CEO Initiative Membership Interviews

CEO Igor Tulchinsky walks through what you need to consider when incorporating AI into your company.

How to Harness AI As a Leader

Leadership

Outside of finance companies are harnessing A I. There's opportunities in industrial sector, lots of opportunities in the medical sector to better diagnose treat, identify diseases that better control medical processes. There is also opportunities in space exploration A I is very well suited for sending things into space to report what's out there, sending robots on android into space. These are three of the big ones. As a leader of the best harness A I, you have to come up with a plan how to do it. You have to identify all your processes. You have to identify where you want to embed A I into existing processes. You have to identify where you want to use A I for new processes. You have to consider fairness, you have to consider ethics, you know the legal aspects to communicate purpose to the employees. We use a variety of methods. We, we have a biweekly communication session where the whole company gets in front of the cameras and we all speak to one another. So that's called the Keystone Forum. And during Keystone Forums, we communicate the the purposes and then other things to the employees. We also make various Britain Oral communications. We have a set of principles. We have many, many ways that communicate uh what the purpose is and it's done over and over and over again. And like everything that's repeatedly done, it becomes real, it becomes, you know, part of uh for the company, the company culture.

World Wide Technology CEO and cofounder Jim Kavanaugh discusses the transformative power of AI across industries and its potential to drive massive societal benefits—while diving into the crucial role of authentic leadership and intentional culture in building successful, purpose-driven organizations.

Bosses can't fake caring for their teams, warns CEO of one of America's best places to work

World Wide Technology CEO and cofounder Jim Kavanaugh dives into the crucial role of authentic leadership and intentional culture in building successful, purpose-driven organizations.

I absolutely believe A I will have more positive effects. Anytime you have a technology that's as disruptive as A I, there's going to be some challenges in managing and governing A I. But I, I truly believe there's gonna be massive societal benefits that are going to come out of A I. And there's gonna be some amazing technology breakthroughs in regards to science and health care and just how that positively impacts humankind. I think it's just gonna be amazing and you're gonna see that I believe across every vertical industry out there. Culture is, I, I think just an incredible powerful, I would say component of, of building an organization and developing an organization. I didn't realize that when I was younger, but as we built out worldwide technology and just naturally focused on the development of our employees and making sure that we were there to support them. And we, you know, spent a lot of time building out uh our value system and our integrated management and leadership curriculum, which is called our IML. When we look at all of those pieces and we bring them together, they, they bring together our culture and culture is something I think that can take a life of its own in a very contagious and multiplier way. But I think it has to be done intentionally also. And that's where we have spent a lot of time making sure that when we recruit and we bring people on that, they understand our values, the behaviors of the organization and what we expect of them. And as they come on and, and we proliferate those types of individuals, you know, and that type of mentality and those types of behaviors domestically and globally, it does just that it gets, it gets everybody on the same page. But it also creates this mentality of, of what that culture is all about. And that's, you know, about taking care of each other. It's about working as a team, it's about trusting each other. Uh It's about giving back to the community and it truly is amazing how that can take a life of its own. I do think there, there are, there are different ways to lead and I do think there are different leadership skills that are required to work in a purpose built organization and a company that is, you know, very focused on purpose. And in our case, our purpose, you know, is really to, like I said before, it's kind of aligned to our mission to be a profitable growth company. It's a great place to work uh and to create a great place to work for all our employees. And so you have to authentically and sincerely care about your employees. You can't fake it. They, they can see through that. They're, they're way too smart. So I think the authenticity and the compassion and caring for your employees comes through when it is just that it is something you truly care about and it is something that is very authentic and natural. At the same time, I believe that you can be very authentic and caring and compassionate about your employees and also do that in a way that you can also be very demanding and you can have very significant aspirations about where you want to go with the company and how to grow that company and develop the company and push your employees to be the best that they can be. Those things can work in tandem. But it is something that I think from a leadership standpoint, you have to truly uh care about your employees. It's something you, you just can't fake. It has to be something that is truly near and dear to your heart.

Anomali is an AI-powered security operations platform based in Silicon Valley. CEO Ahmed Rubaie reveals why robust infrastructure is the cornerstone of cyberdefense.

Cybercriminals Are Playing 'an Infinite Game'

Uncategorized

Maybe a little bit of a preamble on sort of the, the bad guy world. It is continuously evolving and growing. It is a complex network. They're very well organized, they share information in fact, sometimes better than the good guys. And so irrespective of what trend is today was yesterday, will be tomorrow, I think we need to just understand that it's kind of an infinite game. They're going to continuously find a path and they will always look for the most vulnerable path. It doesn't have to be something as exciting as artificial intelligence. It's wherever the most vulnerable path is the the game against. I'm just gonna simplistically call it the bad guys, right? Whether that's nation state actors or individual hackers, et cetera. It's a game against the bad guys and it's not finite, it's infinite. We all read the same newspapers, right? You've seen the activity of ransomware that's brought healthcare systems down, that's brought pipelines down. And that's before we get into geopolitical activities, et cetera. I think the point is understanding one's data uh in turn what threat landscape is generated because of that data or is caused if you will and then you know, you can't cover everything but you do your darndest to make sure you're covering the vulnerable areas in the most efficient way and in the smartest way, what I mean by that is with intelligence, it's kind of like if you are going to go buy a house today, uh it's not enough for you to know that, you know, the basement is in good shape. You need to know that the structure is in good shape, plumbing, electricity, et cetera. It's no different when you assess visibility of uh your data, your threat landscape and what to do about it. I would say that, you know, with the advent of artificial intelligence or let me say it differently, large language models. Yeah, that's yet another area for bad guys to go play with. We have to be extra vigilant, including us as vendors. So the reason we take our co-pilot very seriously because we house it in the largest repository of intelligence. So we close circuit it and that way it doesn't add any more hallucination or so-called false positives to our customers. So everybody's got to do their piece uh to keep this again, this game against the bad guys.

CEO Charles Lowrey discusses how Prudential Financial, a 150-year-old company has remained resilient through economic and global challenges, from the Great Depression to the recent pandemic. He also discusses adapting to evolving customer needs by embracing AI and tech innovation.

CEO’s Best Job Advice: Embrace Career Change

CEO Charles Lowrey discusses how Prudential Financial, a 150-year-old company has remained resilient through economic and global challenges, from the Great Depression to the recent pandemic. 

CEO Charles Lowrey discusses how Prudential Financial, a 150-year-old company has remained resilient through economic and global challenges, from the Great Depression to the recent pandemic

Career changes are going to occur for the vast majority of people. And so that is something that young people just need to understand. The second point I'd make is that careers are never linear. So even if you do stay in the same company, you may be get promoted, sometimes you may have lateral moves. That's all OK? Because at the end of the day, when you think about your career, you are a compilation of your experiences that you had beforehand. And when you move career or when you move into a new position, you're bringing all those experiences with you, which enables you to provide a different perspective than others might. So what I would say is that one should embrace career changes or moves within a company because those make you a a better employee over the long term because of the variety of experiences you have prudential has been around for 100 and 50 years and has seen all sorts of different global economic conditions. It has seen the Great Depression, the great recession, two pandemics and a host of other things. So we do two things in order to make sure that we are resilient and we are strong. First is we always look to our financial strength. We are an extremely strong company. We make promises for decades and clients need to understand that we will be there for them. The second point is that we don't react to any particular economic circumstance because we are looking through the cycle and we manage through cycles in order to make sure that we are resilient for the long term. When I think about resilience, I think about a number of different components. The first of which starts with talent. If you have great talent, if you have great employees, they by definition are resilient. The second component though is do they all believe in a North Star, which is our purpose? And if you have talented people that are all going in the same direction that helps with resilience, the third component is, do they understand their role in the company in fulfilling our purpose? And if you have someone that understands their role that they come in every day and they know what they're doing that will make them resilient. The fourth component is that the company itself credential needs to support our employees both in terms of obviously financial remuneration, which is table stakes, but also in terms of their health and their wellness and credentials have extraordinary benefits to support our employee, you put those four components together. And when we face something like we did in the pandemic, where we were one of the first companies to go remote. Our employees were knocking down challenges right and left. In order to support our customers, I couldn't have been more proud of the company and our employees. And to me that is the single greatest example of resilience that we have faced. Some of the biggest challenges that we face today are external and others are obviously internal. But I would say the the biggest challenge we face today is the rate of change that our customers are experiencing both in terms of their needs and their desires. So in terms of their needs, you think about the aging demographic of our customers, you think about the different needs, they have investing insurance and retirement security. But then you think about the customers and how they are demanding services, they may want them completely digitally online. We can do that, they may want it in a hybrid experience where they start digital and then talk to one of our advisors. They may just want to talk to our advisors or they may want to talk to their own advisor and we do that as well through third party distribution. And therefore, as we innovate as we change, as our customers change, we're also changing the way in which we deliver those products to our customers in terms of speed, in terms of specificity of product. And that's where A I which we've been using for a long time for 10 years and now generative A I comes into play. And as an example, if you think about one of our simplified term products, it used to take 22 days to underwrite and now it takes a few seconds. That's the kind of speed and the kind of innovation that's taking place in the world today, in our industry today. And certainly within prudential.

