The Sydcast

Episode Summary:

Shelley Zalis is an entrepreneur, provocateur, connector, CEO, champion of women and equality, and (as some have called her) “chief troublemaker.” What makes Shelley so fascinating is that she simply refuses to accept the status quo when it’s broken, and what’s broken is the experience – both on the job and at home – of so many working women. The platform she has created and continues to nurture and innovate is The Female Quotient: “We Are in the Business of Equality.” On this episode of The Sydcast, the never-ending campaign to close the gender gap, with Shelley Zalis.

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.

Shelley Zalis:

Shelley Zalis, known as the “chief troublemaker,” is a pioneer for online research, movement leader, and champion of gender equality. She is an internationally renowned entrepreneur, speaker, mentor, mother, and founder and CEO of The Female Quotient. Zalis rewrites the rules and innovates solutions to impact real change. In 2000, she left the corporate world to found OTX (Online Testing Exchange), which became one of the fastest-growing research companies in the world. She sold OTX to Ipsos in 2010 and then led global innovation in more than 80 countries at Ipsos OTX. Today, as CEO of The Female Quotient, Zalis works with Fortune 500 companies to advance gender equality across industries. The FQ’s signature pop-up experience, the FQ Lounge (formerly the Girls’ Lounge), brings a Home of Equality to major conferences, companies, and college campuses around the world. The FQ Lounge is the gathering place for leaders of all levels at events such as the World Economic Forum, Cannes Lions, Consumer Electronics Show, and the Milken Institute Global Conference. Through the destination-turned-movement, Zalis has connected more than 18,000 women in business and created the largest female-led community to transform workplace culture. 

Insights from this Episode

• What gave Shelley the idea to start OTX
• What Shelley learned as founder and CEO
• What problems Shelley faced when launching her business about online research?
• Where did she get her “the defying status quo” mindset
• What it’s like being a female CEO
• The role of gender barriers in the business environment
• What competition really is for women in business
• How is competition a bad thing?
• What have successful women learned that young people – men and women – in their 20’s or early 30’s haven’t learned?

Quotes from the Show: 

• “[About online research business idea] I didn’t have the money to do it, I didn’t I would be writing, it was so ahead of its time, I had to make it the right time ” - Shelley Zalis [13:42]
• “As we started, I hated titles, I never wanted anyone to talk to someone because of their title or because of the company. I want people to discover people…because I believe you learn something from everyone not because of the title that you wear” - Shelley Zalis [18:39]
• “As a CEO, gender aside, I want to talk about being a conscious leader and I would like to take gender out of the equation and say: as a conscious leader we need to make decisions in our organizations that are good for caregivers” - Shelley Zalis [24:24]
• “Historically women in business have been trained to be competitive because there’s been such a scarcity of jobs at the top so few women get to the top” - Shelley Zalis [31:41]
• “Once women were proud to be women and be collaborative and be feminine and own their strength and not hide it, not try to act like a man and bring their emotive powers to the table, it was game-changing” - Shelley Zalis [36:06]
• “I don’t believe in one mentor, one mentor doesn’t have all the knowledge, you learn bits and bites of advice from different people who have been there, done that” - Shelley Zalis [39:29]
• “I’ve been working on the power of connectivity which its been our global exchange talking to women over hundred countries listening to hear of what they all need to close the gaps” - Shelley Zalis [45:27]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Shelley Zalis

Website: The Female Quotient

LinkedIn: Shelley Zalis

Twitter: Shelley Zalis

Facebook: Shelley Zalis

Instagram: Shelley Zalis

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

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

Recently, Syd launched a set of four online courses on the Coursera platform – the Strategic Leadership “specialization” – getting a first-hand view of how education has shifted from traditional classroom to digital media. Since the Sydcast is all about learning, it seems appropriate for the first episode of Season 4 to kick off with the CEO of that digital education company, Jeff Maggioncalda. Not only is Coursera the biggest online education start-up with over 100 million learners around the world, but the company is also creating a complex ecosystem where traditional suppliers of learning – universities – are as much business partners as they are competitors. On this episode of The Sydcast, the story of a CEO in the booming yet quickly morphing education sector that is looking to change how each of us learns.

