Beauty At Work

Brandon Vaidyanathan

Beauty at Work expands our understanding of beauty: what it is, how it works, and why it matters. Sociologist Brandon Vaidyanathan interviews scientists, artists, entrepreneurs, and leaders across diverse fields to reveal new insights into how beauty shapes our brains, behaviors, organizations, and societies--for good and for ill. Learn how to harness the power of beauty in your life and work, while avoiding its pitfalls.

  1. 18h ago

    Can Banking Be Beautiful? with Kristine Braden (Part 1 of 2)

    Beauty is not a word most of us would associate with the world of finance. I mean if you wanted to spend a career pursuing beauty, Wall Street probably wouldn’t be top of your list. Banking is seen as a world of spreadsheets and regulations, of long stressful hours and high stakes, and since 2008, as an industry that has had to seriously earn back our trust. But what if finance may be one of the most creative industries there is, not just despite its constraints but precisely because of them? And what if a bank, of all places, could be the vehicle to fulfill one’s desire to see the world and to make it better? My guest today spent her entire career inside that world, and she sees it very differently from our stereotypical view of banking. Kristine Braden is a global banker with 30 years’ experience working in Europe, Asia, the US, and Latin America. She worked for 26 years with Citigroup outside the US in a variety of senior roles, most recently as Europe Head, CEO and Board Member of Citibank Europe Plc in Ireland and CEO and Management Board Member of Citigroup Global Markets Europe in Germany. She currently serves as a Board Director at Vontobel Holdings, an international investment firm with Swiss roots. She is also an Independent Director on the Board of KBC Group NV, a pan-European bank-insurance group headquartered in Belgium. In this first part of our conversation, we discuss: Kristine's childhood memory of beauty at the peak of California's high SierrasHow wanderlust and curiosity for different cultures shaped her vocational pathThe choice to pursue global bankingNavigating major financial crisesFinding beauty in a sense of accomplishment within regulatory constraintsThe sense of craftsmanship in the world of bankingThe challenges of a cross-border environment To learn more about Kristine Braden’s work, you can find her at: https://www.vontobel.com/  This season of the podcast is sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation. Support the show

    Can Banking Be Beautiful? with Kristine Braden (Part 1 of 2)

  2. Oct 27

    Making Room with Dr. Leidy Klotz - S5E1 (Part 2 of 2)

    What would it take to make your work environment more beautiful? Many of us might instinctively think of adding something. Or we might treat the work environment as a backdrop and beauty as an accessory to it, not realizing how our spaces shape us. My guest today will help us rethink these tendencies. Dr. Leidy Klotz is a behavioral scientist and engineering professor at the University of Virginia who studies how and why humans design. He has written for the Washington Post, Fast Company, Scientific American, and Harvard Business Review. He is also the author of Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less and his recent book, In a Good Place: How the Spaces Where We Live, Work, and Play Can Help Us Thrive. In this second part of our conversation, we talk about: Leidy's experience of learning the history of Memorial Gym at UVA as a source of beautyExercising agency within constrained physical spacesWhy we gravitate toward trivial decisions over complex, high-impact onesThe value of a "beauty audit" for noticing what we love in our spacesHow thoughtful environmental design fosters connection and belongingSense of collective agency in workspacesThe legacy of "Josie's Way"Practical steps listeners can take to put themselves in a good place To learn more about Leidy Klotz’s work, you can find him at: https://leidyklotz.com/  Books and resources mentioned: Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less (by Leidy Klotz) In a Good Place: How the Spaces Where We Live, Work, and Play Can Help Us Thrive (by Leidy Klotz) This season of the podcast is sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation. Support the show

    Making Room with Dr. Leidy Klotz - S5E1 (Part 2 of 2)

  3. Oct 20

    Making Room with Dr. Leidy Klotz - S5E1 (Part 1 of 2)

