Latter-day Saint MBA Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Glenn Bingham Apr 11, 2023

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Glenn is an expert in strategy and technology with over 40 years of experience in both the public and private sectors. He is the founder of two successful software companies in the travel industry and currently devotes his time to a non-profit humanitarian organization that he founded. He received an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a Post Graduate Diploma in Strategy and Innovation from Oxford University. He
was also a CPA.

Matt Dicou Mar 20, 2023

Show notes

See details and register for the upcoming Latter-day Saint MBA Society conference at https://latterdaysaintmba.com/registration-2023

Matt is currently in his second year at Stanford GSB. He grew up in Sandy, UT and after serving in the France Lyon Mission received his Bachelor's in Business Strategy at BYU.

Prior to graduate school, he spent five years at Visa--first in a leadership rotational program where he worked across product, marketing, and sales, and then he spent his two most years on Visa's product team focused on social impact fintech.

Matt is now a social entrepreneur whose passion is addressing how expensive it is to be poor in the U.S. to help blue-collar families like his own.

Scott & Kassidy Sorensen Dec 13, 2022

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Scott Sorensen is an MBA Candidate at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Prior to the GSB, he led the finance, data, and technology endeavors of Twin Bridges Hospitality, a hospitality-focused asset management firm with $1.2B AUM. He was the first employee who helped expand the portfolio from one hotel with 31 rooms to fourteen hotels with more than 2,000 rooms. Within this role, Scott wore many different hats to drive business initiatives forward, including business intelligence system implementations, operational due diligence, cost structure evaluation, website development, and property renovation oversight.

Prior to joining Twin Bridges, Scott worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in their Capital Markets Accounting Advisory Services (CMAAS) practice in the Dallas and Washington, D.C. offices. While there, he worked with many Fortune 500 Clients to identify, strategize, and implement technical accounting solutions. Scott received his B.S. in Accounting from the Marriott School of Business at Brigham Young University. He is originally from Salt Lake City and enjoys swimming, surfing, and playing pickleball in his spare time.

Kassidy is a first year MBA candidate at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Prior to the GSB, Kassidy was a product manager at Capital One where she led product strategy for the Capital One credit card application. She hopes to continue on the path of leveraging technology to provide more inclusive financial resources.

She grew up in Las Vegas, NV, but was most recently living in Dana Point, CA. She graduated with a degree in Finance from Brigham Young University. She loves pickleball, volleyball, yoga, and sushi – she served a mission in the Japan Fukuoka Mission.

Astrid Tuminez Dec 07, 2022

Show notes

Dr. Astrid S. Tuminez (pronounced too-MEE-nez) was appointed the seventh president of Utah
Valley University in 2018. Born in a farming village in the Philippine province of Iloilo, she
moved with her parents and siblings to the slums of Iloilo City when she was 2 years old, her
parents seeking better educational opportunities for their children.

Her pursuit of education eventually took her to the United States, where she graduated summa
cum laude with a bachelor's degree in international relations and Russian literature from
Brigham Young University (1986). She later earned a master's degree from Harvard University in
Soviet Studies (1988) and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in political
science (1996).

Before UVU, President Tuminez was an executive at Microsoft, where she led corporate,
external, and legal affairs in Southeast Asia. She also served as vice dean of research at the Lee
Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. She has worked in
philanthropy and venture capital in New York City and is a permanent member of the Council
on Foreign Relations. She is the author of Russian Nationalism Since 1856: Ideology and the
Making of Foreign Policy and many other publications. She and her husband, Jeffrey S. Tolk,
have three children. In her spare time, she enjoys running, dancing, and traveling.

John Keller Nov 29, 2022

Show notes

John is the 4th of 13 children born to an engineer father and a farmer mother. He grew up as a fairly free-range child in Rose Park, a suburb of Salt Lake City, Utah. After serving his mission in Bangkok, Thailand, John knew he wanted to pursue entrepreneurship and somehow impact the world for good through scalable, impact-based businesses.

As an entrepreneur, turned consultant, turned serial entrepreneur, John has been involved in numerous start-ups and high growth businesses; including companies in the E-commerce, and B2C and B2B services and retail spaces. John is obsessed with the possibilities of scalable businesses with a purpose. He loves the challenge and excitement of his current role as President of Redlist, LLC a B2B SaaS company in the heavy-equipment related industries’ space--where his teams provide maintenance, safety and operational software solutions to medium and large enterprise customers that are involved in building fundamental building blocks of civilization.--Customers like Georgia Pacific, ExxonMobil, Kinross, Dart, etc.