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.

Jeff Maggioncalda 

Jeff Maggioncalda joined Coursera as CEO in June 2017 and since then helped the company grow to over 100 million learners and 7,000+ institutions, served by high-quality learning content from 250+ of the world’s top universities and industry educators. He previously served for 18 years as the founding CEO at Financial Engines Inc, a company co-founded by economist and Nobel Prize winner William Sharpe. Financial Engines grew rapidly under Jeff's leadership, providing high-quality online investment advice that has helped millions of people save and prepare for retirement. Jeff has also worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company and Cornerstone Research and continues to serve as a Director of Silicon Valley Bank, Inc. He holds an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor's degree in Economics and English from Stanford University. In his free time, Jeff is a lifelong learner and proud dad, and enjoys studying music theory and spending time with his wife and three daughters.

Insights from this Episode

• What is Coursera
• How Coursera was founded
• Why Coursera is a rapid changer enabler
• Technology and globalization relationship with Coursera
• Success factors of Coursera
• What’s the general population of Coursera learners
• How did Jeff end up being the CEO of Coursera
• Sydney’s course on Coursera
• What advantages does this “era of resignation” has brought to Coursera
• How do academic institutions use Coursera
• How does Coursera as an organization manage failure
• What does Jeff think most of the time about as a CEO
• What does Jeff think about CEOs addressing social issues in the public eye
• How does Coursera help their workers to balance their time
• What advice would Jeff give to his younger self

Quotes from the Show: 

• “I thought everybody knew Coursera, its a hundred million people that are learners in Coursera but turns out that’s not the case”- Sydney Finkelstein in “The Sydcast” [08:25]
• “[About Coursera] We are certainly facilitating a very different and more accessible way of learning than only being able to go on a four-year on-campus program ”- Jeff Maggioncalda in “The Sydcast” [10:45]
• “I teach certain things that I want more people to access so the fact that Coursera came out of universities but it was really the entrepreneurship of professors”- Jeff Maggioncalda in “The Sydcast” [14:10]
• “The exclusive audience of great teachers was the people sitting in the classrooms, it doesn’t have to be that way”- Jeff Maggioncalda in “The Sydcast” [23:21]
• “We’re now in the world of the so-called “great resignation” and what really means is like reconsideration of our lives”- Sydney Finkelstein in “The Sydcast” [32:06]
• “[About entrepreneurship] Even if it's something that the student wants, even if it is less expensive, even if it is higher quality, it doesn’t mean that you’re gonna have a successful business”- Jeff Maggioncalda in “The Sydcast” [39:37]
• “[About Coursera’s culture] It's that combination of loving to learn and translating learning into impact”- Jeff Maggioncalda in “The Sydcast” [42:54]
• “I think what good investors celebrate is rapid learning and often you can’t learn unless you fail”- Jeff Maggioncalda in “The Sydcast” [44:01]
• “What we haven’t yet completely figured out … is how do we want to redeploy strategically the way we use physical space to run our company, to attract people, to engage employees ”- Jeff Maggioncalda in “The Sydcast” [56:54]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Jeff Maggioncalda 

Coursera: Strategic Leadership: Impact, Change, and Decision-Making Specialization

LinkedIn: Jeff Maggioncalda

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

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

Sarah Apgar – Princeton and Dartmouth alum, Iraqi war vet, volunteer fire fighter and EMT, and startup founder – wants to create a fitness and wellness movement based on the FitFighter steelhose product. In three conversations over the last year, we learn about Sarah and her company, her life as a Mom, her aspirations for her business, and how the relentless move toward growth requires constant adjustment and deep resilience.

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.

