Daphne Koller, CEO of insitro and cofounder of Coursera, joins Leadership Next to unpack a bold idea: Just as calculus revolutionized our understanding of physics, AI could do the same for biology. In this episode, Koller explains how insitro is blending biology and machine learning to unlock new treatments for diseases like ALS and fatty liver. She also opens up about her leap from academia to entrepreneurship, the ethical challenges of data collection, and why the future of medicine lies in pe...
Jul 08, 2025•55 min•Season 6Ep. 21
Zillow CEO Jeremy Wacksman joins Leadership Next to unpack the forces reshaping American real estate—and the friction threatening its transparency. In a wide-ranging conversation, Wacksman addresses the industry lawsuit brought by Compass and defends Zillow’s stance on keeping property listings open and accessible to all. He explains how the current system—a uniquely American one that allows any buyer or agent to view every listing—is now at risk.With home prices nearly doubling since the pandem...
Jul 01, 2025•48 min•Season 6Ep. 20
Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America, joins Leadership Next to reflect on his journey from law to banking—and how that unexpected pivot brought him to the head job at one of the world’s largest financial institutions. He shares his leadership philosophy, emphasizing the power of staying calm in a crisis and the importance of giving energy to his team, not taking it away. Moynihan discusses Bank of America's strategic shift from aggressive acquisitions to organic growth, fueled by major investm...
Jun 24, 2025•57 min•Season 6Ep. 19
Michelle MacKay, CEO of Cushman & Wakefield, doesn’t see the company as just a real estate firm—she sees it as an architect of the built world. In this episode of Leadership Next, she joins us to discuss the evolving definition of commercial real estate and Cushman & Wakefield’s expansive global strategy, from solar installations to hospital management. Michelle reflects on her unconventional path from political science to the C-suite, her “filters-off” approach to hiring, and the lesson...
Jun 17, 2025•41 min•Season 6Ep. 20
In this episode, Dropbox founder and CEO Drew Houston joins Leadership Next to share how he's reimagining work in the age of AI. He traces Dropbox’s evolution—from solving file-syncing in the early cloud era to launching Dropbox Dash, a new AI-powered search and knowledge-management tool. Houston reflects on the hard lessons from failed ventures into email and photo apps, the pressures of self-disruption, and what it takes to stay relevant in a crowded productivity space. He also opens up about ...
Jun 03, 2025•55 min•Season 6Ep. 15
In this episode of Leadership Next, cohosts Diane Brady and Kristin Stoller speak with Kate Johnson, CEO of Lumen, about her bold effort to reinvent a legacy telecom as the digital backbone of the AI era. Johnson shares how Lumen is capitalizing on its vast fiber network to support the explosive data demands of artificial intelligence—and how partnerships with innovators like Corning are helping supercharge that capacity. Johnson opens up about the cultural overhaul she led inside the company, s...
May 27, 2025•49 min•Season 6Ep. 16
What does the future of money look like when plastic disappears—and payments happen seamlessly in the background? In this episode of Leadership Next, Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach joins hosts Diane Brady and Kristin Stoller to explore how technology is reshaping the way we spend, save, and connect. With 150 billion transactions processed each year, Mastercard is positioning itself as a key player in the digital economy—far beyond credit cards. Miebach discusses the company’s push to eliminate m...
May 13, 2025•44 min•Season 6Ep. 15
What do mortgage lending and pro basketball have in common? For Mat Ishbia, everything. In this episode of Leadership Next, cohosts Diane Brady and Kristin Stoller sit down with the CEO of United Wholesale Mortgage—and owner of the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury—to explore how Ishbia channels his experience as a Michigan State basketball player into building winning teams in boardrooms and arenas alike. Ishbia shares how he balances being a hands-on CEO, sports team owner, and father of three,...
May 06, 2025•41 min•Season 6Ep. 14
Ethan Brown, founder and CEO of Beyond Meat, isn’t just trying to disrupt the meat industry—he’s challenging the cultural, political, and economic systems that uphold it. In this episode of Leadership Next, Brown speaks with Fortune’s Diane Brady and Kristin Stoller about the uphill battle of building a plant-based food company in a world dominated by Big Meat. He shares why he believes alternative proteins are key to addressing the climate crisis, what the latest research says about the health ...
Apr 29, 2025•49 min•Season 6Ep. 13
Citizens Financial Group CEO Bruce Van Saun joins Leadership Next to discuss the bank’s evolution in an era of digital disruption and economic uncertainty. Van Saun shares insights on Citizens' fintech partnerships, its focus on affluent and rate-sensitive customers, and the expansion into private banking. He reflects on leading through financial crises, including the aftermath of 9/11, and the importance of balancing regulatory oversight with innovation. From AI integration to community investm...