IHS Towers CEO Sam Darwish discusses the challenges the telecom industry faces to meet the massive data requirements needed to ensure global connectivity. He emphasizes the industry-critical need for robust infrastructure to support the world's increasing demand for communication.

As Demand For AI Surges, Infrastructure Needs To Adapt

Conferences

IHS Towers CEO Sam Darwish discusses the challenges the telecom industry faces to meet the massive data requirements needed to ensure global connectivity.

Telecom industry is heading one way. I mean, if you look at basic examples, artificial intelligence is just going to take us to the next level in terms of data consumption. Apple just came with Division Pro which basically is aware of it. Now at the moment, it's still bulky, it's still not utilize, it's not going to be adopted. But this is a pro time for a pair of glasses that can have your phone that can have your computer that can basically allow you to interact with people. So that's where we're going and and because we're going there, the data requirements are going to be matter. So our industry is just going to growth after growth after growth is the company that I founded 25 years ago and currently run is one of the largest digital infrastructure platforms in the world. We operate across 10 markets covering 800 million people. Our markets are largely emerging markets, young market, fast growing markets. We own roughly 40,000 towers across those markets and tens of thousands of kilometers of fiber that covers roughly 8 million in home and we provide connectivity to our customers. Our industry has several challenges. But the biggest I would say is somehow positive, negative because of the fast growth, fast growing nature of our industry. Everyone wants to consume more data. You have more people that are being bored, more people that are moving into the connectivity age, which is changing by the day, my daughter who is seven now wants a phone. Our Children are starting to kind of like a adopt the phones and and when you talk emerging market, it's not only about the initial cost, which again is large, we're talking about the operating conditions. The operating cost is also large because we have challenges. Security is a problem. Power is a problem. Governance is a is a problem. So you kind of like layer up all all these challenges. So I would say funding and how do you organize the funding would be the biggest challenges. But there are ways around that at the basic layer, our business model is inherently sustainable. We provide shared infrastructure, effectively splitting the cost of building, splitting the cost of running. And of course, kind of like minimizing the harm done to the damage to the environment through that. But there are of course other layers because most of our markets do not have electricity, we need to provide power to the site. Thus, diesel is largely what you use. So we've been over the years spending hundreds of millions of dollars probably in the billions of dollars to try and minimize the impact of what diesel does into the environment leading with purpose definitely requires a different type of skill set in the sense that you still need the traditional skill set of being able to manage balance sheets, manage PNN manage investors, manage that aspect of life, manage the operation itself. But you have to be ethical at the core. You have, you have to be, you have to be mindful of the impact of whatever you're doing on the environment. Again, on your employees, on the countries that you operate in ethics is at the core of it. That's kind of like the mindset shift that you need to undertake. When you're, when you're leading with purpose, communicating your purpose to your employees is actually two ways. You need to listen and then you need to talk to them. You need to listen in the sense of what is important to them, especially that they belong to certain markets, especially that they, they, they, they, they do certain tasks. You need to understand their pain points, you need to understand the aspirations. You need to kind of help gather their points of view. And then at the end of the day, you filter everything, you put it together and then you communicate it back. But because it's somehow coming from there or it has, and their input was taken into account, it resonates and then the communication becomes easy and becomes more technical

Grayscale Investments is the world’s largest crypto asset management business, with a mission to make cryptocurrency accessible to investors through traditional means.

How Grayscale wants to democratize crypto investing

So I'm the CEO at Greyscale Investments, which is the world's largest crypto asset management business. Grayscale was founded in 2013 with the launch of our very first investment vehicle, the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, which is often known as ticker G BT C. Our mission at gray scale is really to help investors access crypto as an investment but do so through a traditional means of gaining exposure to really any investment and that's through a whole family of investment vehicles that we've now created the conversation around ESG as it relates to crypto, most often focuses on digital asset mining. Given that mining is not a direct part of the gray scale business. This hasn't been a unique focus of ours, but we are really encouraged that the industry we're a part of is taking ESG consideration very seriously. We know many of the digital asset miners and what we do see is them moving increasingly towards renewable energy sources and really trying to not only lower their carbon footprint as they do support different Blockchain protocols, but also working to actually take up excess capacity for energy that would otherwise be wasted. And so over time, we do think there's a real opportunity in the digital asset space for ESG to become a real focus for many businesses, particularly those that have larger carbon footprints. I think in order to run a purpose driven organization, it really comes down to communication. If your employees don't fundamentally understand where the company is going, then we're not a CEO setting them up for success. As I think about the way that an organization like Grayscale moves, we're moving at breakneck speed every single day. And so it would be easily possible for employees to lose track of where an organization we're going or what initiatives or priorities are most important to the company. And so for me, as a CEO with a company that's continuing to expand, it really does come down to communicating to employees with a high degree of frequency as to what the company's top priorities are, how folks should be spending their time and really as an organization ensuring that everybody is operating from fullsome information that really allows them to not only do their best work but actually see the fruits of their labor across the organization. When I think about measuring success at a company like gray scale, I really examine it through two different lenses. The first really is with our employees every year. We're conducting employee engagement surveys and some of the most frequently asked questions in those types of surveys surround whether or not employees feel that we as an organization are purpose led, whether employees know where the company is going in terms of prioritization and whether or not they feel that the work they're doing directly dovetails with the company's mission and the company's purpose. And when we're consistently receiving feedback, that employees feel very much aligned with where the company is going and they see their fingerprints of the work that they've done all over the company. It means that we as leaders are doing the right thing to communicate with employees. So they feel that direct connection. The other way that I think about success really revolves around how great sale as an organization shows up in the world. 10 years into our journey. I look back and I realize that we've not only led with purpose as an organization but that we've had to be bold and we've had to be pioneering all while respecting existing rules and regulations as an organization that is trying to bring crypto as an investment to the largest pool of investors that we possibly can. While also seeing that the regulatory landscape for crypto may have not caught up as quickly as crypto adoption has. It's been really important that we not only show up in the world in a way that democratizes information around this pioneering technology, but also can't forsake the fact that we're trying to do very innovative things while never overlooking existing rules and regulations

Advantage Solutions CEO Dave Peacock encourages his employees to follow their dreams-even if it takes their career somewhere else.

CEO says leaders need to recognize the fact that not all employees want a longterm career with one company

CEO says leaders need to recognize that not all employees want a longterm career with one company

OK. Vantage Solutions is an outsourced supplier of sales and marketing services to most of the largest consumer products companies and retailers in the country. Um We are a peer purpose driven business that really is designed to unlock value for the consumers and shoppers that our CPG partners and our retail partners work with purpose is at the heart of everything we do at Advantage Solutions. We often talk about how we combine people plus purpose to drive performance. Um It's, it's, it's in how we treat and serve our customers, their consumers and really how we treat and serve each other in an environment that is designed to just enhance opportunities and connect people with each other and with experiences and the products that, that enrich their lives. I believe all companies have to come from a place of purpose. It has to be more than just trying to sell more product, but there has to be a real genuine authentic connection, both with your customers and more importantly with your teammates. I think to be an authentic purpose driven leader, you need to pour into your people, relate with them, connect with them, be vulnerable with them. Uh be open to what their dreams are and recognize that not everyone is going to stay and have a 30 or 40 year career with your company anymore. And so have an objective of helping that person realize their dreams wherever it may lead them and celebrate those dreams. When they realized whether they stay for 30 years or they stay for three months, whether it's someone who's gonna earn a wage to send their kids to college or in our case, it's a teenager with a summer job who's learning some just basic skills and the ability to look an adult in the eye and interact with them. It's critical to recognize where people are, meet them there and then help them realize their best and greatest potential. I think there are means and there's results. I think the results are the things that we constantly track like every company um often financial, but those are a by product of how we do, what we do and how we treat the people that we interact with either customers or teammates. Uh and, and how we show up in the market. And I think as leaders, it's important and incumbent upon us to model the behavior we are looking for out of our other leaders in the organization. Uh which means meeting people at the front line. If that's part of your job, it means meeting them in the factory. If that's part of your job, it means spending genuine time and being open, transparent and vulnerable with them so that they know you're a real human being and, and that there's not an US and they scenario within the company, I think leading with purpose in any company is about truly showing up in a genuine way and how you interact with people. I think it's connecting with them at a human level um from front line to the boardroom and I think it's, um, really being clear and not just what you say but how you act and then reinforcing the behaviors you're looking for in the organization. And at times of rooting out behaviors when they're not aligned with the principles and the purpose of your business.

