The Sydcast

Episode Summary:

Imagine carrying a burden of self-doubt and insecurity while everyone else only sees a smart young woman taking on the world of business. At some point something has to give, and for my guest on this episode of The Sydcast it did, via a nervous breakdown and an epiphany that has led to a new career of helping fellow Latinas come to terms with a culturally-derived inferiority complex that holds back an immense talent pool from fulfilling their potential. This is the inspirational and gripping story of Valeria Aloe.

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.

Valeria Aloe

Valeria Aloe, founder of Abundancia Consciente (Conscious Abundance), has designed and facilitated bilingual programs on cultural narratives, entrepreneurship, stress management, and more, coaching women and minority leaders, teams, and business owners throughout the U.S. and in 14 Latin American countries.Before launching her practice, she worked +20 years in business development, marketing, and finance in leading companies across 7 countries, including Procter & Gamble, Citibank, Reckitt Benckiser, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and TIAA. Born in Argentina and living in the U.S. since 2002, Valeria is on a mission to support Latinas who navigate new spaces as first-generation, as well as Allies who seek to become more assertive mentors and sponsors by understanding the Hispanic culture from within. She wrote “Uncolonized Latinas” (New Degree Press, Dec’21), a book that casts a new light on the limiting cultural narratives holding Latina women back, and that provides strategies and insights for career success and upward mobility. She holds degrees in Business Administration and in Finance from Universidad Catolica Argentina, an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, and a Master in Spiritual Sciences.

Insights from this Episode

• How Valeria’s childhood was like growing up in Argentina
• How Valeria kept up with the expectations of her parents
• Differences between studying in Argentina and in the United States
• Challenges that Valeria faced as a Latina women when she emigrated to the United States
• Valeria’s adapting process as a Latina women in an American college
• The difficulties of constructing relationships in the United States as a member of the Hispanic community
• How imposter syndrome affects the Hispanic culture
• How gender roles in the Hispanic community impose pressure on Hispanic women
• How COVID-19 has affected Hispanic families

Quotes from the Show:

• “As an obedient Latina, I worked hard while keeping my head down. Played with self doubt and a sense of unworthiness”- Valeria Aloe in “Uncolonized Latinas” [05:36]
• “[About Valeria’s parents] I still remember they saying to me: You're going to be the first female in the family to go to college”- Valeria Aloe [11:30]
• “The initial conversation with my parents was like, you either study business or you study law or medicine, the traditional careers...there is this cultural relief that, that’s where you can do better”- Valeria Aloe [27:53]
• “Leaving Argentina was very emotional, it was a one way ticket, we had no idea what to expect”- Valeria Aloe [32:50]
• “[About Valeria’s experience in a US college] I was so intimidated and I felt so inferior in a way when I came here, that I used to only surround myself with Spanish speakers in the beginning. I was intimidated to approach people”- Valeria Aloe [35:04]
• “There is a cultural silence among hispanics. We come from cultures of struggle, so we accept that struggling is what it is and we’ll go through that and we don’t even talk about it”- Valeria Aloe [36:50]
• “When I was 20 I said, I want to be one of those facilitators, I want to be of those in the front of the room helping people with their own mindset, with their own challenges ”- Valeria Aloe [56:19]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Valeria Aloe

LinkedIn: Valeria Aloe 

Instagram: Valeria Aloe 

Book: Check in at Valeria's website for updates on availability: www.ConsciousAbundance.net

Abundancia Consciente

Website: www.ConsciousAbundance.net

Youtube: Abundancia Consciente USA

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

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

Imagine taking a career break for 11 years and then returning to face an entirely different world of work, technology, and even culture. Carol Fishman Cohen did it, and quickly came to realize that there are many thousands of others – mostly women – who are looking to make the same transition. They had high-powered jobs, and now they want to get back in the game. As it turns out, hundreds of companies are thinking the same thing – how do we tap into this experienced talent pool? And so was born iRelaunch, Carol’s work force re-entry consulting and training business that is normalizing the concept of a “career break” while demonstrating the value that “relaunchers” bring to the table. I think this is more a movement than a company, and Carol Fishman Cohen will tell you why, on this episode of 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.