John currently lives a wannabe farmer’s life in Wallsburg Utah, with his wife and their seven children.

Elder Robert Gay Nov 22, 2022

Show notes

Elder Robert C. Gay is an emeritus General Authority Seventy of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As a General Authority he helped develop and implement the
Church’s global self-reliance initiative and served as the Chairman of Self-Reliance Services and
the Perpetual Education Fund Committee. He also served as a member of the Presideny of the
Seventy, as the President of the Asia North Area and as a member of the worldwide Missionary
Executive Council and the Board of Trustees for The Church Education System. Additionally, he
has served as a full-time missionary in Spain and as mission president for the countries of
Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Liberia.

Professionally, Elder Gay has dedicated most of his service to private equity management. He is
currently Chairman of Kensington Capital Holdings which has investments throughout Asia,
Europe, and the United States. He is the co-founder and past CEO of Huntsman Gay Global
Capital, past CEO of Bain Capital Europe and Chairman of the Management Committee for Bain
Capital Worldwide. Previously Elder Gay also worked in investment banking and as an
international management consultant for McKinsey & Company in the United States and the
UK.

Elder Gay along with his wife, Lynette, have co-founded and served as a director on multiple
global humanitarian organizations which have focused on building schools, medical clinics,
microenterprises, clean water boreholes, latrines, and rescuing at risk persons including those
trapped in modern slavery and illiteracy. Lynette directs their NGO, Engage Now Africa, and the
Ensign Global College in Ghana which they founded. Together they endowed the Ballard Center
for Social Impact at Brigham Young University and recently announced a new global partnership
and Center for Business, Health and Prosperity between the University of Utah and their Ensign
Global College.

Elder Gay earned a PhD in business economics from Harvard University where he also taught
economics and international finance. He is the recipient of the Utahan of the Year Award, the
United States Presidential Service Award and the Martin Luther King Center Special Recognition
Service Award for Non-Violent Social Change.

Robert Christopher Gay was born in Los Angeles, California, on September 1, 1951. He married
Lynette Nielsen in April 1974. They are the parents of seven children and twenty-two
grandchildren.

Jacob Jones Nov 15, 2022

Show notes

Jacob Jones’ journey to a business management career was unexpected (at least to him) and involved leaps of faith, major disappointments, and several miracles. Jacob is now mid-career, middle management, having recently joined Eastman Chemical as the Corporate Director of Product and Pricing. His previous decade was spent at 3M in a variety of strategy and business roles. Originally a Chemical Engineer, Jacob holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.S. from Brigham Young University where he co-founded what is now the Global Engineering Outreach program. He served as a full-time missionary in the Australia Sydney South mission. Jacob and his wife Summer recently moved from Minnesota to Eastern Tennessee, where they are attempting to conscript their four children into a family bluegrass band.

Richard Flores Sep 20, 2022

Show notes

Richard Flores is a current MBA student at Harvard Business School, expected to graduate in 2023. He hails from American Fork, UT and attended BYU for his undergraduate education in economics and business strategy. Richard began his career consulting with Bain & Company in Dallas, TX before transitioning to a product strategy role at Capital One in McLean, VA. He served his mission in London, England where he gained a love for all things fashion (and a stronger testimony of the Gospel too). He is married to Kelsey, who is currently a clinical instructor at Harvard Law School. Richard and Kelsey have two sons, Baer (3) and Jack (1). Richard enjoys basketball, European soccer, and Star Wars, and has recently started giving fashion consultations for his friends and classmates.

David Checketts Aug 10, 2022

Show notes

David W. Checketts is one of the most seasoned and well-known sports, media and entertainment executives in the
industry with a career that has spanned over four decades. Over that time, Mr. Checketts has been responsible for the
success of some of the most iconic brands in their respective industries.

Mr. Checketts is the Managing Partner of Checketts Partners Investment Management, a private equity firm founded
in 2011 focused on sports, media and entertainment with investments in premium hospitality, ticketing, Artificial
Intelligence / data analytics and broadcast technology services. The firm has also advised investors and owners in
professional sports leagues around the world.

From July 2018 to June 2021, Mr. Checketts served as the President of the England – London Mission of the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, overseeing the Mission’s diverse and impactful operations in the midst of the
global pandemic.

Since 2016, he has served as Non-Executive Director of Gravity Media, the leading global provider of complex live
broadcast facilities and production services to content owners, creators and distributors, where Checketts Partners is
an investor.