Sarah Apgar:

Sarah Apgar is the Inventor of the Steelhose®, Founder of FitFighter® and Creator & Team Captain of the SteelSisters®. FitFighter is a strength and mobility system originally designed to help firefighters learn skills and be better prepared for their job. Sarah’s signature innovation, the Steelhose®, was featured in 2020 on ABC’s Shark Tank, and is now available to trainers, coaches, gyms, teams, physical therapists, and the general public, to keep us ready for our everyday mission. The SteelSisters® is a nationwide team of young women aged 13-30 who support each other, celebrate strength, share knowledge, and do what’s worth fighting for. Sarah is an Iraq War Veteran, All-American Collegiate Athlete, Fitness Professional, former Volunteer Firefighter and Warby Parker Executive, and mom of 2 little girls. In addition to her primetime Shark Tank debut, Sarah and FitFighter® have been featured in Rolling Stone, Mens Health Magazine, Muscle and Fitness, Essence, ABC News, USA Sports Radio, Armed Forces Network, and Oxygen Magazine, and performed for clients the likes of ESPN, FDNY, and the United States Military. Sarah promotes and celebrates the power of teams, women leaders, and public service, contributing a portion of sales to the Stephen Siller Tunnel to Tower Foundation. Prior to launching FitFighter, Sarah was an executive at Warby Parker, overseeing the opening of the first 50 bricks and mortar retail stores in the US and Canada. Sarah has an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and a BA from Princeton University, and is a graduate of the Princeton Army ROTC Program. She lives in Port Washington NY with her husband, Ben Smith, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon, her two young daughters, Emory and Arlyn, and canine Louisiana. Sarah is an avid skier, hiker, triathlete, and just about anything outdoors, and adores baking, cable reruns, and making people smile.

Insights from this Episode:

• What is FitFighter and its purpose 
• How Sarah got to the idea to found FitFighter 
• The importance of the subscription model for FitFighter
• Qualities that entrepreneurs must have 
• How Sarah involves her children in her FitFighter life
• FitFighter's journey through Covid-19
• Sarah's experience on Shark Tank and the challenges she faced
• How Shark Tank helped boost FitFighter
• How Sarah manages her time as a mom and as an entrepreneur 
• The challenges that partnerships have brought to FitFighter
• Sarah's experience hiring a CEO for FitFighter
• Future business plans for FitFighter

Quotes from the Show: 

• “Now we’ve just experienced this incredible shift in folks not being able to get out there to their gym, we’ve seen billions of dollars come out of the market of gym memberships…so what it’s done is really explode companies that developed products that you can have in your home”- Sarah Apgar in “The Sydcast” [12:26]  
• “I’ve never thought of FitFighter as just a product…I don’t think I would invest my life in that, there’s a lot of great companies that produce great products but ultimately this (FitFghter) is a lifestyle change and shift and rethinking the paradigms around fitness and wellness”- Sarah Apgar in “The Sydcast” [38:27]  
• “[About life balance for Sarah and her team] We’re all sort of facing mental health challenges and struggles, from isolation. I like to think that we’re actually kind of living our best FitFighters life when it comes to strength and fostering a healthier, happier lifestyle that has some balance”- Sarah Apgar in “The Sydcast” [58:33]  
• “Whether or not you’re actually starting a business is not the point, is whether you’re creating and seeking opportunities to experience new things and to learn along the way, is really a mindset”- Sydney Finkelstein in “The Sydcast” [01:05:21]  
• “[About looking for a CEO] I’ve never had a co-founder, I’ve had great people at the table with me, friends, strategic advisors from the beginning and a couple of terrific early team members, but I never had that person who you can call up three, four, five times a day”- Sarah Apgar in “The Sydcast” [01:18:55] 

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Sarah Apgar

Website:https://www.sarahapgar.com/

Instagram: Sarah Apgar

LinkedIn: Sarah Apgar

Twitter: Sarah Apgar

Dartmouth College: Sarah Apgar

FitFighter:

Instagram: FitFighter

Company Website: https://www.fitfighter.com/

Training Platform:

https://classes.fitfighter.com/catalog

Sizzler:Sizzler 

FitFighter Brand Trailer: Brand Trailer

FitFighter App:FitFighter App

YouTube Channel: FitFighter

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

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

Italy. Food. Artisans. Culture. That is the life Professor Danielle Callegari is immersed in, and when you hear about it you’ll probably say, why didn’t I think of it! Except then you’ll need to spend years writing a book on Dante, then start the next book, cloistered in Italian libraries with no air conditioning during Roman summer. Danielle’s story is a story of the professor building a career, a brand, and a platform, an inside look at what it really takes to make it in academia.