Steven Tananbaum is Founder, Managing Partner, and Chief Investment Officer of GoldenTree Asset Management, which manages nearly $55 billion internationally.

The secret to being a good investor, according to this asset management CIO

So what does Golden Tree do? And when was it founded? So we were founded in 2000 and we're of an asset management firm that focuses on credit, high yield, it could be loans, it could be structured products, emerging market. And then if there are insights we have in the credit markets, in the equity markets. So it gives us a pretty long playlist to operate in. So purpose is really values and how you approach something. That's what purpose means to me. And so when we're leading with purpose, it's all agreeing on what the process and the way that we're conducting our research is why it's important is this is a team sport. And if we're all in this together, following the same approach that's going to lead to something special. And we've been able to create something special over the 23 years going on 24th that we've been in business that's been differentiated and consistent. For the most part, we're invested in public securities. You can actually, if you make a bad decision, you can actually change that decision that you can sell. But what's worse is not wanting to admit that your premise is wrong and that the price doesn't fully reflect that the premise is wrong. And so if that's the case, you should be selling or likewise, if something is attractive, you should be buying more, if it looks like you're gonna be right and the price doesn't fully reflect that. So being upfront about that feeling that it's safe to do that um is also important. So what are we most proud of at Golden Tree? First is our consistency about performance across our product line. We keep developing our product line, improving our product line, growing our offerings and having consistent out performance. So we're very proud of that. We're proud of the meritocracy culture that we have. We're very proud of that. About half of our partners were promoted from a within. So people know that if they do well, they're going to be recognized and there's a record that half of our 25 partners have been um promoted from a within. So, so taking together we um are very proud of what we've done our 1st 23 years, almost going on 24 and uh very excited about the next 24 years plus, believe that the best is yet to come.

 Asutosh Padhi, a senior managing partner at McKinsey, discusses how the company focuses on fostering leaders who value lifelong learning, authenticity, and co-creation.

McKinsey partner on why ‘being the smartest in the room doesn’t cut it anymore’

Mckinsey and company is a 97 year old institution. We have a dual mission to help our clients drive lasting improvements and to build a firm that attracts retains and develops the best people on the planet. So leadership in today's context has certainly changed. I think COVID and GEOPOLITICS, uh A I and everything else has really accelerated the pace of change. The hallmarks I'd highlight is one people who are lifelong learners. Uh because the cycle of of learning has actually gone down quite significantly. Uh Second authenticity, people want to hear the truth, people want to, you know, no matter where they are. And the third one is the ability to core the ability to core solutions and answers, knowing that, you know, being the smartest person in the room is often not the requirement. In fact, it's the antithesis of what you need from a successful leader. And the co creation means, how do you bring in different people to develop a perspective yet you have to finite amount of time in which you have to develop that perspective at mckinsey and Company. Uh We have committed to helping our clients drive sustainable inclusive growth all those three parts are very important. It does start with growth. We need GDP growth to create new jobs, to help raise the standards of living for people around the world. And the inclusivity part of it comes around saying how do we do this in a way that actually does not leave behind many people. Our thesis is it's an and it is sustainable and inclusive and grows together and that's really what that's really how we think about our client service. So for our purpose at mckinsey is about helping drive positive, enduring change in the world. And the way we see this reflected is we look at it to the lens of our clients. And we ask the question, are we making a difference to the institution? And how do we know, how do we know about it from the standpoint of the employee experience that we are creating from the standpoint of the organization, the depth and breadth of the leadership team. How does it reflect into the financials of the company? And how does it contribute to creating an institution that actually flourishes over a period of time? And the mckinsey par, we call it a be driving holistic impact and holistic, you know, could feel like a buzzword, but it really is meant to be, are we looking across all these different dimensions? You know, as we think about the difference we are making

Publicis Sapient wants to not only help companies compete in the digital world, but make sure they have real impact on their communities.

How this tech company’s digital tools transformed one man’s legal defense

Public. A stadium was started about 30 years ago, uh just in Cambridge in Massachusetts off the mit campuses. And fundamentally, we were back then, a business that was helping companies get to grips with the early days of the internet. Fast forward to language we use today we talk about ourselves as a digital business transformation company. So a company that's fundamentally helping establish businesses sustain competitive advantage in a world that is increasingly digital. Leading with purpose to me is all about how an organization does, what it was meant to do. So our purpose is helping people thrive in the brave pursuit of next. And essentially what that means for our people is helping ourselves look around corners particularly in a world that is changing so quickly. But more importantly, help our clients sustain that competitive advantage that helped them be successful in one world in a different context. And how we embody that is through sort of action. What we do every day, purpose to us is not just a philosophy that sits on a wall somewhere, but it's what you do on a regular basis. So we then embody that purpose through a set of values that we believe, demonstrate how you live them. So are you embracing the future? Are you engaging with openness? These are some of the values we feel that help people live our purpose day to day. I think about, you know, purpose is the reason you wake up every morning, right? It's the why, it's basically why you exist and why you do what you do every day. Purpose shouldn't be something that you can achieve tomorrow or in five years, right? It's, it's something that should always be aspirational. So our purpose helping people thrive in the brave pursuit of. It's not something that we'll ever get to and say, ok, it's done check, we help people achieve, you know, their, you know, we help people thrive in the brave pursuit of next. We're done. What we do is measure whether we're making progress towards that aspiration or not. So, one of the things we spend a lot of time doing is thinking about whether our work in the context of helping businesses be digital is making a difference in the world. And we think about that in the context of impact. Are we creating impact in the world? And most recently, we had an Oscar winning documentary filmmaker, make a film around our work for the Los Angeles Public Defenders Office where we basically help them use digital to essentially help. In one specific case, a gentleman called Johnny was about to be sent to prison for a long period of time and instead of going to prison got deferred, which is essentially got medical help because he was mentally, uh you know, challenged, uh and, and physically challenged with the legal system didn't recognize. And that process essentially of helping somebody with a disability through the work that we do. We measure that impact and that impact tells us whether we're moving closer to our purpose or not. Like, are we really helping people thrive for me? What we really want to be known for is being the company that helped our clients not just survive but thrive in a world that is increasingly digital because we were a company that was started in the early days, the internet helping some build some of the world's first online banks, some of the world's first online retail businesses. And from there to today helping companies really transform their business digitally. Our main ambition is that when this period in the world, when we're done with the spirit in the world where so many of these companies have made the transition to become digital. We were one of the companies that stands out as helping lead that transition.

BrightNight is striving to help communities thrive on clean energy, through strategies like repurposing coal mines for renewable energy and hybridizing hydro dams with solar and wind

How this company is using reclaimed coal mines to create renewable energy

BrightNight is striving to help communities thrive on clean energy, through strategies like repurposing coal mines for renewable energy and hybridizing hydro dams with the help of solar and wind.

