View From The Top

"If you talk about and comment on everything, your voice becomes background noise ... It's important [for brands] to be clear what matters most to us and why. What's our purpose? Why do we exist?"

In this episode of View From The Top, the podcast, Dara Treseder, MBA '14, Peloton's global head of marketing, communications, and membership discusses how she found her purpose as a leader and why the journey to success is not linear. "Remember no matter how high you are, be humble. No matter how low you are, be hopeful," she says. 

This podcast is drawn from Stanford GSB's speaker series in which prominent leaders from around the world join MBA students for a conversation on effective leadership, core values, and lessons learned throughout their career.

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When David Vélez, MBA '12, moved to Brazil in 2008 to open a regional office for a private equity fund, he didn’t expect one of his biggest challenges to be getting a bank account. The process took five months.

Five years later, he was in São Paulo after working as a partner for Sequoia Capital, a venture firm, and has just graduated from Stanford Graduate School of Business. To him, Brazil’s financial services sector seemed ripe for disruption. So in May of 2013, with seed funding from Sequoia Capital and Kaszek Ventures (a firm founded by two Stanford GSB graduates), Vélez launched Nubank, a fintech bank which has grown to be the largest in Latin America. 

Vélez shared the story of his path to entrepreneurship with students at a recent View From The Top event on Stanford GSB campus. 

"You want to position yourself in the scarcity of the market, not in the oversupply," he said. Vélez was interviewed by Christopher Stromeyer, MBA '22, and shared how his drive to continuously be challenged played a large part in his drive to reinvent a part of the banking system. "Why would you wait decades to solve issues if you can now?"

Prominent leaders from around the world join MBA students for a conversation on effective leadership, core values, and lessons learned throughout their career. View From The Top, the podcast, is based on the dean’s speaker series at Stanford Graduate School of Business. It is produced by Michael Reilly, Jenny Luna, and the theme music was composed by Lily Sloan.

Show notes

How Stanford GSB alums created one of the most valuable startups in Latin America, Stanford GSB Insights

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“You have to be very humble if you want to be an entrepreneur…know what you know and know what you don’t know.” In this episode of View From The Top, the podcast, Jessica Alba, founder of The Honest Company, sits down with Alexandra Eitel, MBA '22 to discuss how entrepreneurs have to trust their gut.  

View From the Top is drawn from the dean’s speaker series in which prominent leaders from around the world join MBA students for a conversation on effective leadership, core values, and lessons learned throughout their career.

Find more episodes on Stanford GSB's website, or wherever you get your podcasts.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"People will give you credit, but 99% of it is not you,” said Hamdi Ulukaya, CEO of Chobani, in a View From The Top interview on campus. “It's the environment that you created.” 

Interviewed by Alexandra Eitel, MBA ’22, Ulukaya also discussed how businesses can benefit from hiring and training refugees in their community. "Refugees can come into society and a community. It’s very simple, as a CEO: hire them, train them; you will benefit greatly and so will they.” 

Stanford GSB’s View From The Top is the dean’s premier speaker series. It launched in 1978 and is supported in part by the F. Kirk Brennan Speaker Series Fund.

During student-led interviews and before a live audience, leaders from around the world share insights on effective leadership, their personal core values, and lessons learned throughout their career.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

MercadoLibre e-commerce, the eBay of Latin America, is a $28 billion company. At its roots are three friends who met at Stanford GSB.

In this View From The Top speaker series, MercadoLibre founders Marcos Galperín, MBA ’99; Hernan Kazah, MBA ’99; and Stelleo Tolda, MBA ’99 discuss the team dynamics of starting a company with classmates and the contrarian views that helped them succeed.

Stanford GSB’s View From The Top is the dean’s premier speaker series. It launched in 1978 and is supported in part by the F. Kirk Brennan Speaker Series Fund. During student-led interviews and before a live audience, leaders from around the world share insights on effective leadership, their personal core values, and lessons learned throughout their career.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

“My story is not an exceptional story. It could have been the story of any girl if their fathers and brothers had allowed them to speak out.”

In this View From The Top interview, activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, shares her mission mission to ensure that all 130 million girls who are out of school can have access to education.

“My goal is to meet these girls, but also uplift their story so leaders listen to them rather than me. And this is my goal in every meeting ... to say ‘let’s listen to these activists. They have something to say to you. You have been ignoring their voices, so hear from them and they will tell you what the issues are in this country for girls and women.’”

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"What I've found with our players, is that the guys who have the most balance in their lives, are the ones who know how to handle all this stuff the best," said Steve Kerr, head coach of the NBA's Golden State Warriors, in a View From The Top interview on campus. "Work-life balance is just crucial."

Interviewed by Rustom Birdie, MBA '22, Kerr compared leading on the court to leading at home. "I think I lead my team a little bit like I raised my children," he said. "My wife and I did that together, and we always sort of gave them a lot of rope, but they kind of knew they were responsible for that freedom. I believe in the same kind of leadership with the team."

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In this View From The Top interview, Thasunda Brown Duckett, president and CEO of TIAA, recalls her childhood experience moving from New York to Texas in a car packed with everything her parents and two siblings owned and why she knew from a young age that she had the power to make progress. In her conversation with Adriann Negreros, MBA ’21, Duckett talks about how to change social inequities by believing in “the art of possibility.”

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In this View From The Top interview, Priscilla Chan, cofounder and co-CEO of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, shares the story of her refugee family fleeing Vietnam and what it was like for her growing up as an Asian American in the Catholic suburbs of Boston. In a conversation with Rex Woodbury, MBA ’21, Chan discusses how the values she learned as a young girl have given her the optimism to always do better and the confidence to tackle problems that others aren’t tackling. “I’m sure many of you are very good at identifying problems and going to the authorities,” she says. “The only problem is, eventually you’ll find that there is no authority and that you’re the grown-up in the room. You’re the only one who cares enough about this problem to do something about it.”

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As the CEO of Gap Inc., Sonia Syngal’s brand is to create with audacity. In this View From The Top conversation with Adriann Negreros, MBA ’21, Syngal discusses her career, from her start in the auto industry to her recent experience guiding a major retailer through the pandemic. “It's like that Apollo 13 moment when you just have to get it done and the situation requires us to step into the leadership required,” she says. “That's what happened and you have to believe that we're all here for a reason I was in that role at that time to lead.”

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