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.

Danielle Callegari

Danielle Callegari is Assistant Professor in the Department of French and Italian at Dartmouth College and Councilor of the Dante Society of America. Her teaching and research focuses on Italian literature and food and beverage studies. Her first book,  Dante’s Gluttons: Food and Society from the Convivio to the Comedy, is forthcoming with Amsterdam University Press in spring 2022. She is also the co-host of Gola (patreon.com/golapod), a podcast on Italian food and beverage culture, with Katie Parla.

Insights from this Episode

• How Danielle’s interest on Italian culture began
• How Danielle navigates through the investigation world
• Danielle’s concerns on having a PhD in Humanities
• The story behind the Dante Society of America
• The purpose of Danielle’s book “Dante’s Gluttons: Food and Society”
• Danielle’s ideas for her next book
• The importance of creating a brand as an academic and professor
• Secrets about Danielle’s experience in Italy during Covid-19
• The success of the Gola Podcast 
• Danielle’s networking strategies

Quotes from the Show: 

• “Many people probably don’t understand that if you’re not publishing as a professor you’re not standing up in front of the class as a teacher very long, and whether that’s books or articles or mix of the two”- Sydney Finkelstein in “The Sydcast” [11:35] 
• “Everyone must eat, it’s just perfectly universal, there is not time or place where humans haven’t had a relationship with food, and as a result of that, [food] becomes the ultimate point of reference” - Danielle Callegari in “The Sydcast” [31:44]
• “[About Danielle’s experience on libraries] I’ve found things I didn’t know existed and that no one knew existed that fit into my research in a very special way and that’s a kind of Indiana Jones moment”- Danielle Callegari in “The Sydcast” [46:54]
• “[About her teaching method] Talking about things like social order, soft power, economic viability, so it's the place where we start and we outline all the ways in which food culture becomes something that communicates much more than what is apparently on the surface”- Danielle Callegari in “The Sydcast” [56:08]
• “To me universities that continue to offer standard learning just in the classroom without a strong experiential component are living on borrowed time”- Sydney Finkelstein in “The Sydcast” [01:01:55]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Danielle Callegari 

Instagram: Danielle Callegari 

Podcast: Gola Podcast

Society: Dante Society of America

Dartmouth College: Danielle Callegari | Faculty Directory

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

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

Did you ever feel like you didn’t deserve the job you had? That you were faking it, and would soon be found out? That’s impostor syndrome in action, and my former MBA student Catharine Keene has been dealing with it for years. In this episode she tells her story, including how she’s figured out how to keep it under wraps as she starts her post-MBA career at one of the world’s leading consulting firms.

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.

Catharine Keene

Catharine Keene is a consultant at Bain & Company. She received her Bachelor of Science in biology from Tufts University, her Master's in Education from University of Pennsylvania, and her MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Prior to consulting, Catharine taught high school biology at St. Paul's School in Concord, NH, and worked in customer experience and lifecycle marketing at ClassPass. A lifelong lover of the outdoors, Catharine hopes to incorporate sustainability into her consulting work, leveraging the power that businesses have to drive positive environmental change.

Insights from this Episode

• Catharine's learnings from Tuck School of Business 
• How Catharine experienced Covid-19 as a student
• How the imposter syndrome has affected Catharine
• Catharine’s experience at Bain & Company
• Catharine’s tools to deal with the impostor syndrome
• How to build relationships oriented to mentorship

Quotes from the Show: 