    What would it take to make your work environment more beautiful? Many of us might instinctively think of adding something. Or we might treat the work environment as a backdrop and beauty as an accessory to it, not realizing how our spaces shape us. My guest today will help us rethink these tendencies. Dr. Leidy Klotz is a behavioral scientist and engineering professor at the University of Virginia who studies how and why humans design. He has written for the Washington Post, Fast Company, Scientific American, and Harvard Business Review. He is also the author of Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less and his recent book, In a Good Place: How the Spaces Where We Live, Work, and Play Can Help Us Thrive. In this first part of our conversation, we discuss: Leidy's experience of beauty watching his son's soccer teamHis career arc from professional soccer to behavioral scienceSubtraction neglect and why our minds add before taking awaySimplifying complex physics down to the essenceWhy jam-packed itineraries persistThe balance bike as a prime example of subtractive product innovationHow our physical surroundings shape our behavior, motivation, and well-beingThe importance of agency, growth, and connection in the spaces where we live and workThe "space before screens" concept To learn more about Leidy Klotz’s work, you can find him at: https://leidyklotz.com/  Books and resources mentioned: Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less (by Leidy Klotz) In a Good Place: How the Spaces Where We Live, Work, and Play Can Help Us Thrive (by Leidy Klotz) This season of the podcast is sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation. Support the show

    Making Room with Dr. Leidy Klotz - S5E1 (Part 1 of 2)

  4. Apr 14

    Beauty, Ritual, and Spirit | International Symposium "Can Beauty Save the World?" with Ayodeji Ogunnaike, Julian Carrón, Matt Miller, Mauro Magatti

    This is the closing panel of our international symposium "Can beauty save the world?" held at McGill University, Oct 24-25, 2025, and focuses on ritual and spirit in the age of disenchantment. We open with a song from singer-songwriter Tiffany Thompson. Ayodeji Ogunnaike (McGill), Julian Carrón (Sacro Cuore, Milan), Matt Miller (Dzeici Theater), and Mauro Magatti (Sacro Cuore, Milan) called for the recovery of spirit as essential to beauty’s saving power. Deji drew on Yoruba philosophy, where character is beauty and truth may be transformative rather than pleasant. Fr. Carron asked whether beauty can help us open our whole selves to reality instead. Matt reflected on how beauty matters for change of state vs. change of being. Mauro argued that beauty saves only if we rehabilitate spirit as a structural dimension of human thought— resonant, decentering, transcendent, and mysterious. The panel was moderated by novelist and theologian Tara Isabella Burton, who also offers closing remarks. The event was sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation. Learn more at www.canbeautysavetheworld.com and www.beautyatwork.net #beautyatwork #beauty #music #ritual #spirit #theology #yoruba #transformation Support the show

    Beauty, Ritual, and Spirit | International Symposium "Can Beauty Save the World?" with Ayodeji Ogunnaike, Julian Carrón, Matt Miller, Mauro Magatti

  5. Apr 7

    The Transformative Power of Art and Architecture with Anjan Chatterjee, Alberto Perez-Gomez, Stephen Legari, and J.F. Martel

    This is a panel on the transformative power of art and architecture as part of the international symposium "Can beauty save the world?" held at McGill University, Oct 24-25, 2025. The session begins with poetry from Olivia Wood, who moderated the panel. Anjan Chatterjee (University of Pennsylvania) examined our vocabularies to express aesthetic experience and the relationship between transformational experience and third-person rendition. Alberto Perez-Gomez (McGill) noted that the value of architecture has always been its beauty, which orients us toward justice, festivity, and the common good. Stephen Legari (MMFA) shared how collective awe, experienced through slow looking and hospitality, can heal and connect. J.F. Martel distinguished between the beauty of the geometers vs. ecstatic beauty, and how art matters for both. The panel was sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation. Learn more at www.canbeautysavetheworld.com and www.beautyatwork.net #beauty #art #architecture #museum #arttherapy #philosophy #neuroscience #neuroaesthetics #philosophyofart Support the show

    The Transformative Power of Art and Architecture with Anjan Chatterjee, Alberto Perez-Gomez, Stephen Legari, and J.F. Martel

  6. Mar 31

    The Transformative Power of Music | "Can Beauty Save the World?"

    In this panel during the international symposium "Can beauty save the world?" held at McGill University, Oct 24-25 2025, Jean-Sébastien Vallée (McGill), Katie Bank (Birmingham), Rebekah Wallace (Oxford), Ian Corbin (Harvard), and Jonathan Berger (Stanford) explored the transformative power of music. The panel was moderated by Stephen Bullivant (St. Mary's London). We began with a performance by an acapella quartet from the Schulich School of Music (McGill). Jean-Sébastien described the conductor’s task as creating a sonic space where sound becomes meaning—a community where difference becomes harmony. One of his singers, who had just lost her husband, came to perform because “singing with my choir is the only way I can breathe right now.” Katie and Rebekah described how early modern thinkers saw music as acting on the whole person, not as external stimulus but as an activity of the soul. Ian reflected on the relevance of music to our longing for wholeness, which passes through failure, undoing, despondence. Jonathan discussed his fascinating research on the sonic signatures of sacred spaces, and how the balance between clarity and blur in sound transforms acoustics into awe. The event was sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation. Learn more at www.canbeautysavetheworld.com and www.beautyatwork.net #beauty #music #transformation #philosophy #musicology #spirituality Support the show

    The Transformative Power of Music | "Can Beauty Save the World?"