Mr. Checketts was Chairman and CEO of Legends Hospitality Management, the premier provider of hospitality,
merchandising and premium ticketing services, founded by the New York Yankees and Dallas Cowboys. Checketts
Partners held an equity stake in the company until October 2015. As Chairman and CEO from December 2011 to
October 2015, Checketts guided the company through a substantial period of expansion and growth in market
share, establishing it as one of the industry’s standard-bearers. Under Checketts leadership Legends made a major
expansion both domestically and internationally. Added to the core Yankee and AT&T (Cowboys) Stadiums, are
iconic venues such as LA Angel Stadium, Levi’s (49ers) Stadium, and Manchester City Football’s Club Etihad
Stadium. Notably, under Mr. Checketts’ guidance, the company was awarded, designed, built and now
operates the heralded One World Observatory at the top of One World Trade Center. The Observatory opened in
May 2015 and is a must-visit for New Yorkers and tourists alike.

Previously, Mr. Checketts founded SCP Worldwide in 2006. Under his direction and leadership, SCP has owned and
operated an impressive stable of assets including: the St. Louis Blues, Scottrade Center, Peabody Opera House, the
2009 Major League Soccer (MLS) Champions Real Salt Lake, Rio Tinto Stadium and ESPN 700 Sports talk radio as
well as other investments in live entertainment and TV production. The Blues went from worst to first under his
leadership and the expansion club Real Salt Lake became the model franchise for MLS teams.

Mr. Checketts established his sports media company after a successful ten-year career at Madison Square Garden
(MSG). As President and Chief Executive Officer from 1994 - 2001, Mr. Checketts oversaw all operations of “The
World’s Most Famous Arena” and its three sports franchises, the New York Knickerbockers of the NBA, the New
York Rangers of the NHL, and the New York Liberty of the WNBA – along with the award winning MSG Network
and FOX Sports Network. Mr. Checketts was also responsible for the acquisition and restoration of New York’s
historic Radio City Music Hall. Under his leadership, MSG was named Arena of the Year for six straight years, and
established the MSG “Cheering for Children” foundation, which created after school programs for thousands of New
York City school children.

Mr. Checketts began his career at Madison Square Garden as President of the New York Knicks in March 1991. In
the four seasons he served as President, the team finished twice in first place, made it to the Eastern Conference
Finals twice and captured the Eastern Conference Champion Title in 1994. During this time, the team set records in
attendance, ratings and revenues including setting the all-time sellout streak of 460 games at The Garden. During his
tenure Forbes named the Knicks the most valuable franchise in the NBA.

Prior to joining the Knicks, Mr. Checketts spent one year as General Manager of NBA International, working with
NBA Commissioner David Stern on building a presence for the league in broadcasting and licensing around the
world.

In 1983, Mr. Checketts was named President and General Manager of the Utah Jazz. At 28 years old, he became the
youngest chief executive in the history of the NBA. During his six-year tenure, the team captured two Midwest
Division titles and enjoyed a multi-million dollar economic turnaround.

Mr. Checketts did his undergraduate studies at the University of Utah and earned his MBA from Brigham Young
University in 1981, where he graduated with top honors. Upon completion of his studies, he joined the Boston-based
consulting firm, Bain & Company.

He previously served as a Director of JetBlue Airways, IMG Worldwide (serving as Chairman of the Audit
Committee), Citadel Communications (serving as Chairman of the Audit Committee), Cablecom (Switzerland) and
Republic Mortgage Home Loans.

He resides in Connecticut with his wife Deb. They have six children and eighteen grandchildren.

Kevin Rollins Aug 04, 2022

Show notes

Kevin Rollins served as CEO of Dell, Inc from 2004-2007. He was responsible for worldwide sales, marketing, and service and for overseeing Dell's Worldwide Home and Small Business Group, European operations, and the Personal Systems Group. Prior to being elected to his current position in December 1997, Mr. Rollins served as president, Dell Americas. In this position, he was responsible for the company's operations in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Latin America.

Formerly a partner and director at Bain & Co., Mr. Rollins specialized in strategies and management for high technology and consumer product clients. While with Bain, he helped develop strategies that propelled Dell into a leadership position in the direct selling of computer systems in the United States. Mr. Rollins earned his master's of business administration and bachelor's degrees from Brigham Young University.
Kevin served as bishop ('92-'95) and stake president of the Boston Massachusetts stake from 2012 to 2020. He and his wife Debra have 4 children and 9 grandchildren.

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