us human are our interests, our passions, and our goals. The things that we are curious about, following that curiosity and doing it alongside people because that is the single best way to build relationships ” –Gina Bianchini [23:55]
• “We are social animals that are meant to live in communities with other people, and communities are the single best path to us being able to realize our full potential and live the lives we wanna live” –Gina Bianchini [25:53]
• “When I started Mighty, it was all about how do we continue the mission of unlocking a host ability to create not just an innovative community, but an innovative online business as well” –Gina Bianchini [29:53]
• “Innovation comes from the blending and bringing together teams of people that represent science and art” –Gina Bianchini [36:19]
• “Life’s not fair and winning matters. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, but winning matters, and the winners get to define what the culture is” –Gina Bianchini [39:41]
• “I fundamentally believe that each and every one of us as human beings are multifaceted, and that the happiest most fulfilling life is one where we have our core values and that we can then experiment and try new things and evolve and live out different parts of our lives in different ways” –Gina Bianchini [42:51]

Stay connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Gina Bianchini

LinkedIn: Gina Bianchini 

Instagram: Gina Bianchini 

Twitter: Gina Bianchini 

Mighty Networks’ website: Mighty Networks

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary

Boarding school. Enrichment and personal growth experiences. A supportive community. Natalie Tung is creating all of this … for black and brown high school girls in Trenton. The idea took shape while Natalie was at Princeton and reflected on her own experience growing up in Hong Kong. Now, just a few years later, she’s hit the tipping point. Meet the budding “Sal Kahn” for minority high-school girls.

Sydney Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Natalie Tung

Natalie is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of HomeWorks Trenton, a free community-based after-school boarding program. Growing up in a numbers-driven public school system in Hong Kong, Natalie had an unhealthy relationship with learning. This relationship changed when she had the opportunity to attend a boarding school in New Jersey. More importantly, living with 40 girls at such a young age empowered her to become more empathetic and confident, and these women are still her support system today. While earning her teaching certificate as a sophomore at Princeton University, Natalie started HomeWorks with the idea of replicating this experience for girls in marginalized communities around the world. Since 2016, she has run five programs with 50 participants, raised over $1.9 million in cash and in-kind donations, and built a diverse team of 6 full-time and five part-time staff, board members, interns, and volunteers. Natalie and HomeWorks have been recognized by McKinsey & Company, Camelback Ventures, Barclays, Comcast, Hollister, TRESemmé, Echoing Green, Vital Voices, Penn Graduate School of Education, Princeton University, and more.

Insights from this episode: 

• Details about HomeWorks Trenton program
• The problem HomeWorks Trenton is seeking to solve
• How Natalie’s school experience shaped her
• Natalie’s conviction to help women of color
• How HomeWorks Trenton program is aligned to Natalie’s mission
• Partners she has worked with to equip her scholars and make them ready for college
• Natalie’s challenges running the program
• Natalie’s aspiration for HomeWorks

Quotes from the show:

• “What we are doing here is not only replicating a boarding school and bringing it to public schools and with all the benefits of the wrap-around learning and all that, but also doing so in a way that reverses the narrative that our kids need to leave their communities to be successful.”–Natalie Tung [6:29]
• “At the core of what we are doing, we are creating a community specifically for our black and brown girls here in Trenton to reclaim power over their cultures, identities, and experiences.“ –Natalie Tung [6:41]
• “I truly believe in the power of women. I believe that when women come together and when we really are at the forefront of things, magic happens” –Natalie Tung [17:39]
• “I was in a community of women who were my age, and just being able to live with so many different kinds of girls and to be vulnerable with each other at the age of 13/14, it was such a unique experience. It did make me more confident” –Natalie Tung [18:40]
• “Our values are intentionality, empathy, and community. Something that we are trying to do is making sure that we are being intentional about every single thing we do at HomeWorks, every decision, every policy we have” –Natalie Tung [22:48]
• “We want to build a culture where our kids feel safe, where they are here to grow. We all make mistakes but we are here to learn and just feel like we have each other's backs” –Natalie Tung [23:03]
• “I very much believe in the power of women and I very much believe in the power of community, and I know a lot of other who people believe in it too” –Natalie Tung [33:24]
• “I think the beauty about HomeWorks and about our team is that we have a really diverse group of people within our staff” –Natalie Tung [43:28]

Stay connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Natalie Tung

LinkedIn: Natalie Tung 

Instagram: Natalie Tung 

HomeWorks Trenton Website: https://www.homeworkstrenton.org/

HomeWorks Trenton Brochure: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/62642925/homeworks-trenton-pamphlet

HomeWorks Trenton Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOjhQRJT7Vg

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary

“Knowing the history of my family, knowing what my grandparents decided to do, changed my life.” On this episode of The Sydcast, a story of Hispanic culture in America and how Marcela Gómez connected the dots in a way that others seldom did. Her journey, from Bogota, Colombia to Miami, Atlanta, Nashville, and New York City.

