Agility Champions: CEOs on Time-Competitive Execution

Don and Charlie Sull

CultureX Co-Founders Don and Charlie Sull interview CEOs of leading companies about how they cultivate agility: the ability to execute strategy in a time-competitive manner and effectively respond to turbulence that the AI era presents. 

Episodes

  1. Agility Champions: Craig Kliethermes, CEO, RLI Insurance Company

    06/04/2025

    Agility Champions: Craig Kliethermes, CEO, RLI Insurance Company

    Craig Kliethermes is the CEO of RLI Insurance Company In 1961, Gerald Stephens founded Replacement Lens Inc to offer a novel insurance policy that covered the cost of replacing contact lenses. As the price of contacts fell over time, insurance demand fell as well, but RLI already diversified into other niche insurance markets.  Today, RLI offers dozens of highly specialized insurance products across a wide range of niche markets that fill unmet customer needs  This steady stream of new product introductions has allowed RLI to deliver the highest revenue growth among specialty insurers over the past five years and total shareholder returns at the top of the industry RLI attributes much of the company’s success to great people and its distinctive culture, captured in the tagline "different works." Employees love the culture, and have voted RLI one of Glassdoor’s best places to work for four of the last six years. RLI puts five core values--ownership, customer focus, drive, innovation, and integrity at the heart of its culture   We analyzed how more than 50,000 employees described their company in Glassdoor reviews for 45 insurance companies.  We found that RLI employees spoke about the company's core values much more frequently and positively than employees in peer companies.   In this episode, Craig discusses the vital role culture plays in RLI’s success, and how the company fosters such a strong one.

    1h 3m
  2. Agility Champions: Steve Richman, CEO, Techtronic Industries

    03/11/2025

    Agility Champions: Steve Richman, CEO, Techtronic Industries

    When Steve joined Milwaukee Tool as president in 2007, the company was 83 years old and sold a limited range of traditional power tools During his tenure as president, Steve led a remarkable transformation of the company’s strategy and culture that produced a steady stream of technical and product innovations.  Today, Milwaukee Tool sells a wide range of cordless power tools for the building trades, and is the market share leader in North America and globally. This steady stream of new products has allowed Milwaukee Tool to deliver double-digit revenue growth, year-in and year-out, for nearly two decades. And over the past ten years, Milwaukee Tools’ parent company has generated total shareholder returns of 17% CAGR, versus 7% for its direct competitors and 11% for the industrial sector as a whole Steve attributes much of the company’s success to great people and its distinctive culture. And employees agree. Employees have voted Milwaukee Tool one of Glassdoor’s best places to work for three of the last five years. Not only do employees love the culture, they also say Milwaukee Tool excels on its core values of empowered leaders, candor, and speed/agility/urgency.  We analyzed how more than 40,000 employees described their company in Glassdoor reviews for 27 industrials. Milwaukee Tool employees were nearly twice as likely to mention empowerment, and discuss it more than twice as positively as the average industrial.  In this episode Steve, who is now the CEO of Milwaukee Tools’ parent company, reveals the secret of Milwaukee Tool’s cultural success.

    58 min
  3. Culture Champions: Sharon Macbeath, CHRO, Hermès

    10/24/2024

    Culture Champions: Sharon Macbeath, CHRO, Hermès

    Sharon MacBeath is the seniormost executive responsible for human resources at Hermès, where she sits on the company’s executive board.  Hermès was founded in 1837 when expert leather maker Thierry Hermès opened a Paris workshop to make horse harnesses for European nobility. The company has thrived since then while maintaining its commitment to exquisite craftmanship and uncompromising quality across a range of product lines including leather goods, clothing, home furnishing, and the iconic Birkin and Kelly bags.  Hermès is the 42nd largest company in the world by market capitalization. Its employee count has approximately doubled in the last ten years, to 22,000. Measured by total shareholder returns, it is one of the most financially successful companies in the world. Core to Hermès success is its distinctive and, remarkably, unwritten culture. On Glassdoor, employees are multiple standard deviations more favorable about toxic culture, organizational support, and empowerment than peer companies in the luxury space: all core elements of Hermès’ humanistic approach to culture, yet just a small subset of the many cultural dimensions where Hermès significantly outperforms peers.  In this episode, Sharon lets us dive into one of the most enigmatic and successful cultures in the world, sharing what Hermès’ culture actually is and how leadership has been able to preserve it so effectively for nearly two centuries in the face of transformative growth, especially during her own tenure.  Link to Hermès Universal Registration Document Link to excellent Acquired podcast on Hermès