So what do we do at the bright night? We're developer of renewable energy power plants and we help utilities in their quest to not only have electricity that is safe, reliable, affordable, but also clean. If you think about the electricity grid, this is one of the largest machines on this planet and that and we as a society are retooling the engines of that machine. It's a the order of magnitude of that transformation cannot be overestimated. And as a result, the people that are working at bright night, they're, they're looking at this really audacious objective and see how can we help in this transformation. Should also emphasize. There is no textbook how to replace the engines of this huge machine. And we have sophisticated capabilities to identify locations in the electricity grid where we can intercept and where we can develop renewable power plants. For instance, uh We have a coal mine in Kentucky. Part of it is an active coal mine, a reclaimed coal mine and we're using the reclaimed coal mine in order to develop renewable power generation as well as storage in in the western US. Hydro dams play a mature role. Now hydro dams have faced the challenge in the last two decades of extensive periods of drought conditions. The issue with that is that these stamps couldn't deliver the electricity that they used to deliver in the past and that utilities rely on. We have identified this challenge with a solution where we hybridize these stamps, meaning we're adding solar and wind generation. We combine it with our long term storage and we, we mix up and blend in the output from the hydro dams with the renewable energy generation and with the storage and thereby can now deliver a reliable output in electricity to the utilities. We can help the communities where these power plants are located to revitalize and help becoming a member in that community successful process also. So helping those regions in the US that have an inflow of manufacturing plants of data centers and to face the challenge of integrating that new load. Our team is helping to analyze the grid and help make the impact of that new load mitigated within the power grid.

Surendra Patawari wants to rethink how we tackle recycling plastic: “We don’t need to stop the use of plastic, but we have to stop being unfriendly at the end of its life.”

Plastic is everywhere; “in your blood…in your lungs,” says Gemini CEO, underscoring the pressing need for action on plastic waste

Plastic is everywhere; “in your blood…in your lungs,” says Gemini CEO

I founded the recycling and waste management company Gemini Corporation in Belgium in 1989 34 years back what we do, we collect waste from over 1000 locations from over 60 countries, different kind of waste. And we think the world as a small village collecting from all corners of the world, all corners of different regions. Circularity is our main concept. In the beginning, we would supply plastics, metal rubber to our customers who reuse them or who recycle them. And at a later stage, we said, why don't you sell us back to us? We make money from the same client. And in a way that was the reinforcement of the theory of circularity. When it comes to plastic. There is so much ignorance about plastic. People are not aware about the enormity of the problem of the plastic. Every day, we generate about a million tons of plastic waste. £2.5 billion. You know how much we recycle less than 10% in single digit. And this quantity is going to grow three times £7.5 billion in 30 years. I think there is going to be a tsunami of plastic coming from textiles. I even heard about plastics in Mount Fuji, in Japan. They are in the cloud, they are in your blood, they are in your lungs. It's going to be everywhere unless we make definite special effort that we take actions. We don't have to stop the use of plastics. We have to stop being unfriendly at the end of its life to the plastics. People say stop the use of plastic. No, that's not what we want. You need plastics for your freshness of food. You need plastics, for economy of fuel. In driving, you need plastics for irrigation without plastic. How we would have handled COVID, we need plastic, but we, we need certainly infrastructure, how to handle the plastic at the end of its life. If there is a business as usual, we are going to leave a very bad legacy to our grandchildren, they would never forgive us. So I believe when it comes to waste, it's as much an environmental issue, maybe a little bit more than environmental and social issue. And that's why we started in India this week. Cycling operations primarily meant for waste speakers. So in our company est is basically the main factor. So the number of people we can change their lives, the quantity we can give second life. That is the way we would measure our success.

BJ Schaknowski believes a big crisis is coming to health care, with a large number of workers wanting to leave their jobs.

“We are going to have a catastrophic problem” if we don’t take care of our nurses, Symplr CEO says

“We are going to have a catastrophic problem” if we don’t take care of our nurses, symplr CEO says

Simpler is in 97 out of 100 hospital facilities in the United States today providing all the back office, non clinical. So non patient facing operational software that you have to have to run a hospital. One of the unique differences or differentiators about simpler is most of the rest of the company's technology or otherwise in health care, focus on the patient, we focus on the health care worker. And so whether that's actually helping nurses spend more time with patient care and a noble cause of simpler, if you will, is give clinicians more time or give caregivers more time to actually give care. That's what we do. We make sure they spend less time. We're the only software company in the world that wants their users to use their product less. We want nurses and doctors in front of patients, not doing administrative tasks. And so they are a huge user. We've got about 5 to 6 million users in our system every single week on a clinician or the operational side. Interestingly, interestingly though we also focus on the administrative folks. And so whether it's the credentialing teams that have to make sure that physicians or nurses are credentialed, whether it's the folks in supply or contract management who spend all their time sourcing plasma from 27 different vendors when we could help them do it with one, whether it's the folks in the chief compliance office, making sure that they're complying with all the regulatory environments and also focused on patient safety. We help make all of those folks more efficient, more productive. We give them better data, we help them run a better health care system really end to end. Interestingly, in terms of the health care crisis facing in the US and how simpler helps. Right now in the United States, we've got about a 43% nursing shortage, right? 97% of nurses surveyed will say their facility, their system actually has a significant shortage of staffing. Then within that 22% of the 57% that actually exist are thinking about leaving the profession in the next year, 47% report being chronically burned out, take that and then juxtapose it with the fact that you've got all these boomers who are about to need nonstop care. If we don't take better care of our nurses, if we don't actually get them back to practicing at the top of their licenses, if we don't get them back to being engaged and more fulfilled in their work, if we don't get them back to not skipping lunches every single day or doing 200% more overtime than they were pre pandemic. We're not a cr problem. All right. And the goal of simpler and really with the outcomes we can provide, we can make sure the nurses are scheduled on the right shifts. We can make sure that they're spending more time with patients and not in front of computer screens, which is driving them absolutely crazy with these administrative burdens. We can get them back practicing at the top of their licenses. We can hopefully help get them engaged through a force platform that develops them and trains them while they're actually providing the necessary skills. They have nurses are the backbone of the health care system in the US. And they've been overlooked for far too long. A big part of what simpler does is bring them back to the forefront and we deliver for them in a meaningful way that hopefully gets them back to loving health care. Again, in terms of the leadership skills required to be a purpose driven company. I actually don't believe that you need a different set of skills. I think you need strong leadership from the top. I don't think that varies broadly or widely. I think you need alignment around your key goals. I'm also a big believer in free market capitalism. If you are a good corporate citizen, if you actually help the communities in which you serve, you will be the beneficiary of that by attracting the right employees being able to add more value to your customers, stakeholder capitalism, right? Or purpose driven organization. I see them as being one and the same. And really, if you think about sustainable organizations, if you think about those that have lasted and created successful meaningful outcomes, they've all been purpose driven. So, no, I don't think there's a separate skill set or a separate set of leadership requirements there. I think it's just knowing what your noble purpose is staying aligned against it and delivering every day for, for employees, for customers and for shareholders.

Insight, a solution integrator, wants to take on the environmental challenge of data centers by helping companies understand the life cycle of their technology.

How a billion-dollar tech company started as a school project

It's such a pleasure to be here. Thank you very much for the opportunity. I'm excited to tell you a little bit about the history of insight and how we got to where we are today. So in 1988 2 brothers founded Insight in their garage and they were at that time selling hard drives out of a catalog. So Tim and Eric Crown put together this company, I think it was a school project that they turned into reality. And for the last 35 years, we've been known for selling hardware and software from the world's best known technology brands and delivering those technologies to our clients. So I firmly believe in the transformative potential of technology. And I generally believe that technology is a force for good in our world, but it's very important, I think for our teammates and for our clients and partners and the communities in which we operate to understand what we're trying to do. So when our teammates understand the purpose of the work, they understand how their work impacts our clients. They are more engaged, they're more motivated, they're more committed to achieving our goal, sustainability and ESG goals are very important to us at insight because they're very important to our clients. They are our teammate. And so when we think about sustainability, data centers have become a major force in the environmental impact of climate change. And we have an opportunity to help improve that by driving more efficiency in data center choices and solutions by making sure that we help our clients figure how to manage the life cycle of the devices that they use, how we use power, the power of data to drive more efficiency and effectiveness in execution. So there's a lot of different areas of environmental responsibility that we have a very significant obligation I think to bring to our clients in terms of driving improvement in their footprints. In addition, we have very focused de I we believe diversity delivers a much stronger team. We believe diversity delivers much better outcomes. We believe that diversity of thought and opinion and experience delivers much better solutions. So we are really committed to driving a diverse and a very engaged teammate base and that is helping us to deliver great results for our clients and great results for our partners and great results for our investors.

 Uniphore, an enterprise AI company, has been working on AI since 2008.