Carol Fishman Cohen

Carol Fishman Cohen is the CEO and Co-founder of iRelaunch, a career reentry consulting, training and events company. iRelaunch has worked with over 200 clients on career reentry programs and programming. iRelaunch produces the iRelaunch Return to Work Conferences, and leads a community of nearly 100,000 "relaunchers" looking to return to work after career breaks of one to over 20 years. iRelaunch co-leads the STEM Reentry Task Force with the Society of Women Engineers, the groundbreaking career reentry initiative in its sixth year in which program managers from 34 leading employers to date have joined for top guidance on launching return to work programs at their respective organizations. Corporate giants that have launched return to work programs through this initiative include Johnson & Johnson, Raytheon Technologies, Apple, Merck, Northrop Grumman, P&G, IBM, Ford and Cummins. Cohen's TED talk "How to get back to work after a career break” has over 3.6 million views and has been translated into 30 languages. She is the author of the Harvard Business Review Magazine articles “The 40-Year-Old Intern,” and the recently released “Return-to-Work Programs Come of Age,” writes regularly for HBR Online and has presented on career reentry topics nearly 800 times. Cohen has been featured dozens of times in the major media. Her return to work at Bain Capital after an 11-year career break is the subject of a Harvard Business School case study and iRelaunch is the subject of a Stanford Graduate School of Business case study. Cohen is a graduate of Pomona College and Harvard Business School.

Insights from this Episode

• How Carol came up with the iRelaunch idea?
• How “returnship” programs have evolved over time
• Concerns of employers and managers towards the returnship programs
• The implications for a relauncher
• iRelaunch’s purpose
• What a career break really is
• Why a relauncher is valuable for a company
• The experience of the relaunchers after completing the iRelaunch program
• Advice for people who are looking to take a career break 

Quotes from the Show:

• “Executives tell me or CEO’s tell me how tough it is to find great people. The first thing I ask them is where are you looking? So often they’re looking at the same places”- Sydney Finkelstein [2:18]
• “People take these career breaks [because] of an external factor and not related to their work performance” - Carol Fishman [13:45]
• “[About the relaunchers] They are recruited and hired now, more with the idea that they are gonna come into the teams and get hired after the program ends ” - Carol Fishman [17:57]
• “[About iRelaunch] Our mission since our founding in 2007 has been to normalize the career path that includes a career break” - Carol Fishman [32:05]
• “The career break forces you to step back and reflect on whether you are on the right career path to begin with and where we can have the most value to an organization” - Carol Fishman [40:57]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Carol Fishman Cohen

LinkedIn: Carol Fishman Cohen

Twitter: Carol Fishman Cohen

Instagram: Carol Fishman Cohen 

Book: Back on the Career Track: A Guide for Stay-at-Home Moms Who Want to Return to Work

HBR article:"Return to Work Programs Come of Age"

HBS case study on return to Bain capital after 11 years: HBS case study

Stanford GSB case study: Stanford GSB case study 

TED x talk: "How to get back to work after a career break"

IRelaunch

Website: https://www.irelaunch.com/

LinkedIn: iRelaunch 

Twitter: iRelaunch

Facebook: iRelaunch 

Instagram: iRelaunch 

Youtube: iRelaunch

Podcast: 3, 2, 1 iRelaunch Podcast

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

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

Episode 112. Julie Quenneville is a path-breaking CEO whose personal journey reads like a greatest hits of modern challenges for women who want to make an impact. From being married to a partner that wanted her at home, to navigating multiple male-dominated professional settings, to bringing up children as a single Mom with a high-powered career, Julie has, and is, living her own life. Add in a dedication to mentoring other women, the ability to communicate her message in powerful ways, and a forthright honesty that comes through in our entire conversation, and Julie Quenneville’s story is a master class in the art of becoming the person you want to be.

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.