• “[About the impostor syndrome] It’s not just a little bit of self-doubt, which is normal for most of us, but the self-doubt kind of takes hold, it starts to take over and it can be debilitating”- Sydney Finkelstein in “The Sydcast” [02:32]
• “As a woman, both in academic settings and in professional settings, women have historically been a little quieter than men and specially in male dominated fields, so that is a stereotype that I want to actively work to counter”- Catharine Keene in “The Sydcast” [13:04]
• “[About growth mindset] My modeling has lots of room to improve, rather than I will never be an excel genius like some other people that I may encounter”- Catharine Keene in “The Sydcast” [16:58]
• “Internally for me it has been important to counter negative thoughts with tangible facts that I know about the work I’ve done, both at being so far at Tuck and then my previous career, and then also engage people which are helpful in creating good habits”- Catharine Keene in “The Sydcast” [32:42]
• “Breaking down that perceived need to be perfect all the time really helps come back at impostor syndrome”- Catharine Keene in “The Sydcast” [34:00]
• “In my experience the people who have been the strongest mentors are people that I have a great connection with on a personal level as well, and it takes time for both people to unravel the different layers of who they are in work and outside of work”- Catharine Keene in “The Sydcast” [38:40]
• “I am reconciling what it means to keep passion and drive in mind while also letting it be okay that there will be periods when you’re just present where you are and not running so fast towards the next goal”- Catharine Keene in “The Sydcast” [42:26]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Catharine Keene

LinkedIn: Catharine Keene

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

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

Successful MBA leaves high-paying Wall Street job to build a start-up dedicated to helping women manage their careers and families. Joyce Cadesca tells us why she made this move, and in this As It Happens series, visits with us three times over the last year to talk about the challenges and wins she’s racked up. The truth: it hasn’t been easy, but for this single mom of color the path she’s on is a true life passion, replete with reinvention and re-learning, but no regret.

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.

Joyce Cadesca

Joyce Cadesca is an experienced general management leader who is devoted to social justice, inclusion, and equity. Her corporate work experience includes finance, strategy, and human resources roles at leading global Fortune 100 companies such as Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley. Her life purpose is to empower individuals to achieve their educational, family, and professional goals. She is the Founder and President of famHQ LLC, a tech-enabled family concierge, holistic coaching, and dedicated childcare service designed to maximize time, energy, and success for busy working mothers. Joyce was inspired to create famHQ based on her challenges as a busy corporate mom and through her work as a professional development coach and child-care advocate for underserved families. Through partnerships with reliable companies, supportive co-founders, and an experienced in-house staff, Joyce offers an affordable, user-friendly “one stop app” through famHQ to give working moms access to resources that help you set goals and crush them. 

Outside of famHQ, Joyce serves as a Professional Development Coach at Management Leadership for Tomorrow, working with MBA students as they define their career paths. Also, as Resident Director of ‘A Better Chance Lower Merion’, Joyce advocates for providing educational access to underserved high school students. Her previous nonprofit work experience also includes education program management and classroom teaching. Joyce earned an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University.

Insights from this Episode

• Joyce’s process of being admitted into Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth
• Joyce’s experience at J.P. Morgan
• Joyce’s experience as a single working mom
• About famHQ
• About having co-founders in famHQ
• How to deal with doubt as a entrepreneur
• About the constant famHQ adaptation process to changes
• Joyce’s future plans for famHQ
• Why famHQ shifted their focus to moms of color

Quotes from the Show:

• "I do believe in the idea of a calling, I believe that I was called to help young students to gain the opportunities that I was exposed to, because my life was so drastically changed by those opportunities ”- Joyce Cadesca in “The Sydcast” [09:31]
• “[About shifting from the for-profit to non-profit sector] What I have gained by leaving that behind far exceeds the salary that I had, not monetarily right?, not financially, but the piece of mind that I’m doing what I love and what I was called to do, a balanced person, it exceeds that money that I left behind”- Joyce Cadesca in “The Sydcast” [19:01]
• “I have to admit there were moments, I think every entrepreneur has moments like this where you’re in the middle of a pandemic, your kid is home half time or whatever the situation is, or you’re maybe I should just go and do this the easy way, maybe I should go back to my stable corporate life”- Joyce Cadesca in “The Sydcast” [38:53]
• “[About facing doubt as an entrepreneur] I used to say when I was in one of those situations, well what’s the worst thing that could happen? And not always but usually the worst thing that could happened is something you can deal with" - Sydney Finkelstein in “The Sydcast” [41:00]
• “[About entrepreneurship] Be ready for the grind, the resilience and resourcefulness it takes to get through some tough nights, and also the self-awareness to work with partners who may not agree with you”- Joyce Cadesca in “The Sydcast” [1:02:50]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Joyce Cadesca

