128 episodes

From the creator of How I Built This, host Guy Raz invites you to listen in as he talks to leadership experts and the visionary leaders of some of the world's biggest brands. Along the way, you'll hear accounts of crisis, failure, turnaround, and triumph, as the leaders reveal their secrets on their way to the top. These are stories that didn't make it into their company bios, and valuable lessons for anyone trying to make it in business.

Wisdom From The Top with Guy Raz Luminary

    • Society & Culture

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Requires subscription and macOS 11.4 or higher

From the creator of How I Built This, host Guy Raz invites you to listen in as he talks to leadership experts and the visionary leaders of some of the world's biggest brands. Along the way, you'll hear accounts of crisis, failure, turnaround, and triumph, as the leaders reveal their secrets on their way to the top. These are stories that didn't make it into their company bios, and valuable lessons for anyone trying to make it in business.

Listen on Apple Podcasts
Requires subscription and macOS 11.4 or higher

    How You Win by Failing: Sarah Robb O’Hagan

    How You Win by Failing: Sarah Robb O’Hagan

    Sarah Robb O'Hagan is brutally honest about the many, many times she messed up on the way to transforming Gatorade. She was a rabble-rouser at Virgin, which ended with her getting fired. She took a job at Atari, even though she hated video games. How those disasters made her into the right executive to pull Gatorade out of double-digit declines. 

    • 1 hr 10 min
    Jacqueline Novogratz (Acumen): When to Listen, When to Lead

    Jacqueline Novogratz (Acumen): When to Listen, When to Lead

    When the COO of Chase Bank told Jacqueline Novogratz that she had the potential for a high level career at Chase, she knew she had to quit her job. She continued to use the skills she learned from investment banking, and used them to change the way the world sees capitalism and philanthropy. Today Acumen has delivered more than 100 million dollars in loans, grants, and investments to projects and businesses that help low income people around the world.
    It's little wonder that as a child Jacqueline Novogratz was drawn to the stories of saints--or, rather, "narratives about women who directed their own lives," as she tells Guy Raz in this conversation from 2020 (reprised, fittingly, during a month that honors the power and history of women).

    • 37 min
    Channel Confidence: BET's Debra Lee

    Channel Confidence: BET's Debra Lee

    Black Entertainment Television launched in 1980--at a time when MTV didn't play Hip hop or "urban music. Not only did BET fill a vital programming void, it was the first Black-owned business traded on the New York Stock Exchange, and it helped make the first Black Billionaire in the US (Bob Johnson). Debra Lee, a young Harvard-educated lawyer drawn to the company’s mission, was recruited by Johnson early on, eventually taking his place as CEO. Lee was pivotal in turning the small, revolutionary cable station into an industry staple.
    In honor of the 55th NAACP Image Awards, which air on BET, listen to this excellent 2019 conversation with Lee about what she learned in her 30+-year tenure at BET Networks.

    • 52 min
    The Hardest Decisions, ft. Leena Nair

    The Hardest Decisions, ft. Leena Nair

    Growing up in a small town in India, Leena Nair overheard her mother say it was too bad Leena was born a girl, because it meant her smarts and talents would go to waste. But Nair went on to join Hindustan Unilever, becoming the first female manager to work on a factory floor, the first woman to serve on the management committee, and the youngest-ever executive director. She has since gone on to the role of CEO at Chanel. When Guy Raz had this conversation with Nair in 2020 she was Unilever’s Chief Human Resource Officer, overseeing the company’s 170,000-plus global workforce during the COVID-19 crisis - a crisis that she said has been one of the greatest challenge of her career.

    • 34 min
    Take Risks, Break Barriers: Shellye Archambeau

    Take Risks, Break Barriers: Shellye Archambeau

    Shellye Archambeau knew as a teenager she wanted to grow up and become a CEO. But when Shellye started as an undergraduate at the Wharton School of Business in 1980, there were just two female CEOs of large corporations, and none of the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies were Black. Despite the lack of representation, Shellye became the first Black woman to lead a division of IBM overseas. She broke barriers and took risks leading to a successful career with leadership positions at Blockbuster, Zaplet and MetricStream. In this 2022 conversation with Guy Raz, Shellye discusses her book Unapologetically Ambitious: Take Risks, Break Barriers, and Create Success on Your Own Terms, and details both her singular approach to leadership and her advice for taking ownership of one’s career.

    • 1 hr 1 min
    Amex Change Agent: Kenneth Chenault

    Amex Change Agent: Kenneth Chenault

    When a mentor, and now friend, told Kenneth Chenault during a hiring process at American Express that he was "looking for catalytic agents of change," it struck a deep chord--because it's exactly what Chenault wanted to be. Kenneth Chenault learned early on to only worry about the things he could control; this helped him when life—and business at American Express—threw unpredictable events his way. In this 2020 interview, he tells Guy how he broke barriers as the company’s first African American CEO and helped turn AmEx from a traveler’s check company into a credit card powerhouse.

    • 46 min

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