Apr 22, 2025•56 min•Season 6Ep. 13
Wendy’s CEO Kirk Tanner is betting big on Wendy’s future—expanding internationally, doubling down on breakfast, and leveraging data to drive smarter decisions. In this episode of Leadership Next, cohosts Diane Brady and Kristin Stoller sit down with Kirk to discuss the fast-food giant’s evolving strategy. Tanner shares insights on the brand’s commitment to fresh ingredients, digital innovation, and international expansion, while reflecting on key leadership lessons from his time at PepsiCo. He a...
Apr 15, 2025•48 min•Season 6Ep. 11
Chipotle is more than just burritos and bowls—it’s a $4 billion digital business with ambitious plans for international expansion. In this episode of Leadership Next, cohosts Diane Brady and Kristin Stoller sit down with Chipotle CEO Scott Boatwright to discuss the brand’s strategy for sustainable growth, the role of AI in streamlining operations, and how external factors like immigration and economic uncertainty shape the fast-casual industry. Boatwright shares his journey from flipping burgers...
Apr 08, 2025•38 min•Season 6Ep. 10
Roblox started as a simple gaming platform, but today it’s an expansive digital ecosystem powered by AI and user-generated content. In this episode of Leadership Next, cohosts Diane Brady and Kristin Stoller sit down with Roblox CEO Dave Baszucki to discuss the company’s evolution, the future of interactive entertainment, and how AI is reshaping digital experiences. Baszucki also shares insights on Roblox’s commitment to online safety, its growing role in digital commerce, and even his personal ...
Apr 01, 2025•46 min•Season 6Ep. 9
From spontaneous backpacking trips to AI-powered, hyper-personalized itineraries, travel has undergone a radical transformation. In this episode of Leadership Next, hosts Diane Brady and Kristin Stoller sit down with Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel to explore the future of travel. Glenn reflects on his early experiences navigating the world before smartphones, how AI is revolutionizing trip planning, and why personalization is key to the industry's evolution. He also discusses Booking Holdings’...
Mar 18, 2025•52 min•Season 6Ep. 8
In this episode of Leadership Next, recorded live at Deloitte University’s Next Generation CEO Conference, hosts Diane Brady and Kristin Stoller sit down with Qualtrics CEO Zig Serafin for a deep dive into the future of experience management, the transformative power of AI, and the importance of defining your “why” as a leader. Serafin reflects on his 18-year tenure at Microsoft, his leadership journey at Qualtrics, and how the company navigated SAP’s $8.5 billion acquisition, went public, and l...
Mar 11, 2025•38 min•Season 6Ep. 7
Oura is more than just a sleep tracker—it’s a cultural phenomenon. In this episode of Leadership Next, Oura CEO Tom Hale joins Diane and Kristin to discuss how the smart ring has become a symbol of well-being, embraced by everyone from high-profile figures like Mark Zuckerberg and Kim Kardashian to everyday users looking to optimize their health. Hale explores Oura’s expansion into activity readiness and women’s health, the importance of accuracy in wearables, and the growing consumer demand for...
Mar 04, 2025•48 min•Season 6Ep. 6
When Bill Anderson became CEO of the German pharmaceutical conglomerate Bayer AG in 2023, he found a company with a long history and a robust corporate bureaucracy. The company handbook was 1,300 pages, and layer after layer of management too easily stifled innovation. Anderson, who worked at Genentech earlier in his career, wanted to instill more of an ownership culture, where decisions and information moved more nimbly. Almost two years in, the changes have been significant: The entire company...
Feb 25, 2025•49 min•Season 6Ep. 5
Can success run in a family? For serial entrepreneur Naveen Jain, the answer is clearly yes. This week's guests on Leadership Next are Jain and his son, fellow entrepreneur Ankur Jain. Naveen Jain made a name for himself in the 1990s as the founder of InfoSpace. These days he's hard at work on other endeavors, including his personalized medicine company Viome. Meanwhile Ankur, whose earlier company Humin was acquired by Tinder a few years ago, is already on to his next endeavor, a platform calle...
Feb 18, 2025•52 min•Season 6Ep. 4
Beauty is a crowded space with tons of entrenched players. But stiff competition hasn’t slowed the growth for e.l.f., the popular drugstore beauty brand founded in 2004. Tarang Amin is e.l.f’s CEO and this week’s guest on Leadership Next. The company and its popular products, including its flagship Halo Glow Liquid Filler, are lower-cost than industry competitors, says Amin. That value proposition, savvy social media marketing partnerships with celebrities like Jennifer Coolidge and Judge Judy, ...
Feb 11, 2025•30 min•Season 6Ep. 3
Trust is the lifeblood of business. That makes Edelman's annual Trust Barometer a must-read for leaders. This week's guest is Richard Edelman, the CEO of global communications firm Edelman. This year marks Edelman's 25th year doing the Trust Barometer. Richard Edelman talks to hosts Diane Brady and Kristin Stoller about why trust is more important today than ever, and gives an update on which sectors are gaining or losing on the trust scale. The conversation also highlighted a generational divid...