  7. Mar 25

    Can Beauty Save the World? with Charles Taylor, Sean Kelly, Elaine Scarry, Richard Kearney

    This is the opening panel for the international symposium "Can beauty save the world?" held at McGill University, Montreal, Oct 24-25, 2025. We begin with introductions from Dan Cere (McGill), Brandon Vaidyanathan (Catholic University of America), Charles Taylor (McGill), and Tara Isabella Burton (Catholic University of America), followed by a panel discussion between Sean Kelly (Harvard), Elaine Scarry (Harvard), and Richard Kearney (Boston College), moderated by Bill Barbieri (Catholic University of America) Sean Kelly reflected that beauty moves us beyond ourselves. It saves us from the flattening of meaningful differences. To encounter beauty is to order one’s life around the object of love. When we long for others to share in that recognition, we glimpse beauty’s political potential—it calls us into conversation rather than conflict. Elaine Scarry deepened that insight, reminding us that the opposite of beauty is not ugliness, but injury. Beauty and justice both arise from a sense of fairness and the desire to repair harm. Beauty’s lasting impact, she noted, is generative—it makes us want to create. Richard Kearney drew on Gerard Manley Hopkins’s image of the “pied” world—speckled, varied, alive with difference. Beauty, he said, is not pure symmetry but aftering: it often arrives through suffering and loss, reconciling the universal and the particular. And Charles Taylor reminded us that beauty cannot be defined apart from itself. Its relation to truth is reciprocal, not hierarchical. To understand one, we must hold the other in view. “That,” he said, “is how beauty can save the world.” The symposium was sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation. Learn more at www.canbeautysavetheworld.com and www.beautyatwork.net #beautyatwork #beauty #aesthetics #philosophy #philosophyofbeauty Support the show

    Can Beauty Save the World? with Charles Taylor, Sean Kelly, Elaine Scarry, Richard Kearney

  8. Mar 17

    AI and the Future of Human Agency with Helen and Dave Edwards - S4E12 (Part 2 of 2)

    Helen and Dave Edwards are co-founders of the Artificiality Institute, a nonprofit research organization that helps people stay human in the age of AI. They explore how AI changes the way we think, who we become, and what it means to be human. Through story-based research, education, and community, they help people choose the relationship they want with machines, so they remain the authors of their own minds. Before founding the Artificiality Institute, they co-founded Intelligentsia.ai, an AI-focused research firm acquired by Atlantic Media. Helen previously led large-scale technology and transformation efforts in critical infrastructure, while Dave spent years shaping creative tools at Apple and investing in emerging technologies as a venture capitalist at CRV and an equity research analyst at Morgan Stanley and ThinkEquity. In this second part of our conversation, we talk about: Rethinking intelligence as something layered, embodied, and expressed in different forms The “SaaSpocalypse” moment on Wall Street The “Dust Bowl” metaphor and the risk of automating complex human systems too quickly Transition from the attention economy to the intimacy economy Dave and Helen’s reflections on what is lost when we use AI How AI systems uncover hidden structures in language, science, and the natural world Practical ways creators can decide where AI belongs in their creative process To learn more about Helen and Dave’s work, you can find them at: https://artificialityinstitute.org/  Books and resources mentioned: The Artificiality, AI Culture, and Why the Future Will Be Co-Evolution (by Helen Edwards) This season of the podcast is sponsored by Templeton Religion Trust. Support the show

    AI and the Future of Human Agency with Helen and Dave Edwards - S4E12 (Part 2 of 2)
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About

Beauty at Work expands our understanding of beauty: what it is, how it works, and why it matters. Sociologist Brandon Vaidyanathan interviews scientists, artists, entrepreneurs, and leaders across diverse fields to reveal new insights into how beauty shapes our brains, behaviors, organizations, and societies--for good and for ill. Learn how to harness the power of beauty in your life and work, while avoiding its pitfalls.

Information

  • Creator
    Brandon Vaidyanathan
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    149
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Beauty At Work
  • Show Website
    Beauty At Work

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