Christiana Smith Shi is a seasoned leader in global, multichannel retail, co-author of national, best-selling book Career Forward: Strategies From Women Who’ve Made It, founder and principal at Lovejoy Advisors, LLC., and an experienced corporate director on multiple Fortune 100 boards. Christiana made an early career pivot from finance to join McKinsey & Company, where she ultimately served as Senior Partner. After 25 years in management consulting, Christiana became the President of Direct-to-Consumer at Nike. In 2016, she retired from Nike and founded Lovejoy Advisors to help provide guidance around digital transformation for consumer and retail businesses. She joins Roy to share insights into navigating a rewarding career, talent lessons from McKinsey and Nike, and much more. 

Highlights from our conversation include:

• The timely issue that prompted her to write a book (3:58)
• Why Christiana puts career first, job second (9:18)
• How to take a strategic long view with your career (10:55)
• Advice for building “professional equity” (15:27)
• What it means to “think like an investor” when it comes to your career (16:58)
• Christiana’s core leadership philosophy (22:20)
• Her perspective on the value of leadership coaching (25:38)
• The role of feedback as a leader (26:47)
• Lessons learned about hiring and talent and the major differences between hiring at McKinsey and Nike (30:25)
• How Christiana worked to integrate her team into the culture of Nike (35:35)
• Identifying strengths and opportunities of a team (37:20)
• How to avoid what she calls "benevolent stagnation” (42:09)
• How Christiana has applied her career experience and strategies to her work on boards (45:19)
• Advice for landing board roles (46:45)
• The ultimate payoff of a rewarding career and what Christiana is thinking about for the future (55:05)

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