Sydney Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Marcela Gómez

A native of Bogotá, Colombia, Marcela graduated from high school in Charlotte, North Carolina, and earned a bachelor’s degree in advertising from Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano in Bogotá. Following graduation, Marcela moved to Miami, Florida to work as an advertising coordinator with Editorial Unilit and as a member of Expolit’s (Spanish-language Christian literature trade show) leadership team. In 1996 she joined Thomas Nelson Publisher’s Spanish language division in Nashville, Tennessee as a sales representative and later was promoted to marketing director.

Her life as an entrepreneur started in 2002 with Hispanic Marketing Group; in 2017, she became a founding partner of the Culture Shift Team. Marcela has also been a partner and investor in other entrepreneurship ventures, most recently with Mi Tribu, an import and retail business of arts and crafts handmade by disenfranchised women in Latin American countries.

Miss Gómez specializes in connecting effectively with the diverse and continuously changing Multicultural markets, helping Culture Shift Team clients understand the diversity of the U.S. consumer. Marcela has worked with packaged goods companies, universities, public utilities, consumer, corporate, nonprofit, and business-to-business clients in wireless, sports, transportation, education, government, banking and finance, food, healthcare, and the arts. She plays a key role in developing multicultural and multilingual marketing, communications, and grassroots campaigns, from conception and brand development to production.

In early 2021 she relocated to New York City, where she continues to lead the multicultural marketing, advertising, and public relations division of the Culture Shift Team. 

She enjoys traveling, films, theater, ballet, opera, and symphony. She is a member of the National Speakers Association New York City Chapter, the Statewide Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey, the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, the NYC Hispanic Chamber, and PRSA New York City. Marcela has a 31-year-old son, Esteban Pedraza, an award-winning film director and musician residing in New York City.

Insights from this episode: 

• Marcela Gómez’s life growing up
• How her grandmother has shaped her view of life
• How her life experiences influenced her career
• Marcela moving back to the U.S from Bogota
• Why she moved to Nashville
• How the Hispanic marketing group came to be
• Overcoming imposter syndrome
• The importance of diversity in board members
• What led Marcela to the cultural shift

Quotes from the show:

• “My mother was actually fully bilingual. My mother had had the chance to go to high school in Atlanta, Georgia, so we grew up fully bilingual, not only because my mother would speak to us in English at home but because we were going to fully bilingual schools in Bogota” –Marcela Gómez [6:18]
• “We asked nanny [Marcela’s grandmother] why did she say yes to come to the U.S, and she said because of education. Education for women and the abundance that this country had” –Marcela Gómez [7:27]
• “Knowing the history of my family, knowing what my grandparents decided to do changed my life” –Marcela Gómez [12:25]
• “High school is challenging for everyone and I guess when you are different in any way, it’s even more challenging ” –Syd Finkelstein [16:12]
• “I realized that part of what I do in advertising, public relations and marketing is through the lens of culture, and that’s where it starts” –Marcela Gómez [18:53]
• “If you did not grow up here, if you do not know about the U.S culture, why do I call 911? I immediately realized there is a need for my services from a cultural perspective, marketing perspective and not only from a language perspective, and that’s when I decided to launch Hispanic marketing group” –Marcela Gomez [31:17]
• “I had proven myself to be a good person in marketing, but no one opened the door. So, that’s when you know that’s not where you are supposed to go” –Marcela Gomez [33:35]
• “You bring something very different to the table than everybody else does. Your experience is not the same not even as your siblings” –Marcela Gomez [43:03]
• “The reason why I like history, the reason why I would like to know where I come from is because I would also like to remember who I am and what I have accomplished in life” –Marcela Gomez [44:40]
• “The entire company is based on the platinum rule that says treat others the way they want to be treated, and in order for me to do that, I need to know who they are and what they like, and how they want to be treated” –Marcela Gomez [1:00:46]

Stay connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Marcela Gomez

LinkedIn: Marcela Gómez 

Personal Website: Marcela Gómez 

Twitter: Marcela Gómez 

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary

A wide-ranging discussion with the multi-talented Gautam Mukunda. Leadership, Theranos, Failure and Learning, Luck, Russia and Ukraine, the Financial Crisis, Inequality, Innovation. Bezos, Jobs, Holmes, Neumann, Sackler, Putin.