Instagram: Joyce Cadesca

LinkedIn: Joyce Cadesca

FamHQ

LinkedIn: famHQ | Family Concierge

Instagram: famHQ 

Website: http://www.famhq.org/

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

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

At It Happens: MBA student Lia Parker-Belfer re-enters the workforce with her summer internship at Uber. Dedicated to a career of impact, joining legendary bro-culture Uber is a purposeful challenge, akin to many Gen Z’ers and Millennials who must come to terms with aspirational values in the corporate world. In this episode, we follow Lia, before and after, comparing expectations and reality, to see what she learned about Uber, and about herself.

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.

Lia Parker-Belfer

Lia Parker-Belfer is a graduate student pursuing an MBA at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and an MPA at the Harvard Kennedy School. Lia grew up in Brookline, MA and received her BA from Hamilton College. Prior to graduate school, Lia was a consultant with Deloitte’s Government and Public Services practice in Washington, DC. During this time, she helped US federal agencies and nonprofit organizations better serve their constituents and customers and work through complex challenges. Lia is currently exploring ways to leverage technology for social good. Upon completing her dual degree in 2023, Lia hopes to work at the intersection of the public and private sectors, advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Lia’s passion for DEI stems from her lived experience as a Chinese woman adopted by Caucasian parents and raised in the Jewish faith. Lia is committed to creating community and fostering cultures of belonging wherever she goes. During her first year at Tuck, Lia founded If You Knew Me, a podcast designed to illuminate surprising connections, broaden perspectives, deepen understanding, and spark rich conversation within the Tuck community. 

Insights from this Episode

• The backstory of the “If You Knew Me” Podcast
• Why Lia picked business school
• Why Lia chose Uber to do her internship
• Lia’s constant pursue for an intersection between the private and public sector
• How to build relationships even in remote environments
• How Lia’s internship experience is different or common from her classmates
• Lia’s experience of taking in person classes during Covid-19
• What Lia learned from working on Uber
• How to identify and understand if a job is the right fit for you
• Lia’s future plans of joining technology with social good

Quotes from the Show:

• “I wanted to work at a company where the product I could really see a tangible connection to helping people, and so Uber actually did make a little bit of sense for me when I thought about how it grants people access, transportation and that might not be otherwise available to people and specifically during the pandemic”- Lia Parker-Belfer in “The Sydcast” [12:16]
• “Redefining what that impact actually looks like and I think you can have a day to day in the communities you’re part of, without maybe having that CEO title for example”- Lia Parker-Belfer in “The Sydcast” [21:14]
• “[About serving to your community] The more gratitude you have the more you personally benefit in terms your own personal mental wellbeing and happiness ”- Sydney Finkelstein in “The Sydcast”- [23:04]
• “It was challenging to find opportunities to be in the CSR or social impact space for a summer that is so short and also that’s not in my job title”- Lia Parker-Belfer in “The Sydcast” [37:45]
• “Being an individual contributor doesn’t mean you’re truly alone, and I think I had that misconception because really you are surrounded by resources, you do have a team ”- Lia Parker-Belfer in “The Sydcast” [45:48]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Lia Parker Belfer

Email: [email protected]

LinkedIn: Lia Parker-Belfer

Podcast: If You Knew Me 

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

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

As It Happens: Follow puzzle-maker Kaylin Marcotte as she builds her startup JIGGY during Covid – growing, pivoting, and getting her first big break. In two conversations over four months, we get an inside look at how Kaylin and her startup manage early growth while learning both what she needs to do next and who she is as an entrepreneur and a person.

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.

