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Mission Daily

Mission.orgmission.org
What if your next great idea was waiting in the words of someone you’ve never met? On Mission Daily, host Stephanie Postles sits down with people who see the world differently — leaders, creators, and deep thinkers who have mastered the art of turning challenges into opportunities. Uncover what fuels growth and innovation every single week. From ancient philosophies to groundbreaking tech, this podcast isn’t just about ideas; it’s about action — giving you the step-by-step guide to design a life that feels aligned, intentional, and unapologetically yours. Your mission starts here.

Episodes

Staying People-Focused with Tracy Edkins, Chief Human Resource Officer at Splunk

When Tracy Edkins joined Splunk four years ago there were just over 1,000 employees. Today, Splunk is hitting 5,000 employees and Tracy is right in the middle of this explosive growth as Chief Human Resource Officer at Splunk. At Splunk, values and culture are the two main drivers for all hiring decisions and it is what, Tracy believes, has made the company so successful. First, there is an emphasis on diversity inclusion, not just when it comes to gender and ethnicity but as it pertains to the ...

Oct 10, 201929 minEp. 353

Leveraging Data in Marketing with Carrie Palin, CMO at Splunk

“Just about every problem needs some data to solve it. We cannot manage what we cannot measure.” — Carrie Palin What makes a great marketer? Carrie Palin , Chief Marketing Officer at Splunk , shares her experience in marketing and why she thinks every CMO needs a data scientist in their marketing department. Prior to joining Splunk, Carrie served as CMO at SendGrid, and was the first CMO at Box. Carrie also served as the VP of Marketing for IBM’s Cloud Data Services and Analytics Software Divisi...

Oct 08, 201945 minEp. 352

Mission Daily Announcement and Giveaway!

Over the past year we've had the opportunity to interview guests such as Alec Baldwin, Jeffrey Wright, Greg Becker, Doug Merritt, Sophia Bush, Liz Wiseman and many others. We've passed 2.1 million downloads and the show (and our team!) is only continuing to grow and change. We couldn't have gotten to where we are without the support from all of you. That being said, we want to give you a chance to voice your opinion! What do you want to hear more of on Mission Daily? We've set up a survey for yo...

Oct 03, 20192 minEp. 351

Building Great Leaders with Liz Wiseman, CEO of The Wiseman Group

“I think the best leaders and the best contributors are competent. They understand their own intelligence, their own capability and what they bring, they bring it fully. But perhaps, they are competent enough that they have gotten over themselves to the point where they understand their own genius but they see the genius of others.” — Liz Wiseman On this special episode of Mission Daily, Stephanie is joined by Liz Wiseman , CEO of The Wiseman Group and author of the New York Times bestselling bo...

Oct 02, 20191 hr 28 minEp. 350

Transporting Aid Globally with Susy Schöneberg, Head of Flexport.org

“Don’t be afraid. Think about your personal experience and how you can leverage it.” — Susy Schöneberg Flexport is a digital freight forwarder that “helps companies to bring their goods from point A to point B, and helps companies to find their goods, and provide the technology and data to up their supply chain.” Susy Schöneberg is the Head of Flexport.org , which is “using Flexport’s expertise, technology, and infrastructure to help companies to achieve their social and environmental goals.” Su...

Sep 30, 201938 minEp. 349

The Future of Work Management with Chris Farinacci, COO of Asana

Collaboration at work is on the rise and so are work management tools to help team members manage progress. Chris Farinacci is the Chief Operating Officer at Asana where he is responsible for the company’s, now global, go to market strategy. Chris breaks down execution of this strategy into three parts: revenue, customer, and market. With over 70,000 paying customers and another three million free companies “that have activated since inception,” Chris has his hands full. “I always get asked, ‘wh...

Sep 27, 201945 minEp. 348

Big Data, Data Lakes, and Blockchain with Rahul Pathak, Executive at Amazon Web Services

Everyone knows that data is exploding. What most people don’t realize is the pace and ways in which data is changing our everyday lives. According to Rahul Pathak , we’re seeing a “roughly 10x increase in data every 5 years, and the types of data that’s being generated is changing” as new devices are created every day. What does this data explosion mean for the future of business? And how is blockchain able to help with structuring and securing data? “So what you have is data volume exploding. Y...