AI CEO calls ChatGPT the “biggest marketing event for all of artificial intelligence”

Unifor is one of the world's largest B to ba I native companies today. It was founded in the year 2008, 16 years ago as a conversational A I company where the company wanted to develop the technology and apply it to people at the base of the pyramid in countries like India and help them connect with the internet in the last 16 years. Unifor evolution has almost followed the trend in the artificial intelligence industry today. Young Unifor is a multimodal A I company with computer vision, voice and text all on the same platform in the era of artificial intelligence. What it takes to be an effective leader has taken a whole new definition we saw in the late nineties and early two thousands when the internet revolution was occurring very similarly around 2010, when mobile or crowd were happening, that innovation delivered a big transformation in society. We are a very different uh society than we were prior to the internet A I is leading us to one such transformation. Again, with one key difference, the pace of innovation this time is exponentially faster than anything that we've seen in the past every 48 hours, there's a next new innovation. You want to make sure that we are the company that is taking our customers enterprises around the world into the future, infused with artificial intelligence and state of the art artificial Intelligence. At the same time, it's incumbent on us and we hold ourselves accountable for doing all this innovation or delivering it in a very responsible manner, a manner in which the risks of the technology are minimized, the biases that A I could have have been handled. And we basically talk through everything that we could possibly do about delivering the power of A I in a responsible way. The hype on around artificial intelligence that we've seen in the last 12 to 15 months has been truly profound. We've been at this for the last 16 years, including generative A I that our products have benefited from as way of technology for the last 4 to 5 years. But what changed uh 12 to 15 months ago with the advent of Chad GP T is that it became the biggest marketing event for all of artificial intelligence period, people, enterprise, uh employees, leaders, government leaders, et cetera. All became extremely aware and curious about this technology. They use cases today that we see whether it's in call centers or marketing or sales are generally about summarizing of content. And once the A I learned them, it can be of help as copilots or automation bots to those employees, many of those applications can now be clustered together running on a common A I platform. And that has truly changed the way boardrooms, CEO S and Cio S think about A I main mission at uniform. What every uniform employee comes to work every day dreaming about and working hard is to deliver that age of abundance to enterprises around the world. But also to do it in a very responsible manner in a manner where the risks of such technology can be minimized or handled. But the massive, profound positives can be delivered to businesses, to economies and to people.

GuideWell is a mutual insurance holding company providing 38.5 million Americans with primary care and emergency medical services.

Affordable care and community impact are good for business, health insurance CEO says

GuideWell is a mutual insurance holding company dedicated to assisting Floridians in accessing the care they need, whether it’s primary care or emergency medical services.

Guide. Well, is a mutual insurance holding company. And underneath that holding company, the largest company is Florida Blue, which is the Blue Cross Blue Shield company in the state of Florida. And that's an 80 year old company. So it has a long standing history of being involved in delivering health care services in the state of Florida. It grew up as an insurance company, but we've now pivoted to where we think of ourselves as a health solutions company. So we have other businesses under that guide. Well, holding company that deliver care at home. We're a company that delivers services for the federal government on their traditional Medicare plan and we have direct delivery assets, meaning primary care services, emergency medical service that were joint ventured with a partner Sanitas to deliver across the state of Florida. You know, when you're a mission based values driven company, like guide. Well, is we've been absolutely deeply involved in thinking about our impact in the community and with the people we serve uh for all of our history. Certainly over the last number of years, we've doubled down on that commitment to the impact we're making in our communities. But it is really part and parcel of who we are as an organization. It is intimate to how we think about ourselves. And it's something that you really can't even separate from how guide well does its business each and every day, you know, leading with purpose means aspiring to make a difference to be thinking about how you impact your customers and how we can improve the lives of the people that we serve. And so we absolutely embrace leading with purpose. It's something we think about. It's core to our mission because our mission is to help people and communities achieve better health. And so that's a great purpose that our team rallies around.

PwC U.S, one of the country's largest consulting firms wants to foster an atmosphere where employees can openly present ideas and respectfully challenge them.

Employees should tell their families "they're proud to be here," PwC boss says

PWC is one of the largest professional services serves in the world. We date back to the 18 hundreds and we're over 100 and 70 years old. Our purpose is to build trust in society and solve important problems. And we help clients all across the globe with their missions in solving their most important challenges that they have medium birth purpose. For me, what it means is that you're creating an environment where people can be in themselves and ultimately where people achieve their full perspective, which means you're creating an environment where people can work together with different views, the respect where people can speak up where people are so comfortable offering your point of view. If they disagree, they can respectfully challenge it and you're creating a workplace that, that ultimately our mothers will be proud of that, that people will be proud of us. For me, that's what meeting purpose is about. The the skills required, our listening patience, not being the smartest person in the room, being an orchestrator of talent from many different perspectives and and being someone who can really build bridges in today's day and age. Those skill sets are massively important for, for me, success is, is a couple of things. Number one is what, what would our clients say our clients needs being fulfilled? Do our clients feel like we're differentiated because of the people and the teams that we bring, bring forward to them? And do our clients feel like we're helping them solve outcomes and, and achieve their success, whether that is helping to meet their investing needs, their customers needs, that is success at the end of the day, if your clients are confident enough of what you did with them that they invite you back and they are a net promoter. The other thing is when our people go home at night and they sit around the dinner table and they, they talk with their families. What do they say about the work environment they've created, what do they say about the work environment that they show up every day and whether that's virtual or physical and, and how do they feel about themselves? And if I've created a work environment where our people can look at their family and dinner table and say they're proud to be here, that's what's successful for PWC. The thing that I want us to be known most for is trust and trust in every sense of the word trust that we'll do the right things for our clients trust that we will tell them what they need to hear. Not maybe what they want to hear. Trust that will be object, give them, put their best interests forward, trust that our people can come here and learn amazing skills. Meet amazing people become better than they were when they showed up. And also that they could be themselves and that their point of view can come to the table and then make us better to serve our clients. That that is a holistic definition of trust from my perspective. But if we are known for being the most trusted organization in the world across the spectrums, we will achieve our goal.

From navigating social issues to dealing with political and economic uncertainties, CEO Kathy Bloomgarden offers insights into how Ruder Finn helps businesses adapt and thrive in a changing world.

How Ruder Finn is helping companies navigate ESG initiatives in a divided world

So our agency River Fin is 75 years old. So we were one of the first communication agencies in the world. And today, if we step back and look at what we are engaged in where there's so many challenges and opportunities in terms of new economic growth and how you actually pursue growth today, in terms of the pressures, the social pressures, the culture wars that we call them, whether it's actually technology disruptions and how you're training or up killing people in order to be able to operate in a different way or whether it's simply coming back into the office or the hybrid situation in terms of how you work together and how you create teams in, in this new environment. So communication, what we do every day as an agency is really helping people to navigate this changing world and the economic, the cultural, the political and the social uncertainties that we're all experiencing. So ESG today, of course, is extremely important and about 66% of companies do have commitments to ESG goals. But we've seen recently that things have stalled a bit, a lot of pressures and a lot of controversy around ESG, I think it was Larry Fink who said ESG is becoming a politicized weapon in terms of its terminology. What we try to do is really help companies get the word out on the commitments they're making on how they're innova and changing the way they operate our materials they use. For example, we have a client, um gaf roofing which has really um innovated in terms of the kind of paint they use to lower temperatures. There are all kinds of innovations that are springing up and companies are really um doing quite a lot in the ESG space. What we do is try to help people navigate around some of the controversies that um can erupt around the, the topic of ESG in an enterprise um where you're often having five generations working together. Um Everyone's looking for something different out of their work environment, what's really critically important, especially as companies restructure, rethink the way they work. Um Look at new uses of technology. How do you bring people together to work as a team and to collaborate? It's all around a common and shared set of values and a common purpose so that everyone really understands the goals that it's trying to achieve together, that reinforces the teamwork, it reinforces the, the the feeling of community. Um And what we do is focus on helping engage employees around the goals around the values and around the mission of the company. So for us, um at R measuring success is about the growth of a company. A company has to continue to grow to, to really provide new opportunities for the people who are working there. The kind of engagement that people have that they really feel that their voices are being heard, that they're sharing their ideas, that they see implementation and execution and things that they care about. And then finally, our long standing relationship with clients, many of whom we've worked with for more than, than a decade, those are really the hallmarks for us of success. One of the great people that I've worked with has always taught me that it's, you never compete against your competitors. You actually are competing against transitions. We want to help companies and help ourselves really look at how things are changing and what is the next issue that are in the next challenge or the next opportunity that we would, we would like to pursue years? OK.

Discovery CEO Adrian Gore discusses the provider's incentive-based: "When people are healthier we're more profitable."