Julie Quenneville

Julie Quenneville is the President and CEO of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) Foundation. Her vast knowledge of philanthropy, business and government relations has made her a sought-after speaker on multiple platforms. Whether as a commentator, panelist or media expert, Julie communicates her message in a dynamic and engaging way. She is a change agent, passionate about the need for innovative research as a global responsibility. As someone who has excelled in her field, Julie offers her expertise to business, corporate, community, health care and government leaders. She is a proud mentor, particularly passionate about empowering young women. Julie has been named a TOP 100 Most Powerful Women in Canada.

Insights from this Episode

• Julie’s journey into leadership
• Julie’s life philosophy
• The impact of mentorship on Julie’s professional career and as a woman
• Secrets to why the McGill University Health Centre has had such success
• Challenges the McGill University Health Centre has faced during Covid-19
• Challenges Julie faced as a working mom during Covid-19

Quotes from the Show:

• “Women bring diversity to executive teams, but the nature of that diversity is not simply that there are women sitting around the table, is their life experience, so often different than men’s life experience ”- Sydney Finkelstein [2:27]
• “[About women during covid] Many of these women have dropped out of the fast track, sometimes out of the entire workforce because so much of the responsibility to cope rests on women in most families”- Sydney Finkelstein [3:09]
• “When we choose a different kind of lifestyle to balance being a wife, a mother and a leader, there’s still a lot of judgement” - Julie Quenneville [2:42]
• “I was never satisfied just observing and watching, which is what journalist are supposed to do” - Julie Quenneville [11:33]
• “The turning point for me was living everyday like it’s my last, and when I returned to school I joined absolutely every extracurricular activity” - Julie Quenneville [12:50]
• “There’s absolutely no going back to pre-covid. The world is completely different” - Julie Quenneville [36:08]
• “[About sexual harassment in the work place] This is your workplace, these are not your friends, you have to maintain a certain level of professionalism” - Julie Quenneville [42:25]
• “I think the male leaders play a role in ensuring that the work place is professional” - Julie Quenneville [46:57]
• “I have been successful because of the mentors that I have had” - Julie Quenneville [48:56]
• “If you have the right partner and the right support network around you, there is absolutely no reason to turn down career opportunities” - Julie Quenneville [54:40]
• “I believe that my children are better today or stronger today, and much more resilient and agile because of their mom’s career” - Julie Quenneville [56:04]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Julie Quenneville

LinkedIn: Julie Quenneville 

Website :https://www.juliequenneville.com/

McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) Foundation

Website: https://muhcfoundation.com/

Twitter: MUHC Foundation 

Facebook: MUHC Foundation

Instagram: MUHCFoundation

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

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

He is addicted to prescription opioids, he attempts suicide, he’s found guilty of white-collar crime and serves 13 months in prison. Now he’s out, free, and has a chance to do something good for others, and himself, with the rest of his life. This was, and is, Jeff Grant, and on this episode of The Sydcast we hear his story.

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 Grant

After an addiction to prescription opioids and serving almost fourteen months in a Federal prison (2006 – 07) for a white-collar crime he committed in 2001 when he was lawyer, Jeff started his own reentry – earning a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, majoring in Social Ethics. After graduating from divinity school, Jeff was called to serve at an inner city church in Bridgeport, CT as Associate Minister and Director of Prison Ministries. He then co-founded Progressive Prison Ministries, Inc. (Greenwich, CT), the world’s first ministry serving the white collar justice community.

On May 5, 2021, Jeff’s law license was reinstated by the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York.

Now again in private practice, Jeff is an attorney and counselor-at-law providing private general counsel, legal crisis management, and dispute strategy and management services to individuals and families, real estate organizations, family-owned and closely-held businesses, the white collar justice community, and special situation and pro bono clients.

For over 20 years Jeff served as managing attorney of a 20+ employee law firm headquartered in New York City, and then Westchester County, NY. Among other practice areas, the firm engaged in representation of family-owned/closely held businesses and their owners, business and real estate transactions, trusts and estates, and litigation. Jeff also served as outside General Counsel to large family-owned real estate equities, management and brokerage organizations, in which role he retained, coordinated and oversaw the work of many specialty law firms, including white collar defense firms.