Kaylin Marcotte

Kaylin is the founder & CEO of JIGGY, a direct-to-consumer jigsaw puzzle brand on a mission to modernize and elevate the humble jigsaw, and support female artists around the world. Prior to launching Jiggy, Kaylin founded Village Strategies, a marketing consultancy, and was the first employee at theSkimm, running its community marketing, social media and Skimm’bassadors. Kaylin holds a BA in political science and economics from Barnard College. She lives in Brooklyn, NY and spends her free time doing jigsaw puzzles of course, and running a 30-day plastic-free challenge program with her sister, Mackenzie.

Insights from this Episode

• How JIGGY works
• What the science behind playing puzzles is
• The differences of between being a female founder and male founder \
• Kaylin’s entrepreneur journey and what inspired her to found JIGGY
• The community building process of JIGGY
• What the JIGGY Puzzle Club is
• Kaylin’s experience of being on SharkTank

Quotes from the Show:

• “[About entrepreneurship] I thought it was a much more straightforward process and that, you know, you have an idea, you wanna get something made, there’s these factories, they make it and you pay them and that’s that”- Kaylin Marcotte in “The Sydcast” [15:13]
• “[About Syd’s experience on a class called ‘Art & Money’] The ways in which the art market works are really unusual, and there’s a bit of wild west here”- Sydney Finkelstein in “The Sydcast” [21:57]
• “[About women in the art world] Gender representation it’s a big issue in terms of gallery space, museum space” Kaylin Marcotte in “The Sydcast” [24:33]
• “[About dealing with competitors in the market] As your business grows and people hear about you more you will have copycats, and what I’ve learned about all of this is that you can’t avoid people copying you and if you have to sue them to keep them away is a really bad way to live, you don’t have enough money to keep doing that”- Sydney Finkelstein in “The Sydcast” [26:05]
• “[About her experience on Shark Tank] The idea of just releasing control and not even knowing until it’s live on TV, what that edit is gonna be, you know, you don’t see anything before hand, it’s definitely nerve wracking” Kaylin Marcotte in “The Sydcast” [48:51]
• “[About the founder syndrome] What’s next, what’s the new shiny opportunity or what else should we do and finally I had an advisor and he was like yes of course like innovator die, always thinking of those things, but also like part of scaling is the less sexy, just you do what you’ve already done 10 times over ”- Kaylin Marcotte in “The Sydcast” [1:00:21]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Kaylin Marcotte

Website: https://jiggypuzzles.com/ 

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jiggypuzzles/

Shark Tank: Kaylin Marcotte on the Shark Tank

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

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

Starting a job as a new CEO is not easy. Starting at the same time as a global pandemic is tougher. Now add in that the CEO – my guest, Lucy Lieberman – is running the travel company Tablet Hotels and you get the picture. With a career that went from digital startups in the early days of the Internet to managing global brands, Lucy has experience with pretty much every aspect of marketing, and she brings it all to her role as CEO. On this episode of The Sydcast, Lucy walks us through her path to the top, how she thinks about leadership, and some of the exciting new ideas she’s been spearheading to help emerge from the Covid crisis

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.

Lucy Lieberman

Lucy Lieberman is CEO of Tablet Hotels, the hotel experts at the MICHELIN Guide. She joined Tablet as Chief Marketing Officer in 2019 to scale the brand globally following its acquisition by Michelin, bringing more than 20 years of expertise in marketing, product development and operations to the role. Lieberman previously spent 10 years with Ogilvy and Mather, most recently serving as Managing Director. At Ogilvy, she was responsible for delivering marketing ROI for brands such as InterContinental Hotels Group, American Express, IKEA and BlackRock. Earlier in her career, Lieberman served as a founding team member of two technology startups, oversaw product development for a mobile startup, and helped lead operations and project management for digital marketing agencies. She holds a BA from Georgetown University in Studio Art and French and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

Insights from this Episode

• How Tablet Hotels work
• The difficulties of running a travel company during Covid-19
• How the partnership between Michelin and Tablet Hotels was formed
• Lucy’s journey to becoming the CEO of Tablet Hotels 
• Lucy and Syd’s first experiences on business with the internet
• How the travel behavior has changed because of Covid-19