Sydney Finkelstein 

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Gautam Mukunda

Gautam Mukunda is an internationally recognized expert in leadership and innovation. He often jokes that his life’s ambition is to have the world’s most confusing resume and that he’s most of the way there. He is a Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership and the host of the Nasdaq podcast World Reimagined with Gautam Mukunda. Previously he was a professor at Harvard Business School and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University. He is the author of two books: Indispensable: When Leaders Really Matter (Harvard Business Review Press, 2012) and Picking Presidents (University of California Press, forthcoming in August 2022). He has published articles in Harvard Business Review, Foreign Policy, Security Studies, Slate, Fast Company, Parameters, Politics and the Life Sciences, and Systems and Synthetic Biology on leadership, reforming the financial sector, military innovation, network-centric warfare, the security and economic implications of synthetic biology, and the TV show Mad Men. His work has been profiled in the New York Times, Atlantic, New Yorker, Economist, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and All Things Considered. He advises a variety of companies and organizations on leadership and strategy. 

Gautam was a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Security Studies Program and Program on Emerging Technologies. He was a Paul & Daisy Soros New American Fellow, an NSF IGERT Fellow, a Next Generation Fellow of The American Assembly, and a Principal Investigator of the National Science Foundation’s Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center. He served on The Chief of Naval Operation’s Executive Advisory Panel and as a member of the New England Regional Selection Committee for the White House Fellowship and was a Member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on New Models of Leadership. He was also a Jeopardy Champion. 

At MIT, Gautam was the National Science Foundation Synthetic Biology ERC Postdoctoral Fellow resident at MIT’s Center for International Studies. He received his Ph.D. from MIT in political science focusing on International Relations and Security Studies, where he was a Paul & Daisy Soros New American Fellow and an NSF IGERT Fellow. He received his AB in Government from Harvard, magna cum laude. Before his academic career, he was a consultant with McKinsey & Company, where he focused on the pharmaceutical sector.

In addition to his current work as an academic, Gautam is a member of the board of directors and chair of the Mentorship Committee of The Upakar Foundation, a national non-profit devoted to providing college scholarships to underprivileged students of South Asian descent. He is on the Advisory Board of Bionic Solutions and Fount Bio. He is an Overseer of the Boston Ballet and a member of the Museum Council of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.

Insights from this episode: 

• Mukunda’s thoughts on leadership and innovation
• Insights into what his upcoming book, Picking Presidents, is about
• Insights into Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes
• The dark side of successful businesses
• Effects of the 2008 financial crisis on the economy
• Mukunda’s thoughts on the Ukrainian war and the role of the West

Quotes from the show:

• “I do believe this, both as a matter of inclination and a matter of research, that in a world of specialists, there is a real advantage to being a generalist” –Gautam Mukunda [2:23]
• “I think it’s possible to be an extraordinarily successful leader, and obviously he [Duke of Wellington] was without being innovative” –Gautam Mukunda [10:04]
• “If you do the same thing as everyone else, it’s difficult or impossible to produce unique results” –Gautam Mukunda [10:24]
• “I think it’s really important to have people in senior executive positions who are capable of doing the job” –Gautam Mukunda [12:15]
• “Organizations that exist in domains of limited losses and unlimited gains have a tendency to become far too risk-averse” –Gautam Mukunda [19:32]
• “It’s not an experiment, whatever the project is if you know it’s gonna succeed” –Syd Finkelstein [22:00]
• “If you are not angry about this [economic crisis], you are not paying attention. Anger is an appropriate response to the scale of bad things that we saw” –Gautam Mukunda [39:00]
• “Much of the behavior that led to the financial crisis was criminal. And the federal system just chose not to prosecute it” –Gautam Mukunda [39:25]
• “We are on the forefront of a medical revolution to a scale of which baffles the mind” –Gautam Mukunda [53:56]

Stay connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Gautam Mukunda

Website: Gautam Mukunda

LinkedIn: Gautam Mukunda 

Facebook: Gautam Mukunda

Twitter: Gautam Mukunda

Instagram: Gautam Mukunda 

Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.