Work. Shouldn't. Suck. LIVE: The Morning(ish) Show with special guest Christine Bader, co-founder of The Life I Want. [Live show recorded: March 31, 2020.]
Lauren and Tim are hosting daily livestreamed chats in April 2020 to connect with leaders in “real time” — about their lives, their organizations, their sector, and the world — during this unprecedented time in our lives. We come together as humans, as community, to talk about the concerns, the hopes, the hurdles, and the promise this particular moment in history offers us. Find the complete list guests, previous videos, and transcripts at WorkShouldntSuck.co.
Christine Bader is co-founder of The Life I Want, a storytelling project with Eva Dienel reimagining a future of work that works for all. She is a coach, facilitator, writer, consultant, and speaker whose sweet spot is the messy intersection of business and society.
Christine is the author of The Evolution of a Corporate Idealist: When Girl Meets Oil (2014). From 2015-17 she was Director of Social Responsibility at Amazon, where she built a global team working to ensure respect for the rights of workers in Amazon supply chains and operations. From 2011-15 her posts included advisor to BSR and visiting scholar at Columbia University, where she co-taught human rights and business.
Christine's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, and numerous other publications. She has given talks to conferences, companies, and universities around the world, including a TED talk in July 2014.
After earning her MBA from Yale in 2000, Christine joined BP and proceeded to work in Indonesia, China, and the U.K., managing the social impacts of some of the company’s largest projects in the developing world. In 2006 she created a part-time pro bono role as advisor to the U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Representative for business and human rights, a role she took up full-time in 2008 until the U.N. mandate ended in 2011.
Christine has also served as a corps member with City Year, a special assistant to the New York City Mayor’s Chief of Staff and Deputy Mayor, and a teaching fellow in community service at Phillips Academy Andover. She is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Christine was named to the 2012-13 class of the Donaldson Fellows Program, which recognizes Yale School of Management graduates “whose personal and professional accomplishments embody the school’s mission to educate leaders for business and society.”
Christine played squash and rugby at Amherst College and competed in the 2002 World Ultimate Frisbee Club Championships, but now finds her athletic glory running after her young twins. For 2018-19, she lived in Bali with her family as part of the Green School community. She now lives in McMinnville, Oregon, in the heart of wine country, continuing to search for community and a way of life that is sustainable in every dimension.
Lauren Olivia Ruffin currently serves as Fractured Atlas’s Chief External Relations Officer where she is responsible for the organization’s marketing, communications, community engagement, and fundraising. Prior to joining the team at Fractured Atlas, Lauren served as Director of Development for DC-based organizations Martha’s Table and the National Center for Children and Families. She was also fortunate to serve in various roles at and various positions at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Children’s Defense Fund, New Leaders, and AAUW. Before entering the nonprofit sector, Lauren held the position of Assistant Director of Government Affairs for Gray Global Advisors, a bipartisan government relations firm. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a degree in Political Science and obtained a J.D. from the Howard University School of Law. Previously, she served on the Board of Directors of Black Girls Code. And in her spare time, she can be found mountain biking or gesturing wildly at the teevee in support of Duke University’s men’s basketball team.
Tim Cynova spends his time assisting teams and organizations with the things they need to create workplaces where people thrive. He is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR), a trained mediator, on faculty at Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity and New York's The New School teaching courses in People-Centric Organizational Design and Leadership & Team Building. He is a certified trainer of the Crucial Conversations and What Motivates Me frameworks, and is a firm believer that Work. Shouldn't. Suck. He currently serves as the Chief Operating Officer of Fractured Atlas where he oversees the FinPOps team (Finance, People, and Operations, as well as is a member of the organization’s four-person, non-hierarchical shared leadership team). Prior to that, Tim was the Executive Director of The Parsons Dance Company and of High 5 Tickets to the Arts, had a memorable stint with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was a one-time classical trombonist, musicologist, and for five years in his youth he delivered newspapers for the Evansville Courier-Press. Also, during a particularly slow summer, he bicycled across the United States.