Sep 26, 201944 minEp. 347

Creating Stories that Matter with Sophia Bush

Sophia Bush is many things; an actress, activist, and avid reader. She hosts a new podcast called Work in Progress and is working on several soon-to-be-released films. She is an LA native and, as the daughter of two immigrant parents, understands the value of the American Dream and the value of the life she’s built for herself. But what many might not know is that Sophia is also a self-proclaimed “data science nerd” and narrator of our newest tech podcast, Hidden In Plain Sight . “There's been s...

Sep 25, 201944 minEp. 346

Preventing Cyber Attacks with John Davis, Federal Chief Security Officer of Palo Alto Networks

From Senior Military Cyber Advisor at the Pentagon to VP and Federal Chief Security Officer at Palo Alto Networks , John Davis is an experienced cyber security professional focused on educating the public on cyber threats and preventing the next national and international cyber attack. Palo Alto Networks is at the forefront of cyber security and uses the latest in tech such as artificial intelligence, analytics, automation, and orchestration to prevent cyber attacks on their integrated platform....

Sep 24, 201953 minEp. 345

The Digital Transformation of Ingka Group with Chief Technology Officer, Susan Standiford

You may think everything in IKEA is easy to piece together, but what you see in-store and online has taken years, even decades, of iteration to create. Unlike their mattress frames, IKEA’s technology takes more than just an Allen wrench to build. And leading it all is Susan Standiford . Susan grew up with an innate interest in technology. Her father was a historian and journalist and her mother was a physicist, scientist, and mathematician. Because Susan basically grew up in a computer lab, her ...

Sep 23, 201954 minEp. 344

Transforming Health Insurance with Ali Diab, CEO of Collective Health

Ali Diab is the co-founder and CEO of Collective Health , a healthcare technology company that makes employee sponsored health insurance more transparent and simple to navigate. Ali was motivated to start Collective Health after his own medical event. As he was busy recovering from a life saving operation, Ali was served numerous health care bills with no clear understanding of what was owed and for what. He had great health insurance too but even still, the bills were high and not clear or tran...

Sep 20, 201959 minEp. 343

From Marketing to Chief Operating Officer with Whitney Bouck of HelloSign

Whitney Bouck is the Chief Operating Officer of HelloSign , a tool that lets users sign documents with legally binding e-signatures. As COO, Whitney is responsible for leading the sales, marketing, customer operations, and business development team. However, she wasn’t always a COO, in fact, she came from the marketing world. She served as SVP of Global Marketing at Box and, prior to that, was Chief Marketing Officer for EMC. For Whitney, the transition from marketing to operations was natural. ...

Sep 19, 201944 minEp. 342

A Transformational Career with Tara-Nicholle Nelson, CEO of SoulTour

“ We all are doing a hero's journey over and over and over and over again. Every time we seek to improve or change something about our lives or try to do something we've never done before it is a hero’s journey in itself. ” — Tara-Nicholle Nelson Tara-Nicholle Nelson is a marketer and writer at heart, but before realizing her true passions, it was as a real estate agent that she started her first “customer insights project.” She wanted to help people make better decisions when buying homes, so s...

Sep 18, 20191 hr 1 minEp. 341

Closing the Gender Pay Gap with Meggie Palmer of PepTalkHer

Meggie Palmer is on a personal mission to close the gender pay gap. She founded PepTalkHer , an app that helps women recognize their value in the workplace and gives them the confidence to ask for a raise. Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, Meggie spent more than a decade working as a journalist for BBC World, CNBC, Discovery Channel, and others as a Foreign Correspondent & Director. She loved journalism but realized that it was not going to pay what she needed to retire comfortably. To help cre...

Sep 17, 201946 minEp. 340

The Digital Transformation of a Print Enterprise, with Former Conde Nast CDO Fred Santarpia

You may have heard that print is dead. Or at least it’s dying. While those statements are not entirely true — there are still very successful print newspapers, magazines, and books out in the world — they do give a bit of insight into the world we’re currently living in that leans more digital every day. As such, there is a greater need to bring traditional enterprises like publishing houses and magazines into the digital world. That’s where Fred Santarpia enters the picture. Fred is the former ...