Insights from this Episode

• Why Jeff wanted to become an attorney
• Family struggles Jeff went through during his auto-medication addiction problems
• How Jeff ended up in prison and what his experience was
• The steps of Jeff’s return journey to life after prison
• How Jeff supports white-collar criminals
• Patterns of white-collar crimes
• Institutional challenges towards fraud

Quotes from the Show:

• “I became addicted and slowly I started to deteriorate where I couldn't show up at work anymore and I couldn't run my firm even though it was continuing to be successful” - Jeff Grant [12:11]
• “I was betting my livelihood and health of my family and my future in ways that were just reckless” - Jeff Grant [17:02]
• “I learned more about human nature and respect and care and character in prison than I've learned in my entire life.” - Jeff Grant [24:48]
• “[About his early life as a successful attorney] Positional power and money bought me the illusion that I had anything important to say and that anybody ever cared what I had to say, and the truth was that I was just a narcissistic mess” - Jeff Grant [27:18]
• “I'm afraid that what we are doing is that we are teaching business leaders and political leaders...we are teaching them the wrong values” - Jeff Grant [50:17]
• “[About people who make fraud] It's not okay to take advantage of the system so long as you, either don’t get caught or if you do get caught, you won’t get prosecuted for it” - Jeff Grant [50:34]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Jeff Grant

LinkedIn: Jeff Grant

Website: https://prisonist.org/

Website: https://www.grantlaw.com/

Podcast: White Collar Week

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

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

Wendin Smith wanted Russia to stop polluting its largest lake and ended up becoming one of America’s leading thinkers on weapons of mass destruction. Her vantage point at the Department of Defense and now in consulting gives her access and insight to some of the most intractable challenges we face, from biological weapons to global cybercrime. In this episode of The Sydcast, an inside look and master class you wish you didn’t need.

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.

Wendin D. Smith

Wendin D. Smith, PhD, currently serves as a Managing Director at Deloitte Consulting, LLP. Her professional background is in Russian and security studies, focused on countering weapons of mass destruction and environmental security. Prior to transitioning to Deloitte, she had the honor of serving as the Senior Advisor to the Commanding General of the U.S. Special Operations Command, supporting the Command in its capacity as the DoD’s Coordinating Authority for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (CWMD). Previously, she served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for CWMD, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (DASD/CWMD). Across her career, she has led strategic initiatives in defense and national security at various smaller and larger firms, as well as inside and outside of government. On the entrepreneurial side, she has founded and operated two woman-owned consultancies, and has served overseas in various capacities in Moscow, Russia. Fluent in Russian and conversational in German, she is also proud to serve on various Boards, and - pending the season – is a competitive rower and nordic skier (xc, “skate” skiing). She enjoys spending as much time as possible outdoors, usually with her active, nature-loving 5-year-old daughter. 

Insights from this Episode

• How Wendin’s sense of purpose to protect the Baikal Lake from the Soviets was a crucial point to define her career.
• How Wendin became interested in weapons of mass destruction and global security.
• Strategies Wendin used to combine the security field with the environment and the challenges she faced by doing so.
• The crucial role she played in a treaty that controlled biological weapons production globally.
• How an exchange experience in Russia as a Native American, helped her to understand the logic of the geopolitical problems between the Russian and United States better.
• The difficulties countries face due to cyberterrorism because they are borderless.

Quotes from the Show:

• “Through the end of the late 80’s there had been a lot of changes in the leadership of the Communist Party and in the 1991 time frame the transition went from being the Soviet Union under Gorbachev to then Russia as the Russian federation” - Wendin D. Smith [13:45]
• “At what point can there be a norm around what acts you do or don’t do as an expert in your field and the ethics that come with that”- Wendin D. Smith [26:34]
• “With nuclear weapons we have mutual assured destruction” - Sydney Finkelstein [26:50]
• “Even if we could rapidly develop a policy, and rapid in that space would be a year or two which would be extraordinary, by the time we’ve developed that policy the technology would have evolved at a pace that the technology will likely not be entirely relevant ” - Wendin D. Smith [27:42]
• “[About United States culture] We are all about capitalism, and the market, and driving forward, so our mindset is much more driven to a path that puts us more vulnerable [to cyberterrorism] - Wendin D. Smith [30:18]
• “When you have a single leader with that much power, it is much easier to turn and change and do things as a country than in our system where consensus rules” - Wendin D. Smith [42:07] 
• “[About understanding Russia and their objectives] You can’t find yourself to resolution if you don’t understand whether it is an adversary or a partner and what their views are”- Wendin D. Smith [54:16] 