How the end of apartheid influenced this health insurance company's unique business model

So our company discovery uh is a global life and health insurer. Our our fundamental purpose make people healthier, has manifested in this vitality shared value model that incentivizes people to be healthier and prices that and integrate that into life and health insurance. And we operate in 40 markets across the world with over 40 million lives that we touch. So, so the roots of the company I think are quite interesting because I think today we we world leaders in, in, in behavior change and and factoring that into, into financial services. How we got to where we we we are is as a start of health insurance in South Africa in 1991 and 92. This was just at the time that Nelson Mandela was released and apartheid was coming to an end in South Africa. And the idea was to start a health insurer that would offer a sustainable solution to people. But in our country at that time, there were too few doctors, very terrible levels of disease burden HIV A I DS, the epicenter of that, the illness and government rightly so wanted no discrimination at all. So for health insurance like in the US, you couldn't, you couldn't exclude pre-existing conditions. You couldn't price people differently. So our kind of epiphany, it was really a hunch was, could we make people healthier? In other words, could we could we actually incentivize people to be healthy and bring the price of healthcare down? We couldn't price the risk properly and we couldn't control the doctors because there are too few of them. So we had one simple choice and that was really a kind of entrepreneurial hunch or could we incentivize people to be healthier? That became this very sophisticated vitality, shared value model? Effectively, we share value by sharing incentives with people and making profitability by people being healthier and kind of in that evolution was fascinating. We kind of learned this this very simple truth that we are one of the only industries and when people are healthier, we are more profitable. So we are completely aligned to our customers. If they are healthy, we make money. And so we use that profitability to incentivize better health when you get the shared value cycle. That's kind of how we we evolved on the back of that model, many insurers around the world as as the world emerged into purpose there, as we started understanding behavioral economics and the and the biases of people and as technology started to offer things like devices and Apple watches and all those kinds of things that make measuring behavior much easier. Um you know, this, this model started to globalize. And so companies around the world, insurers around the world uh were very keen to work with us and we developed this repeatable scalable business model and capability and tech and data that we partner our partners with. So that is kind of our, our evolution. But I I have to say the um once you understand that you know mortality that the chance of dying or getting sick is very much affected by behavior, the entire world of financial services is different. I mean, that's an actually our train to learn things of selection, not behavior. But you know, the data is now showing we're seeing it in every issue. Behavior change is so fundamental. So I, I I'm proud of that. I think we're leading the world by industry and how you understand behavior change and how you price it into financial services.

CEO Michael Miebach says that Mastercard is dedicated to the mantra “doing well by doing good.” The company has a vision for a more inclusive digital economy and sustainable future, whether it’s through helping local bakeries build a business online or helping their customers participate in the digital economy.

How Mastercard focuses on fostering sustainable social impact through challenging times

CEO Michael Miebach says that Mastercard is dedicated to the mantra “doing well by doing good.” The company has a vision for a more inclusive digital economy and sustainable future.

Mastercard was founded nearly 60 years ago. Payments has always been at the core of the company payment related services technologies. We have invested in the emerging technologies over the past decades, quantum clouds, real time payments, you name it. We use those technologies to power the evolution of the digital economy and to pull more people into the digital economy. We do this at global scale. We're in 200 plus countries, 3 billion cards out there and about 100 million acceptance point where you can pay with a Mastercard. So impact at global scale at Mastercard, we believe in doing well by doing good. It's deeply ingrained in the culture of the company. Why is that because we believe in a prospering world, our business will prosper. We believe in commercially sustainable social impact. We do that, for example, by seeding markets, pulling hundreds of millions of people into the digital economy. We do that by enabling small business, for example, the local bakery that post COVID is now trying to build a business online. And again, we help them so doing well by doing good is the mantra at Mastercard that Mastercard to leadership profile has evolved over the years. There's clear business skills and expertise, aspects about how you drive execution and so forth. But one thing has really risen over the last three years, especially as the world was going through difficult times. Think about COVID leaning in with your colleagues, understanding what they're going through, leaning in with the community in which we drive our business. What does it mean for small business empathy is more, more important than ever before. At Mastercard, we measure success in terms of business metrics. You would expect that financial performance, shelter returns, et cetera. But we very set very specific goals around our contribution to addressing the climate crisis. Our contribution to drive digital inclusion and building a digital economy that works for everyone as well as good governance. So it's a very broad set of metrics that we set for ourselves that we build into our compensation and our performance management at Mastercard. So if you picture the brand of Mastercard two interlocking circle, one red and one orange, our brand studies tell us that these two interlocking circles stand for dependability, they stand for security, they stand for trust that is important in a world where a lot of trust has been lost. Um And we try to be a factor of rebuilding some of that trust, particularly in the world of digital technology. But you know, when you look at going forward, I would love our brand to be even known for the impact that we have beyond our own business in terms of building a digital economy that works for everyone.

CEO Charlies Giancarlo discusses how he aims to reduce environmental impact by helping companies switch from mechanical hard disks to more sustainable flash memory.

How Pure Storage wants to completely virtualize data storage with flash memory

Pure storage was started 14 years ago to revolutionize the area of data storage, data storage. Of course, being where everybody places their pictures today, but also where organizations and corporations are able to process all of their information, whether it's a credit card swipe or being able to do A I and analytics on all of their business information. We were the first ones to be able to provide a data storage using what's called flash memory, which is the same memory that you have in your cell phone. But it was the first transition away from magnetic hard disks and old mechanical technology. We're still in the middle of that transformation with companies worldwide. And now we believe that we're going to replace all mechanical hard disks everywhere everywhere, including all corporations as well as the major hyper scalars at pure. We have three major missions. The first is to create what we call the all flash data center to replace mechanical disks everywhere with flash technology. The second major mission is to virtualize data storage to just make it easier for organizations to be able to get access to their data regardless of where that data is stored whether it's on their premise or in the cloud. But by doing so, we accomplish our third mission which is to dramatically reduce the power consumption, the space uh consumption and the e waste caused by data storage. By transitioning from magnetic disk to flash, we can reduce power space and cooling as well as E waste. By a factor of 10, we can reduce about 20% of the datacenter energy footprint. Customers worldwide are increasingly concerned about their impact on the environment. And that goes to a number of different factors. Power, space cooling, e waste that's generated and are increasingly focused on their suppliers to give them a better solution. Increasingly we are winning deals. We have pure storage are winning deals especially internationally simply by having that lower space power and cooling environment that our customers are seeking. Many customers are running out of power in their data centers. They're running out of power availability or concerned about power availability in their countries and we can reduce their total data center power consumption by up to 20%. We're quite proud of our record around e waste. We can reduce our customers e waste environment for data storage by up to 85%. And we do this partially because our products just simply longer, so less need to recycle the components. But when we do recycle those components, we're able to remove all of the rare earth elements and other valuable minerals from the systems before we ecologically dispose of what remains. I believe that the most successful companies throughout history were purpose driven, their purposes at different points in time, perhaps focused on different things such as driving the economy forward, making people's lives better. Uh But it's always the case that employees and teams that are motivated by doing what's best, not only for themselves, not only for their company, but for their families, their communities and for the society as a whole are the ones that are the most motivated. And as a team are going to win over those that really are only operating for their own self interest. Today. Pure storage is known for having the simplest most reliable products in our industry. Tomorrow. I believe pure storage will be known for revolutionizing the data storage market and doing so in a way that has dramatically reduced the world's energy consumption and reduced its e waste production.

MEBO trains doctors and nurses, and collaborates with universities to study and improve health care delivery in different countries.

MEBO International wants to revolutionize health care with regenerative science

So our company uh Ma International was founded in 2001 in Los Angeles. Our company is a mission driven company that we focus on utilizing our patent technology of human regenerative science that invented by my father Dr Lu Shu. And our job is to train a lot of doctors and nurses to help enhance the global clinical workforces. Mobile International. This year has been partnered with Clinton Global initiative to provide support of they call the CG I Greenhouse project which will support young entrepreneurs in the field of environmental projects and to provide a sustainability to our environment. We also provide a lot of support on transparencies by working with different universities to study the price level and also the management adjustment of a health reform actions in multiple countries to figure out what are the right way to deliver the best care for the people. I think dealing with a purpose nowadays are being identified as a way to unify people and especially partners. We've been built and forged over the years and how we can carry on everybody with the same mission and toward the same direction I think to be an effective leader. First of all, you have to understand the needs of everyone and also position yourself as a servant to provide the best way of support and help to others. So we can help everybody thrive instead of yourself not being a alpha wolf in the pack. I will say we did a lot of uh sessions on briefing with employees about our history and our development through the years because our culture are based from our histories are important lessons to our employees while they understand the value system. And also the perspective value has been established over the years. Our way of measuring success and also metrics of impulse are based on the number of doctors we trained and nurses we teach through the years and especially we partner with United Nations STG program and also Clinton Foundation to provide free training sessions for burn and trauma doctors around the world, especially for the countries where they need a lot of clinical workforce to prepare for natural catastrophe.