Sep 16, 20191 hr 6 minEp. 339

Women in Tech Roundtable Discussion

The tech world has historically been dominated by men. When you think of tech leaders, the mind almost immediately goes to people like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg. But women have been making a name for themselves in the tech world, too, and we gathered a few to share some insights on their journeys. Joining Mission co-founder Stephanie Postles and Mission producer Hilary Giorgi around the table was Alvina Antar , the CIO of Zuora , Julie Cullivan , the Chief People and T...

Sep 13, 20191 hrEp. 338

Defending Information Integrity with Renee DiResta, Mozilla Fellow

Renee DiResta is a Mozilla Fellow in Media, Misinformation, and Trust as well as Technical Research Manager at Stanford’s Internet Observatory. She spends her time at Stanford working on forensic analysis of misinformation campaigns, proactive detection, and policy analysis. Mozilla’s Fellowship program explores “internet health — from harassment to accessibility to privacy and security.” In her day-to-day, Renee analyzes design choices and platforms decisions to understand how they affect infor...

Sep 12, 201947 minEp. 337

How Coding Bootcamps are Breaking The Mold with Ruben Harris, CEO of Career Karma

"There's a difference between a job, a career, and a calling." — Ruben Harris Ruben Harris is the CEO of Career Karma , an online coding bootcamp designed to help people become software engineers and support them throughout their careers. Prior to founding Career Karma, Ruben worked across education, health care, politics, finance, and augmented reality — doing it all while documenting his experiences in blog posts. After receiving thousands of emails asking him for advice on how to break into t...

Sep 11, 201952 minEp. 336

Becoming Indistractable with Nir Eyal, Behavioral Designer and Author

“Whatever you do with your time, I want you to do it with intent. That's the goal here. It’s not about getting off of technology, it’s about using this stuff with intent.” Nir Eyal is a behavioral designer and bestselling author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products . Hooked identifies a four-step process (called the Hooked Model) that explains how to build habit-forming products. But as Nir began writing about, sharing, and consulting companies using the Hooked Model, he realized that ...

Sep 10, 201944 minEp. 335

Digital Transformation in the NGO Sector; Part Two

On today’s episode, we continue our two-part philanthropy series and Ian is joined by a few new guests to continue diving into the topic of digital transformation in the NGO sector. As Lise af Ekenstam , Program Manager of Technology for Social Good Initiative at Avanade , points out, the constraints that nonprofits are faced with are critical and digital transformation is more important than ever. “Given the fact that, more often than not, nonprofits and their stakeholders see digital transform...

Sep 06, 201934 minEp. 333

Digital Transformation in the NGO Sector; Part One

On this special episode of Mission Daily, Ian sits down with IT and Philanthropy professionals working to bridge the gap between Silicon Valley and the NGO world. This roundtable was made possible by NetHope , a consortium of nearly 60 leading global non-profits which empower organizations to change the world through the power of technology. NetHope’s members are responsible for delivering over 60% of all annual, international, and non-governmental aid. In an effort to bring NGOs up to speed wit...

Sep 05, 201949 minEp. 332

Leadership and Business Coaching with Arjun Arora and Jon Low, Advisors at Valence Advisory

"With all the things that you aren't happy about in your life, there's one common denominator in those occurrences, and that is the presence of you." Given the right operating conditions, we all have unique contributions that can be expressed commercially and shared at scale. Founders and their teams serve as a point of conversion between capital and happy, loyal customers. Unfortunately, not all founders in the startup and entrepreneurial ecosystem receive the right support they need. We are jo...

Sep 04, 201959 minEp. 331

Optimism, Innovation, and Technology with with Bret Taylor, President & CPO of Salesforce

“There is an inherent optimism that Silicon Valley represents. Innovation is inherently interesting because it is changing the status quo and it's forcing you to reimagine what the world could be.”— Bret Taylor Bret Taylor has had a remarkable career as a tech entrepreneur. He founded FriendFeed, one of the first social networks, co-created Google Maps, served as the CTO of Facebook, and is currently the President and Chief Product Officer at Salesforce . On this episode, Bret takes us through h...