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Wendin D. Smith

LinkedIn: Wendin D. Smith 

Website: https://councilonstrategicrisks.org/dr-wendin-smith/

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

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

Imagine an investing strategy that takes advantage of biases and imperfections in the marketplace. Sounds good? Now imagine that these investments are in startups founded by women and people of color, groups that have not had access to the same funding opportunities as others have. Sounds even better, doesn’t it? And that’s what my guest on this episode of The Sydcast, Jacques-Philippe Piverger, is all about, as he tells his story of entrepreneurship, investment, and impact.

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.

Jacques-Philippe Piverger

Jacques-Philippe Piverger serves as OzoneX’s Managing Partner, overseeing the firm’s operations with responsibilities across all aspects of the business. Jacques-Philippe is an entrepreneur who harnesses private and public sector experiences to affect change where it is needed most on the globe. He has co-created and scaled a wide range of enterprises including MPOWERD Inc., REALICITY, and The Council of Urban Professionals.

Jacques-Philippe developed his business acumen in the finance world, most notably as Director at AIG Investments and PineBridge Investments, where he participated in over $10 billion of real estate and venture capital transactions. He has been recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader and by the Council on Foreign Relations as a Term Member. He also serves as a board member of the New York Economic Development Corporation's Build NYC and the Industrial Development Agency.

Jacques-Philippe holds a bachelors degree from Georgetown and a Master of Business Administration from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. He is an avid martial artist and practitioner of transcendental meditation. He is the father of Soleil and Jacques-Maxime.

Insight from this Episode

• Challenges Jacques-Philippe faced towards people not believing the potential of marginalized groups in the market.
• The differentiator factor that makes Ozone X successful in the entrepreneurship environment.
• Insight into the companies that Ozone X’s has invested in.
• The story behind Ozone X’s name 
• Ozone X’s client selection process 
• Secrets of entrepreneurial failure 

Quotes from the Show:

• “Many of the greatest challenges also present the biggest opportunities”- Jacques-Philippe Piverger [11:05 ]
• “We think [Ozone X’s] there are big ideas housed in communities that have historically been marginalized from the traditional flows of capital”- Jacques-Philippe Piverger [15:20]
• “[Some people] believe that women and various marginalized groups just don’t have the skill, expertise and talent to do as well as the [traditional] groups that have been gaining the capital” - Jacques-Philippe Piverger [21:21]
• “[When building a business] It’s almost impossible to raise money, it’s really hard to develop the product, you have to manage your SIMS, so unless you’re doing something you really believe in and you’re passionate about, you’re not gonna be willing to do what it takes” - Jacques-Philippe Piverger [45:18] 
• “There are certain things that are harder to foresee so you create a solution based on the challenges that you see, but then the market shifts in a way you didn’t anticipate and your solution is no longer relevant” - Jacques-Philippe Piverger [49:50] 
• “If you do that thing that you love, the money and everything else that you want is gonna come anyway” - Jacques-Philippe Piverger [54:21] 

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Jacques-Philippe Piverger

LinkedIn: Jacques-Philippe Piverger 

Twitter: @jacquespiverger

Facebook: jacques philippe.piverger

Instagram: @jacquespiverger

Ozone X´s

Website: https://www.ozonex.vc/

Instagram: @ozoneventures

Facebook:OzoneVenturesInd

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

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

Why do humans walk on two feet? Every other animal motors on four legs (paws), and they do it way faster than we do, but we humans walk upright. If you thought evolution is supposed to select for attributes that enhance survival, then we have a real puzzle, among the most fundamental in human evolution. And that’s the puzzle Jerry DeSilva sets out to explain in his highly accessible book “First Steps,” and in this episode of 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.

