Podcasts | Leadership for a Networked World

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Chief Growth Officer Podcast

The Chief Growth Officer Podcast, hosted by Dr. Antonio Oftelie of Harvard University, illuminates ideas on achieving transformational growth in outcomes and value.

The podcast features iconic executives and change agents as they share stories and ideas on growing the organizational and personal capacity to achieve breakthrough innovation and change and most importantly – generate outcomes that make a sustainably prosperous, equitable, and just world.

The Chief Growth Officer podcast will help you lead organizations, institutions, communities – and yourself – into transformational levels of growth in outcomes and value.

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Episodes

Episode 9

Forging a Brighter Future with Dr. Cynthia Croom and Metro Action Commission

Leading a ground-up transformation is hard. Coming into an organization and doing it as an outsider is even harder. The challenge of forging relationships, understanding the community, and fostering a change in culture and mission is difficult enough when the stakeholders know you. That challenge when you’re a newcomer? Monumental. Yet that’s exactly where this episode’s guest found herself.

In this episode, we’re talking with Dr. Cynthia Croom, Executive Director of the Metro Action Commission (MAC) in Nashville, Tennessee. Dr. Croom was charged with turning MAC around, and transforming the organization to “break the cycle of poverty in our community.” Cynthia and all the people in the organization had to reinvent their services and programs, collaborate in new ways, and most importantly – grow their capacity to sustain long-term innovation and change.

Listen | 1 hr

Episode 8

Live Well San Diego and Leaning in on a Pandemic

Breakthrough outcomes often need a catalyst – a way to see not only challenges on the horizon, but also solutions that will make the world better. A case in point is the “Live Well San Diego” initiative in San Diego County California, which helped officials respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in novel ways and created a platform to improve equity and health in the future.

In this episode of the Chief Growth Officer Podcast, we’ll learn from Nick Macchione, Director of Health and Human Services for San Diego County, about his leadership experience during the pandemic, and how he and other leaders built the systems, structures, and overall collaboration of the Live Well San Diego Initiative.

Listen | 40 min

Episode 7

The Future-Ready Organization: A Discussion with Anaplan CEO Frank Calderoni and Adobe CFO John Murphy

Evolving an organization is easier said than done. The noise and distraction of a highly changeable and uncertain environment can make it a challenge to get much done at all, let alone stay focused on what matters or create new ways of doing things. As a leader, how can you harness this moment to drive positive change? How do you bring everyone—employees, customers, partners—along on that growth journey?

In this episode of the Chief Growth Officer Podcast Anaplan CEO Frank Calderoni and Adobe CFO John Murphy discuss how to keep a company moving forward in a period where the safe play appears to be waiting out the storm. These two transformational leaders share their tools and strategies to ensure their organizations continue on a successful trajectory.

Listen | 43 min

Episode 6

John Murphy & Adobe's Winning Play

Growth is one thing. Purposeful growth another. Can the two be linked? And what does it take to move not only an established firm but also its people to embrace the required change? One thing is certain – it’s not easy. Can we learn how to approach purposeful growth by applying lessons learned from a top innovator?

In this episode of the Chief Growth Officer Podcast, Adobe CFO John Murphy discusses how he and his colleagues stay innovative by systematically working with customers to learn and sense what’s on the horizon, moving ideas through a framework that shakes out the winners from the losers, and harmonizing the organization’s capabilities and culture in order to best deliver results.

Listen | 48 min

Episode 5

Don Allan and the Pursuit of Innovation at Stanley Black & Decker

The world is constantly changing and at a rapidly accelerating rate. And a breakthrough technological transformation can quickly propel an organization into the future expanding its growth and financial capital exponentially. How does a company continuously balance the need to drive innovation while at the same time managing the risk? How does a leader of an organization create the culture necessary to embrace rapid change?

In this episode of the Chief Growth Officer Podcast, Don Allan, Executive Vice President and CFO of Stanley Black & Decker discusses the importance of the CFO as a Chief Transformation Officer. He shares his thoughts on moving innovation along not only internally but also through partnerships and ecosystems. He discusses how his special forces teams are working to accelerate innovation while balancing both current and future demand.

Listen | 44 min

Episode 1

Chief Scott Thomson and the Transformation of the Camden Police Department

Organizational transformation is a tall order in today’s turbulent world. In policing, it’s even more challenging. Yet, there are powerful examples of progress that show how leaders can create an environment for innovation and guide people and stakeholders through to successful transformation.

In this episode of the Chief Growth Officer Podcast, Scott Thomson, former police chief of Camden, New Jersey shares his unique perspective on what it takes to move a policing organization through phases of innovation and change, and how lessons learned can be applied to organizations of all types.

Listen | 57 min

Episode 4

Joe Jones and the Center for Urban Families

Leaders often need to shape their mission while balancing the demands of stakeholders, building a team that embodies this mission and ensuring the outcomes they seek remain in focus.

For over 20 years, the mission of Joe Jones, Founder and CEO of the Center for Urban Families (CFUF), has been to invest in the whole family. His overarching goal has been to lift up and empower fathers and to ensure that they are receiving the guidance and resources they need to become and remain an integral part of their family.

In this insightful podcast, Joe candidly shares his vision to “dismantle poverty” and opens up about some of the challenges he’s faced, barriers he’s had to break through and the valuable lessons he’s learned along the way

Listen | 55 min

Episode 3

Gretchen Beesing and the Tipping Point at Catalyst Miami

To effectively build capacity for future challenges and opportunities, leaders must often seek out new ways to co-create solutions through partnerships with other organizations, coalitions, and network-building. This form of collaboration is a keystone of Catalyst Miami, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to build social and economic mobility for individuals and families in Miami-Dade County.

In this podcast, Catalyst Miami CEO, Gretchen Beesing, opens up about the strides she’s made leading the organization, as well as how the organization is looking to take on the impact and inequities of climate change. Gretchen shares the organization’s unique approach to co-creating policy and outcome goals for the community and building a robust platform of services for the future.

Listen | 36 min

Episode 2

Kirsten Lodal and the Story of LIFT

A major pivot in any organization takes time and unwavering commitment. And it takes adaptive leadership to create an environment that can start and sustain transformation.

In this podcast episode, Kirsten Lodal, founder and former CEO of LIFT shares leadership insights on the organization’s transformational journey. Kirsten started LIFT, a national nonprofit organization that works to break the cycle of poverty for young families, in 1996. As the organization evolved and grew over a decade, they wanted to improve their outcomes and impact – particularly around racial equity. As a result, Kirsten took a hard look at LIFT’s mission, practice model, and organizational design, and with her team built a model for the future.

Listen | 42 min

Episodes

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