    59 min
  4. Agility Champions: Manny Maceda, Worldwide Managing Partner, Bain & Company

    10/22/2024

    Agility Champions: Manny Maceda, Worldwide Managing Partner, Bain & Company

    Manny Maceda has the unique distinction of being the seniormost leader of the best-led company in America, according to Glassdoor’s 2024 Best-Led Companies list.  Bain and Company, which Manny led as Worldwide Managing Partner up until recently, when he transitioned to Chairman, was also ranked #1 in Glassdoor’s 2024 Best Paces to Work list, and has been the top-ranked consulting firm on Glassdoor for ten years in a row.  Under Manny’s leadership, Bain has also excelled financially. Between 2018 and 2023, revenue increased by more than 75%, outpacing McKinsey. A global firm operating in 22 countries, Bain’s culture is remarkably consistent. Its culture ranked #1 across consulting firms in 18 of those countries. “A Bainie never lets another Bainie fail” is core to the firm’s values. Sure enough, on Glassdoor Bain employees speak considerably more frequently and positively about organizational support than any other consulting firm, one of a wide variety of cultural dimensions they significantly outperform peers on.  An MIT alumnus, Manny joined Bain in 1989 and in his 35 year career at Bain advised CEOs at some of the world’s most successful companies. In this episode, Manny reflects on the role of culture as the operating system coordinating Bain’s success, how Bain successfully lives up to its core values over a long time horizon, and how the company maintains its culture so consistently across a global organization.  Bain's operating principles link

    57 min
  5. Culture Champions: Katie Burke, CPO, Hubspot

    10/19/2024

    Culture Champions: Katie Burke, CPO, Hubspot

    During Katie Burke’s tenure as Chief People Officer, HubSpot was one of the brightest stars of the tech universe that shone both culturally and financially.  HubSpot boasted the highest average culture rating within the enterprise software industry, which itself had the highest average culture rating of the fifty industries we measured. HubSpot ranked #2 among all large US employers in Glassdoor’s 2022 Employees’ Choice Awards, was named #1 Best Place to Work by the Boston Globe, and was listed by Fortune as a Best Place to Work for Women. Online, employees spoke remarkably positively about the company during Katie’s tenure. Employees were more than three standard deviations about empowerment, trust, and leaders walking the cultural talk than enterprise software peers. Transparency, honest leaders, mental health, agility, respect, LGBTQ+ equity, and psychological safety were all more than two standard deviations above the industry average.  Investors loved HubSpot too. The company boasted 34% revenue growth over the past six years, producing returns 2.4 times better than the tech-heavy Nasdaq. Central to HubSpot’s success during Katie’s tenure was culture. HubSpot published its culture code in 2013, and has been viewed more than 5 million times since then.  Katie led the charge on HubSpot’s award-winning culture for more than a decade, first as Vice President, Culture and Experience and then as Chief People Officer for the past seven years. She is a thought leader on corporate culture and the future of work—recently named as one of the thirty leaders, thinkers, and innovators shaping the future of work. In her final interview before leaving HubSpot, Katie reflects on the secrets of its remarkable cultural success.  Link to Hubspot's culture code

    1 hr
5
out of 5
2 Ratings

About

CultureX Co-Founders Don and Charlie Sull interview CEOs of leading companies about how they cultivate agility: the ability to execute strategy in a time-competitive manner and effectively respond to turbulence that the AI era presents.