Jeremy DeSilva

Jeremy "Jerry" DeSilva is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Dartmouth College. He is a paleoanthropologist, specializing in the locomotion of the first apes (hominoids) and early human ancestors (hominins). His particular anatomical expertise-- the human foot and ankle-- has contributed to our understanding of the origins and evolution of upright walking in the human lineage. He has studied wild chimpanzees in Western Uganda and early human fossils in Museums throughout Eastern and South Africa. From 1998-2003, Jerry worked as an educator at the Boston Museum of Science and continues to be passionate about science education. He is the author of the 2021 book First Steps: How Upright Walking Made Us Human. Jerry lives in Norwich, VT with his wife Erin and their twins Ben and Josie.

Insights from this Episode:

• How Jeremy’s curiosity for studying human walking began.
• How writing a book and giving a voice to the scientist is perceived in the scientific community.
• Explanations on why the apes are relatives of the human species but not ancestors. 
• Hypothesis on how the phenomena of walking on two feet began seven to eight million years ago.
• Difficulties and advantages that walking upright brought to the human species.
• Myths about the evolution of the human species and its cooperative nature.

Quotes from the Show:

• “The best leaders are the ones that ask good questions”- Syd Finkelstein [3:43]
• “I'm really interested in how animals move and how they get from point A to point B and what adaptations they’ve evolved” - Jerry DeSilva [8:26] 
• “Once you start moving onto two legs it comes with the sacrifice of your ability to climb in an acrobatic kind of way”- Jerry DeSilva [12:46]
• “I wanted to produce something that was gonna have a wider reach and was gonna be read frankly by more people than you know, some paper on a fossil metatarsal that'll be read by 7 of my colleagues” - Jerry DeSilva [15:09]
• “[About Scientists] We’re just curious people wondering how the world works” - Jerry DeSilva [18:34]
• “I've always thought that the job of a professor/academic is the creation and the dissemination of knowledge” Syd Finkelstein [19:28]
• “Wherever you put down [in the museum] needs to be understood by people of all different ages, all different backgrounds, all different levels of education” - Jerry DeSilva  [21:56]
• “My father on the writing [process] used to always ask: when you put it on a paper and you read it out loud, would you ever say that? If you’re in a conversation with somebody, would you ever say a sentence like that? and If the answer is no, then don’t write it like that” - Jerry DeSilva [27:48]
• “[About the chimpanzee’s] we can't quite treat them as time machines but we can treat them as models” - Jerry DeSilva  [38:09]
• “What increases your ability to survive… is very often cooperation” - Jerry DeSilva [51:33]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Jeremy DeSilva

Twitter: Jeremy DeSilva (@desilva_jerry)

Website: https://sites.dartmouth.edu/desilva/

Book: https://www.amazon.com/First-Steps-Upright-Walking-Human/dp/0062938495

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

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

How did the dancing Jikaria Sisters – a JD, MBA and Engineer – become TikTok sensations in their spare time? And what should they do next? The three sisters talk about their upbringing, their new brand, and how they’re juggling their “real” careers with another one in the heart of social media. Lots of fascinating questions, from how to scale the brand to what to say to clients about something they see as much more than a side hustle. This is post-millennial Gen Z in action.

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.

The Jikaria Sisters

The Jikaria Sisters (Omi, Rish, & Aash) are a sister trio originally from New York City. They are trained dancers, content creators, and social media influencers. The Jikaria Sisters combine their diverse Indian and American identities in their art and content. Whether it's through creating Bollywood-Hip Hop fusion pieces, going back to their roots through Garba and Bhangra, or defining what it means to be a part of the South Asian diaspora, the Jikaria Sisters are passionate about pushing boundaries and inspiring other creators to do the same. They are proud to have a community of 610,000 followers on TikTok, 60,000 followers on Instagram, and 3,500 subscribers on YouTube.