Feb 04, 2025•26 min•Season 6Ep. 2
2025 promises to be the year of AI for global business. The change will go beyond applications like the popular chat tools that can answer questions and sort data. For Deloitte US CEO Jason Girzadas, this week's guest on Leadership Next, AI is front of mind for him and the CEOs he speaks with. Girzadas believes 2025 is the year of the full-time digital assistant, with advancements like Agentic AI deploying across a range of functions, driving both efficiency and growth. Along with hosts Diane Br...
Jan 28, 2025•24 min•Season 6Ep. 1
Salesforce has been at the epicenter of several tectonic shifts in tech over the 25 years of its history. The company, and its CEO and founder Marc Benioff, rightly anticipated that rapid advancements in computing power and bandwidth would usher in a new era of work-from-anywhere technology built on cloud computing. Today, Salesforce, and its powerful suite of software tools have become among the most ubiquitous for business at large. The company’s next big bet is called Agentforce, making it ea...
Dec 17, 2024•38 min•Season 5Ep. 41
If purses are your bag, chances are you're familiar with the classic luxurious silhouettes that made Coach into a global powerhouse brand. The luxe leather goods are but one brand owned by parent company Tapestry, which also has Kate Spade and bootmaker Stuart Weitzman in its portfolio. Joanne Crevoiserat is Tapestry's CEO and this week's guest on Leadership Next. She talks to Diane about what luxury means in 2024, how Gen Z shoppers are sending shock waves through retail, and about AI in fashio...
Dec 03, 2024•39 min•Season 5Ep. 40
AI promises to upend almost every industry in the coming years. SAP, the German software behemoth, is no exception, although the company has already been investing heavily in AI for more than a decade. On this week’s episode of Leadership Next, Diane talks to Christian Klein, the 44-year-old CEO of SAP. Klein grew up at SAP, starting as an intern, and spent years climbing the ranks before being named solo CEO in 2020. The wide-ranging interview covered the need for regulation in the field of AI,...
Nov 19, 2024•36 min•Season 5Ep. 39
Pharmaceutical companies are often the poster children for what's wrong with the health care system. New drugs can take decades of development and cost billions of dollars in R&D, and once they clear the FDA, consumers are too often met with sticker shock and high prices for their meds. Dave Ricks, CEO of drugmaker Eli Lilly, this week's guest on Leadership Next, says drug development is very hard—so hard that most of the thousands of Lilly employees who work on R&D for the company may n...
Nov 12, 2024•35 min•Season 5Ep. 38
In 2000, Malcolm Gladwell published The Tipping Point, identifying the key players and small, seemingly inconsequential decisions that together can make ideas, products, and behaviors spread like a virus. Gladwell was hailed as a guru whose concepts were embraced as a how-to guide for marketers and policymakers. In his latest book, Revenge of the Tipping Point, Gladwell revisits the themes from his original book to examine how they’ve held up and also been manipulated to create negative impacts....
Oct 29, 2024•31 min•Season 5Ep. 37
How do you create an online community that can foster in-person connections? That's what Nextdoor, the social network for neighbors, has been trying to do since its 2008 founding. This week's guest on Leadership Next is current—and former—CEO Nirav Tolia. Tolia, a longtime entrepreneur, talks to Diane about returning to the company he cofounded, what people gain by getting to know their neighbors, and what it's like to be on Shark Tank. Leadership Next is powered by Deloitte.
Oct 22, 2024•30 min•Season 5Ep. 36
When Patti Poppe took over as CEO of the massive California utility Pacific Gas & Electric in 2021, the company had gone through a very rough period. It was found liable for multiple California wildfires, dealt with a bankruptcy, and paid billions of dollars in settlements to fire victims. Poppe says the size and importance of the opportunity at PG&E is what drew her to the turnaround. On this week’s episode of Leadership Next, Poppe, the first woman to lead two separate Fortune 500 comp...
Oct 15, 2024•30 min•Season 5Ep. 35
When T-Mobile burst on the scene in 2002, the wireless market was already saturated with big players like Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T. To make inroads, the company became “The Uncarrier,” famous for customer-centric contracts with better pricing and more user-friendly terms and features. Twenty-two years later, T-Mobile today is one of the biggest telecom companies in the world. On this week’s episode of Leadership Next, Diane speaks to CEO Mike Sievert, who took over for John Legere in 2020. ...
Oct 08, 2024•30 min•Season 5Ep. 34
Hiring is always high stakes for CEOs. The right hire can help drive an organization to new heights, and the wrong one can take years to recover from. So, most business leaders are keenly aware of how important it is to hire well. Yet, there's no silver bullet. On this week's episode of Leadership Next we speak to Indeed CEO Chris Hyams. According to Hyams, demand for in-person jobs is way up, while remote jobs, which gained in popularity during the pandemic, have seen fewer openings recently bu...
Oct 01, 2024•44 min•Season 5Ep. 33