How President Anton Vincent is guiding Mars Wrigley with “The Compass," a five-principle strategy created to help foster cohesion and unity between the Mars family and company leadership.

Mars Wrigley’s billion-dollar commitment to sustainability and net zero

Well, I'm, I'm a proud associate of Mars Incorporated. It really is a unique company. I think we actually have a perfect blend of purpose and profit. Uh You may know us through our brands that are very consumer facing like an M and MS or Snickers or Twix or Skittles or Starburst. But we also happen to be the largest confectionery company in the world. We are the largest pet care company in the world and you know, we can make sure that we are impacting the biggest and broadest set of people possible and not just consuming our products and services, but also advancing our purpose in making the world a better place. When we talk purpose, we want to make sure that that purpose is not just a construction of words, but those words have uh have meaning that they have understanding and that they actually guide strategy. I think that's where a lot of companies miss it. You can come up with great words, those words can have great meaning, great emotion. But if you're not activating against those, you really can't see your purpose come to fruition in the marketplace around the world. Well, at Mars, we measure success in a very simple way. Uh First of all, back in 2017, we developed something called the compass. Uh The compass is essentially the agreement between the family and in leadership around how we want the company run. And that compass is pretty simple, has four quadrants. But at the top half, it's basically our economic engine, our economic ambition. And in the bottom half, it is essentially um how we make the world a better place. And part of what we do is try to put tension between those two halves. And so we have very scripted goals in terms of what that looks like. We try to be transparent, we try to be accountable, we try to make sure that leadership is scripted in such a way that we can achieve that compass over the long arc of time. And so that's our ultimate measure of success. You know, first of all, we think ESG is incredibly important, I think from perspective of Mars. Uh even before the term was coined, Mars had really been, you know, very significantly involved in sustainability efforts and equity efforts as well. And clearly, you know, as a part of a large global company, we had great governance in 2017, we established that their first public facing effort around our sustainability efforts, something called sustainable in a generation. And we committed $1 billion to making sure that we were putting the right types of projects and initiatives to make sure that we are executing against those objectives. Here. Recently, in 2023 we released our net zero road map. The big focus around that net zero road map is to make sure that we're clearly um at net zero by 2050 but also achieving 50% of that goal by 2030. I think my biggest responsibility as, as a leader is to make sure that um that the ideas and the principles and the brands that we have today are just as viable or just as transferring 100 years into the future. I think at the end of the day that my time and Mars and my time leading a big part of Mars is really going to be focused on making sure that our legacy and what we're here to do and our purpose is achieved and relevant and vibrant 100 years from today.

CEO Debanjan Saha emphasizes the significance of fostering a culture that unites people, highlighting how it contributes to driving innovation.

DataRobot aims to make AI a reliable tool for companies

Data robot is, you know, is an A I start up. We have been in the business for about 10 years and we provide an end to end platform for our customers. We think of ourselves as a very, very innovative company but innovation that really matters to business, innovation that really impacts what our customer are trying to do with technology, not just solving business problems, but to have a long term positive impact on the society. A big part of A I is really the trust in the output that you generate. So we have a lot of instrumentation to do, for example, governance of the solution that we are putting together, that means testing, that means validation, that means compliance etc. And after you do that, you have to then deploy it in production and there you have to continuously monitor them. Everybody is excited about J but the real issue there is the confidence, right? I mean if you ask chat GPT a question and you get a funny answer, you can laugh at it. But if you are an enterprise using jai, you better be sure that answers are really correct. So that if you are not careful with that, it can undermine the trust in what you are producing and that's not good, especially in enterprise. There are three things that I believe is very, very important in leading a company. One is having clarity with respect to vision and mission because without that, you cannot really convince your team, your customers, your investors, that what exactly you are doing and why I think why is as equally important as what is right? The second thing which I think is important for any company, but a purpose driven company to build that culture, which brings people together, right? The company is really people and ideas and the fabric of that is really the culture. People think big, they are not concerned about taking risks. And the third thing which is important to me is, you know, execution part of it, which is about decision making. Of course, I make, you know, some of the difficult decisions. My goal is to make as few decisions I need to make. But the difficult decision that that's important. But every day in a company, you are making hundreds and thousands of decisions and that you need to empower the team so that they can make those decisions in a data driven way and do various different kinds of things in figuring out how they can make those decisions with a high quality judgmental way. At the same time, do it quickly.

CEO Marc Rosen on a customer-centric approach and commitment to making moments count



JCPenney on the critical role accessible fashion plays in every household

JC Penny was founded in 1902. So over 100 and 20 years ago, and we were founded in um Camera Wyoming with a store that James Cash Penny opened, that was called the Golden Rule Store. And that's really because our company is based on the golden rule of really treating others the way that you want to be treated. And that has been the core and the foundation of our company for over 100 and 20 years, really focused on customer service. Our purpose is really to serve and celebrate with America's diverse working families and that means giving them an opportunity to buy the things that they need for their family and to have those things without having to make tradeoffs that they have to make in their day to day lives. And that really has been communicated to our employees. It grounds where the, the purpose of our brand and our make it kind of campaign that we just launched with the brand. And it really helps guide our decisions overall in terms of the products that we're buying and the choices that we making, how we're operating our stores and our website and, and, and how we serve our customers. I do think that leadership today is different than it's been historically and it's a lot more about um setting teams up for success, making sure the right talent is in place, making sure the mission is clear and then listening and making sure that the teams can get done what they need to get done versus, you know, a more traditional command and control kind of environment ESG has been for a long time, an important part of what we're doing. And, and we go back and look at the ESG goals on a regular basis and really look at how do we focus on and help make the world a better place. And that varies through things like community involvement and things like that to the products that we make and how we do that. And so we'll partner wrap the supply chain. One of the things and one of the examples is we committed by 2026 that all of our fashion and home products is gonna be made from preferred sustainable fabrics. And so there are things that we can control and we can do to embed in our product and make the world a better place. And I think the the magic of things like that is those fabrics are also preferred by customers. So we're going to have a better product that's better for the world. We live to the end of the day. What I'd like customers to know our company for is that we help them take the moments in their life that really matter. And some of those moments are really big moments like they could be a daughter's wedding or something like that. It could be a first day of work and every customer really has a story about JC Penny. It could also be some of the smaller moments. It could be just having breakfast with their kids or driving their kids to school or having dinner with their family or a special moment. But the reality is our customer, especially in the world that we live in today is a $75,000 household median income family that is facing trade off every single day in their life. And so our purpose and our mission is to give them a moment when they don't have to make those tradeoffs when they can have accessible fashion, when they can have a shopping experience that treats them with respect and they can take a moment and not have to make those tradeoffs that they have to make in their everyday life and really have a moment with the people that they care about to make it count.

Jane Sun shares insights into her company’s COVID-19 response.