In addition to being a content creator and professional dancer, Omika Jikaria is a business professional and management consultant with diverse interests in innovation, design, entertainment, and entrepreneurship. She holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and a Bachelor’s degree from the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Rishika Jikaria is a J.D. Candidate at the Fordham University School of Law and is passionate about corporate law, social justice, and public policy. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Affairs from Emory University. Aashika Jikaria is an industrial engineer and Operations Management Trainee at L’Oréal USA. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she was also a Student-Athlete on the university’s official dance team.

Insights from the Episode:

• Understanding what identity means to young people especially for them growing up in neighborhoods where they are different 
• How to market yourself by adding flavor to your content to propel you forward
• Understanding your audience and the kind of content they want to see and engage with
• How to work with brands and leveraging your growth on social platforms

Quotes from the show:

• “People can do more than just regular jobs that they are doing and still perform at an extremely high level at that core job” -Syd Finkelstein [4:51]
• “We value both of our real careers as well as this because this is as real as it can be as well. It is definitely a place where we are also profiting” -Jikaria Sisters [24:58]
• “I think that it really showed a different side of me because it showed that I can also manage a business and I have entrepreneurial aspects and features as well, so I think it really helped in terms of comparing myself to other candidates when recruiting for jobs” -Jikaria Sisters [25:56]
• “I have learned to stay true to myself and understand that I want to work at a company that does value my skills and talents and my whole self” -Jikaria Sisters [27:53]
• “The thing that gives people power in their jobs is extreme competence because people start to depend on you: your bosses, your partners start to depend on you, and all of a sudden you gain power because people wanna hear what you have to say” -Syd Finkelstein [30:31]
• “It’s really empowering to have multiple interests and passions, but also multiple income streams. As the internet has blossomed over the past few years, it has become easier and there is a lot less friction to do that” -Jikaria Sisters [32:31]

Resources Mentioned

• ABC Good Morning America: https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Family/video/jikaria-sisters-bringing-south-asian-representation-tiktok-77702259
• CBS: https://m-partners.facebook.com/watch/?v=961391011324907&_rdr
• Brown Girl Magazine: https://browngirlmagazine.com/2020/08/evolution-jikaria-sisters/

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Jikaria Sisters

Instagram: jikariasisters

Tiktok: @jikariasisters

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

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

What would happen if you took Silicon Valley smarts and talent and applied it to helping social impact entrepreneurs scale their enterprises? Doug Galen decided to find out. Motivated by his daughter's drive to make the world a better place, Doug founded RippleWorks, an organization that has now helped social ventures in 59 countries and counting. This is his story.

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.

Doug Galen

Doug Galen has been building innovative and disruptive companies for some twenty-five years. Doug Galen is the Co-Founder and CEO of RippleWorks. RippleWorks is relentlessly focused on the needs of social ventures, providing the practical support impactful entrepreneurs and their teams need to improve more lives. We work in 59 countries and have a portfolio of 110 organizations of which these ventures have helped 216 million people.

In addition to RippleWorks, Doug teaches Startup Garage at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Doug sits on the Boards of Heifer International and Kenzie Academy as well as advises early-stage companies.

Prior to RippleWorks, Doug served as Chief Revenue Officer at Shopkick, a mobile app startup backed by Kleiner Perkins and Greylock that successfully sold to a Fortune 50 company, SVP of business and corporate development at Shutterfly where he helped grow revenue from $50 million to $500 million and a successful IPO, VP and GM of new ventures for eBay where he helped create eight new business units with revenues of $500 million and was employee #3 and Vice President of Sales and Business Development for E-LOAN which had a successful IPO.

Insights from the Episode:

• Understanding the ability to bridge from where you are to where you want to go in your career.
• How to pursue what you love doing: pursue it and stop when it is not working.
• How to acknowledge when you are out of sync and figure out what you have to do about it.
• How to marry purpose and impact into your day job and enjoy and feel happy about your work.