Quotes from the Show:

• “[About traveling] For quite a while now, my philosophy has been quite different, I’ll see what I see in terms of the famous places...but I much rather just kind of walk around and experience”- Sydney Finkelstein in “The Sydcast” [4:41]
• “When you get any job offer you think about could I even do this, is this insane or is this completely common sense and there is not even anything to question about it ”- Lucy Lieberman in “The Sydcast” [15:07]
• “You can’t go out thinking that everything you’re going to do is going to be flawless and amazing and game-changing”- Lucy Lieberman in “The Sydcast” [42:05]
• “We definitely saw a real shift in where people were traveling away from metropolitan destinations and big hotels and people were really gravitating towards smaller properties, properties that had bungalows or cottages or stand alone units, villas, those were insanely high demand”- Lucy Lieberman in “The Sydcast” [50:38]
• “When I was growing up I was taught that business and capitalism were almost dirty, that the path in life needed to be more noble and more about education and the wellbeing of society in some ways”- Lucy Lieberman in “The Sydcast” [59:30]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Lucy Lieberman

LinkedIn: Lucy Lieberman

Facebook: Lucy Lieberman

Instagram: Lucy Lieberman

Tablet Hotels

Website: Tablet Hotels

Twitter: Tablet Hotels

Facebook: Tablet Hotels

Instagram: Tablet Hotels

Pinterest: Tablet Hotels

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

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

Sometimes you know what you want to do with your life, and for Bianca Smith, that was baseball. Professional baseball. Her path to becoming the first Black woman to coach in professional baseball is a story of grit, single-minded focus, and force of personality. Still only 30 and a coach at a minor league affiliate of the Boston Red Sox, Bianca tells us how she got there and what life is like when you’re a 5-foot-tall woman teaching professional male athletes how they could be better baseball players.

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.

Bianca Smith

Bianca Smith finished her 1st season with the FCL Red Sox in 2021. Prior to the Red Sox she was an Assistant Athletic Director and Assistant Baseball Coach/Hitting Coordinator at Carroll University. Smith has also coached at Case Western Reserve University (where she earned her dual JD/MBA) and the University of Dallas, as well as worked in Baseball Operations in the front offices of the Texas Rangers, the Cincinnati Reds, and MLB’s Commissioner’s Office. Smith graduated from Dartmouth College in 2012 where she played varsity softball and club baseball.

Insights from this Episode

• The journey into the baseball major leagues
• The transition from front office work into coaching
• The skill sets and mindset that are necessary to be a coach
• How to build relationships of trust with your players as a coach
• The psychological side of coaching
• The challenges of being a woman in the coaching environment
• Why analytics are helpful in sports

Quotes from the Show:

• “One thing I can say about Bianca is that she is simply not a stoppable force because along with driving passion she brings a learning mindset to everything she does”- Sydney Finkelstein in “The Sydcast” [05:40]
• “Professional baseball is a little bit different because, yes your individual stats matter to your contract, but overall the goal is still, you’re gonna win a world series and you can’t win a world series by yourself, the team wins the world series not you”- Bianca Smith in “The Sydcast” [14:27]
• “As a coach, one of the biggest things I think you need is just to be open minded, don’t come in thinking that you know everything because I guarantee you in any sport you’re never gonna know everything”- Bianca Smith in “The Sydcast” [25:31]
• “The best players are the ones that can adjust on their own because they have that body awareness, they know what they’re looking for, they know what they did wrong and they are able to make that adjustment in game”- Bianca Smith in “The Sydcast” [30:07]
• “[About statistics] The best coaches are the ones that know when to use it and in what situation”- Bianca Smith in “The Sydcast” [46:03]
• “Ignore the criticisms and the expectations and do what you want to do”- Bianca Smith in “The Sydcast” [1:01:09]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Bianca Smith

LinkedIn: Bianca Smith

Twitter: Bianca Smith 

Instagram: Bianca Smith

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

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.