How Trip.com’s CEO navigates industry challenges through a customer-centric approach 

Trip dot com is the largest travel company in China. Uh It has about 30,000 employees globally. We were established in 1999. And right now uh we have uh products uh covering hotel air tickets, train corporate travel group package, et cetera. Our goal is to uh provide excellent services to our global customers. Our mission is that while we are sending people far away, we are bringing the world closer. Uh Right now, there are lots of conflicts between different regions and we strongly believe that travel is something that we can bring people together. Uh as Confucius teaching uh told us that it is better to travel 10,000 miles than to read 10,000 books. So for us, travel is learning, travel is understanding and travel promotes global peace and global understanding. During the past three years, it was very difficult for the travel industry. However, uh we always adhere to our principle that customer first, our partner, second and trip dot com, the third uh by putting customer first uh when China uh locked down its border when the outbreak happened, uh millions of customers have already paid airlines and hotel money. Uh however, they couldn't travel outside of the country. So we work with more than 10 banks, uh get the loans from the banks and provide the refund to the customers even before. Uh we get the money from the airlines and hotels. And that is the responsibility and purpose for our company uh to react very responsibly during difficult time. At that time, we were out of cash, cash flow almost is to zero. So our chairman and myself are volunteer to our board that we will take zero salary until industry recovers. And our VP responded by telling our board that they will take 50% cut until the business recovers. And our employee responded that they will work four days and take one day off, work three days, take two days off. But in reality, that's the best way for them to support the business, support our customers and partners. Uh Although they are taking some discount on their salary success to me has a couple of uh measurement. Uh first of all, for our customers, uh we need to really provide the best product and best service. So uh when you call our call center within 20 seconds, a live person answer the phone within two minutes, uh we can finish a deal for you when there is a tsunami in Japan or Las Vegas shooting many years ago. Within a minute, we'll be able to identify where our customers are and make sure we reach out to them, uh provide hot tower, uh hot meal and bring them to the hotel. And the very next day, if they choose to uh come back to their home country, we will be able to rescue them back. Uh So that excellent service uh provide peace uh to our customers. And that is a success for me uh to to our customer.

Margery Kraus on why empathy is so important in today's business.


APCO Worldwide Founder on what helped her thrive in a male-dominated industry

So as the founder of a company which has grown from one person to 1200 people almost organically worldwide, which is now celebrating at the end of this year, our 40th anniversary, we are a global advisory and advocacy firm. We try to help our clients meet their challenges head on whether their company has it solutions in a complex world. Um We work on various kinds of stakeholder engagement, public policy work, communications, various kinds of things that help position the company and their reputation uh for the future. And we don't just do that for companies. We also work for organizations like NGO S big foundations and also for government. So a is the majority of women owned. And uh when I started this company, there weren't very many women uh that were out there doing role modeling or whatever. So you use your inherent skills. I think women by their very nature are more nurturing. And I think that when I started this business, everything was about command and control and that wasn't my way of operating. And so I think in this day and age when purpose is become important and empathy is really and we saw that with COVID is really a factor in running your business. I always talk about what you learned from motherhood. Some of the skill sets are the same skill set when we do some things that I think would have been difficult for somebody else to do. That's my greatest moment of pride that we've taken something on that has stretched the boundaries of what we do and that we achieve the success for our clients. Because our client success, that's our success.

CEO Teresa Rasmussen explains why purpose driven companies attract employees and customers.

How Thrivent is using financial planning for social good

Private is a Fortune 500 financial services organization that offers holistic advice, investments, insurance, banking and generosity programs to millions of clients every year. I like to say that we are the original purpose based company. We were founded in 19 02 when 500 members of a Wisconsin Lutheran church each contributed $5 to build a life insurance fund. And we have since grown to more than 2.3 million customers that thrive financially mobilizing people to come together and take care of others was an integral part of our founding 120 years ago and remains core who we are today. So we inspire and empower our clients to carry out acts of social good. We give them the tools and the resources to take action and drive impact. We had a client and she suffered from breast cancer. And um you know, she, she was a working mom and, and she and her husband um talked about, you know, what, what was really important and what she discovered about herself as a breast cancer survivor and working with her financial advisor at Thrivent. She wanted to create her own not for profit for survivors of breast cancer because she said the medical community takes care of us. Well, but it's the emotional respite house that was really her vision for the future. And so we with her financial advisor, she quit her job. She said that was kind of scary because it meant that their income was reduced by 50%. But then she started her, her non for profit and she opened her respite house, which is open now to, to breast cancer survivors and so that they can just have a little place to go and just rest and relax and take care of themselves. Mhm Well, there are a handful of important philosophies that have helped guide me in my journey as a purpose driven leader, starting with the power of mentorship, leaders need a network of people to guide teach and provide them with feedback and encourage them through every stage of their career. So believing in yourself and having confidence is also key to taking on new challenges and leading a purpose driven company throughout my career, I've had colleagues and mentors who believed in me and my potential and instilled confidence in me. This gave me the courage to take risks in my professional journey. We also have a long standing focus on diversity, equity and inclusion, including strategies to attract a diverse workforce, build an environment of trust and respect for our workforce, reach diverse clients and serve communities through philanthropy and investment and engagement. We're proud of the diversity of our board and senior leadership team. And we're making further strides across our entire organization as we look to the future. And so for me, leading with purpose is about inspiring our team and clients to create the positive impact through our shared vision and values. Additionally, now, more than ever being a part of a purpose driven organization is critical for employees. We're clearly seeing that talent is attracted to companies with a clear purpose and values. People want to work for an organization that cares about making a lasting impact and develops a holistic relationship with their customers.

Why Kevin Lobo believes ESG is the path to enhancing employees' and customers' lives.

 Stryker CEO: Employees want to do meaningful work

Striker was founded over 80 years ago by Dr Homer Striker, an orthopedic surgeon in Kalamazoo Michigan. We are now a global MedTech leader operating in over 75 countries with over 50,000 employees. We make medical and surgical products, orthopedics and spine and neurotechnology products. G is completely embedded into our strategy. We have three pillars which are stronger people, healthier planet and good business. And they are just integral to how we do our work being focused on people, the development of our own people as well as how we serve our customers. We believe that ESG practices are good business practices and will make us a sustainable company for the long run. I think the world has changed where people really want to make a difference. They want to work for a company that's improving the world. The rise of DSG is not just for investors. I think it's for all of our employees. And so we see a lot of people that come to work for striker come because they are driven by the mission statement. They want to make a difference. It's not just about a job, it's not just about a salary, they want to do meaningful work. And we see that and really helps us attract terrific people. We lead with purpose all the time at striker. Every one of our meetings start off with our mission and values. We bring patients and the surgeons to our town hall meetings to share their stories, life saving products in some cases, as well as life enhancing products like a knee replacement or a hip replacement. So we do good and we think we can do good business by doing good. I think leadership principles are generally the same across all businesses. With maybe two exceptions for a purpose driven company and the two exceptions would be empathy and compassion. Uh Those are two that we've dialed up frankly due to the pandemic. But even besides that to be purpose driven, you have to have that empathetic attribute, having compassion, talking about the customers that you're serving instead of just the financial results or the growth results. And I think it also causes you to take risks to really drive to the purpose, to meet the purpose, to take long term decisions to in your quality system, to make sure you're taking all the precautions necessary to live into your mission statement. At Striker. We measure employee engagement every year annually at the same time. And one of the questions that we consistently score at the top of the engagement survey is linked to mission and the fact that we continue to get accolades as a great place to work with m driving. That great place to work, tells us that we are a very purpose driven company.

Rophit Gupta discusses the importance of sustainable homeownership, and why purpose is so important to propel employees forward.

Enact CEO: “It’s important to have your leadership team tied to purpose”

It’s important to have your leadership team tied to purpose

That was founded in 1981 and we are in the business of providing private mortgage insurance across the US. We leverage over strong relationships, our underwriting excellence and our prudent risk and capital management to enable over 1800 lenders across the US. We have over 40 plus years of experience and we leverage that experience to design products and services that helps these consumers achieve the dream of home ownership in a sustainable way. Consumers who actually can't afford that 20% down payment by using private mortgage insurance to get into homes sooner than they otherwise would be able to. In many cases, this is years of acceleration in terms of their home ownership. In many cases, it's also decades that they would have to wait to actually accrue that 20% down payment. So our product essentially enables consumers to achieve the dream of home ownership in a sustainable way and then also maintain the dream of home ownership and start accumulating wealth to be a purpose driven company. It's very important to have your leadership team basically tied to that purpose and believe in that purpose that starts at the top of the house with the CEO where the CEO has to believe in the value of purpose to the company, to employees and to all stakeholders. And then for that CEO to take that tone at the top, at every communication point, at every proof point to make sure that we are leading with purpose. So it does take a different set of skills to lead with purpose and to lead a company primarily on financial results or a different metric. We measure success in many different ways and we consider our success aligned with the success of our stakeholders for our consumers. It means sustainable home ownership for our lender partners. Success means helping them put more consumers into homes in a sustainable way for our regulators and policyholders. Success means that we are a strong counter party and we can navigate through good times and tough times for our employees. Success means we are giving them fulfilling opportunities, resources to do their jobs and tying them to the purpose that tells them how they are contributing to the bigger purpose of the company. And lastly for our shareholders, success is driven by driving the right shareholder outcomes and driving the right shareholder returns.

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