Quotes from the show:

• “Naivety is a blessing and a curse when you are starting a company” -Doug Galen [14:53]

• “Trust isn’t always in a great product or about speed, rather it is in the testimonials and attaching credibility to your company” -Doug Galen [20:10]

• “Trust is almost like the underpinnings of a capitalist society” -Sydney Finkelstein [26:12]

• “It’s important to build a company that adds value and withstands hard times” -Doug Galen [23:05]

• “Money is a scarce resource, but so are skills and the ability to scale an organization” -Doug Galen [43:13]

• “There are a lot of people in the world who would like to help and give back but they do not know how to or where to begin” -Doug Galen [45:25]

• “Some of our best lessons in life come from our mistakes” -Doug Galen [43:59]

• “When an organization becomes really big, a great strategy is to zoom in on their operations and focus on something narrow that you can do better than them” -Doug Galen [1:04:20]

• “Don’t go after what you should do, go after what you want to do. And if you go after what you want to do and it doesn’t work, it is okay to stop and start over” -Doug Galen [1:07:00]

Stay Connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Doug Galen

Website: Homepage - Rippleworks

Facebook: Doug Galen

LinkedIn: Doug Galen

Twitter: @DougGalen

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

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.

Episode Summary:

“If you don’t start with reality, you can’t fix it.” Simple yet deeply meaningful. Alex Liu – one of the world’s top management consultants – has an interesting take on lots of things, including diversity and how to make it work better, racism and how to make it stop working, and joy at work, the secret sauce of successful organizations. All on this episode of The Sydcast.

Syd 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. 

Alex Liu

A trusted advisor to CEOs and boards, Alex joined Kearney as a partner in 1996 and later served as head of the firm’s global Communications, Media & Technology Practice and as a member of the board of directors. He was elected as the firm’s ninth managing partner in 2018. He also serves as the firm’s chief diversity officer. Alex has served as both speaker and co-chair at World Economic Forum (WEF) events, including the Annual Summit in Davos and the WEF Africa Summit, sharing his perspectives on the fourth industrial revolution and future-workforce topics. He is also a member of the WEF International Business Council (IBC), an advisory body made up of 100+ influential chief executives and chairs. Alex has been published in The Harvard Business Review, featured in The Financial Times, and selected a “Top 25 Consultant” by Consulting Magazine and a Top 20 Global Diversity CEO in 2020. He hosts a podcast #Joy@Work. Alex has previously served as a board advisor to Emirates Telecommunications Company (Etisalat) in UAE. Prior to Kearney, Alex was CEO of a technology startup and a partner with the Boston Consulting Group, helping establish the firm’s Asian operations outside of Japan in the 1990s. He began his career in brand management at a subsidiary of Procter & Gamble. Alex earned an MBA from Harvard, BA from Yale and serves as a trustee of Episcopal High School (Virginia). He remains an avid rugby player.

Insights from this episode:

• The idea that curiosity and learning is not just beneficial for consultants, but for everyone.
• Understanding what workplace culture truly is and entails.
• Identifying responsibilities that business leaders have in recognizing social inequities and leading by example to move toward solutions.   
• Making joy a priority at work.

Quotes from the show:

• Consulting is “the hidden growth industry, because it’s an index for change.” -Alex Liu [3:42]

• “As soon as you stop learning about an industry, a sector, people, how people work, you’re not a very good teacher, consultant, or coach. So I think consultants need to be curious. They need to want to make a difference.” -Alex Liu [5:15] 

• “We need to make sure that we create a culture, which is not only you feel psychologically and physically safe to be in, you need to be seen for who you are, not just your identity because most diversity is actually invisible, as you know. It’s not just race, gender, or age. It is many other things.” -Alex Liu [13:23]

• “We’re human at our core, and companies and people that are successful recognize and treat people that way--as individuals, not as easy identities.” -Alex Liu [33:50] 

• “If you don’t start with reality, you can’t fix it.” -Alex Liu [45:50] 

• “Run your own race. Self-define your passion, your definition of success, because you’re your own board of directors.” -Alex Liu [59:52]

Stay Connected:

Syd Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Alex Liu

LinkedIn: Alex Liu

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

This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry (www.podcastlaundry.com)