Sep 03, 20191 hrEp. 330

Identifying Fake News with Molly McKew, Information Warfare Expert

"In the U.S, we're a very optimistic, open-minded population, and that's great, but it also makes us susceptible to false campaigns. We need to step it up in terms of helping our nation be more aware of this." — Molly McKew The term “fake news” gets thrown around a lot in today’s media. Using social media as its main conveyor, misinformation spreads like wildfire to reach the most receptive audiences. Why do people fall prey to fake news stories, and how can we identify them? To answer these que...

Aug 30, 201923 minEp. 329

Stopping Disinformation Online with Dan Keyserling, COO of Jigsaw

“Technology is an incredible, transformative force and it should always be accompanied by a serious conversation about how it’s affecting our society.” — Dan Keyserling Dan Keyserling serves as Chief Operating Officer at Jigsaw , a unit within Alphabet that uses technology to make the world safer. At Jigsaw, Dan and his team are focused on “understanding the methodologies governments use to engage in disinformation operations.” “Fake news” has massively affected journalists and hijacked media pl...

Aug 29, 201952 minEp. 328

The Future of B2B Sales with Marc Murphy, CEO of Atlatl Software

The pace at which technology is becoming obsolete is ever increasing. What was cutting-edge a decade ago, gathers dust in storage sheds today. Or, at least, most of the tech should be gathering dust in storage. Unfortunately, many organizations are lagging behind in upgrading their systems and while they may be able to stay afloat now, where will they be in another decade? Marc Murphy is the CEO of Atlatl Software , a growing tech company that provides visual configuration and CPQ tools to enabl...

Aug 28, 201932 minEp. 327

Building Trust in the Digital Age with Cory Louie, Chief Trust & Security Officer at Checkr

“We’re in the middle of an evolution of how we think about trusting people.” — Cory Louie Cory Louie did not have a traditional path into the tech world. He started his career serving in the Secret Service at the White House. Prior to that, he volunteered with the Electronic Crime Special Agent Program where he was trained “to be a hacker in order to go after the hackers.” Cory now serves as Chief Trust & Security Officer at Checkr , an AI-powered background check platform that helps gig economy...

Aug 27, 20191 hr 4 minEp. 326

Creating Augmented and Virtual Realities with Anjney Midha, CEO of Ubiquity6

"You don't live in the real world, Z. From what you've told me, I don't think you ever have. You're like me. You live inside this illusion." — Art3mis in Ready Player One by Ernest Cline A classic sci-fi novel featuring the VR and AR of the future, in Ready Player One , Cline draws you into the OASIS, a VR video game that looks, feels, and acts like reality. It’s astounding tech and a story that has helped define sci-fi as a genre, but, today, how much of it is really fiction? How soon will we b...

Aug 26, 201934 minEp. 325

A Whisky Tasting with Callum O’Donnell, Brand Ambassador for Aberlour

“Too much of anything is bad, but too much good whiskey is barely enough.” – Mark Twain Did you know that there are 5x more infusion barrels than people in Scotland? Do you understand the difference between whiskey and whisky? Should you put ice or no ice in your scotch? To answer these questions and more, we turned to Callum O’Donnell . On this special episode of Mission Daily, we are joined in studio by Callum, a Brand Ambassador for Aberlour . Founded by James Fleming in 1879, Aberlour is a d...

Aug 23, 201927 minEp. 324

Mapping the World for Good with Karin Tuxen-Bettman

“I grew up loving maps. They draw your eyes — you just want to go look at them and find a new place you’ve never been or look at the places you are familiar with.” — Karin Tuxen-Bettman Karin Tuxen-Bettman is a Program Manager at Google where she’s worked for more than a decade helping develop Google’s mapping projects. The field of GIS (Geographic Information Systems) married together all of her passions — economics, environmental science, and public policy. Now in the GEO division at Google, K...

Aug 21, 201941 minEp. 322