Columbia Bizcast

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From the Military to CBS: a Veterans Day episode with Brooke Jones-Chinetti '18, Dan Brillman '12, and Taylor Justice '14 Nov 11, 2019

Show notes

In honor of Veterans Day, Bizcast is revisiting conversations we had with three CBS alumni, all former service members. All three are working to support veterans in their transition to civilian life.

EMBA graduate Brooke Jones-Chinetti '18 served in the Army for nearly ten years, which included a tour of duty in Iraq. After her commitment, Jones-Chinetti worked for JPMorgan Chase's Office of Veterans' Affairs. This inspired her to found Your Sequel, a networking organization designed to help female ex-service members make connections in the business world.

Air Force pilot Dan Brillman '12 and Army veteran Taylor Justice '14 heard countless stories from their cohort about how complicated it was to access clinical and non-clinical social services. This led to their launching Unite Us, a centralized software platform that streamlines the connection between people and healthcare and other social service providers.

As part of our salute to all veterans, here are Brooke, Dan, and Taylor telling their stories of life in the military, at Columbia Business School, and at their start-ups.

Dean Costis Maglaras: Leading CBS Into Its Next Era Oct 29, 2019

Show notes

On this edition of Bizcast, we welcome the new dean of Columbia Business School, Costis Maglaras, to the podcast.

In our conversation, Dean Maglaras shares his vision for the School, the opportunity to innovate the curriculum, and the transformational potential of the School's move to Manhattanville in two years. Maglaras also talks about his plans for enrichment and other learning opportunities for alumni to help them keep pace with today's rapidly evolving work environment.

Join us on Maglaras' journey from his native Athens via London and Palo Alto to the Columbia campus.

Kesha Cash '10: Investing in Underserved Communities Oct 17, 2019

Show notes

On this episode of Bizcast, we revisit our conversation with Impact America Fund founder Kesha Cash '10. Named one of Fast Company's 100 Most Creative People for 2018, Kesha told us about a point in her career when she needed to reconcile that she was "living two lives."

Cash grew up in a low-income family, first in rural South Carolina, then in Orange County, California. After graduating from UC Berkeley with a degree in applied mathematics, Cash embarked on a career in financial services that took her to Wall Street boardrooms and aboard private jets.

Through it all, Cash never forgot her early life experiences, which inspired her to enroll in the Business School, where she cultivated her passion for impact investing and social responsibility. In 2013, Cash launched the Impact America Fund, which makes investments in companies run by entrepreneurs from low and moderate income communities of color.

The Polarization Project Oct 03, 2019

Show notes

On this episode of Columbia Bizcast, we're invited to dine with the Polarization Project. Recent EMBA graduates Brianna O'Brien Lowndes '19, Charlie Kreitler '19, and Emmett Lamb '19 founded this discussion series, in which a faculty expert lectures on a global issue and students engage in a lively debate afterwards. At the dinner we attended, the group hosted Professor of Professional Practice Bruce Usher who spoke about the intersection of climate change and business.

Professor Bruce Craven: Leadership Secrets from Game of Thrones Apr 12, 2019

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Leadership lessons from Jon Snow, Ned Stark, and Professor Bruce Craven. Professor Craven's book, Win or Die: Leadership Secrets from Game of Thrones, offers a trove of leadership lessons for managing groups and implementing change. In this episode of Columbia Bizcast, Bruce Craven, a professor in the Business School's Executive Education program and director of the School's Advanced Management Program, addresses the leadership takeaways from this mega-hit series.

Dean Glenn Hubbard: The Need for Resilient Business Leaders Feb 18, 2019

Show notes

"Whatever the big social problem is, I'd like to believe that business people are leading that charge and not just waiting for politics," Hubbard says in his second appearance on the podcast. With the US government recently emerging from a record-long shutdown, Dean Glenn Hubbard can sound as exasperated as the next person with what he describes as a "feckless" political system. Which is why resilient business leaders are all the more necessary in today's economic environment, Hubbard says in this episode of Columbia Bizcast. "Whether the issue of the day is climate change, the way we deal with training programs for the less skilled, or whatever the big social problem is, I'd like to believe that business people are leading that charge and not just waiting for politics," says the Columbia Business School dean. In the podcast's third season, Hubbard talks about what he'll miss most about being dean after he steps down on June 30 and why he's so optimistic about the future for today's MBAs, despite the political morass. No stranger to Washington, D.C., the dean also gives his take on today's divided government. "To me, the whole issue of a shutdown is crazy," says Hubbard, who served as deputy assistant secretary in the Treasury Department under George H. W. Bush and as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to George W. Bush. "Obviously, in any negotiation, neither side gets 100 percent of what it wants, rarely in life does that happen, but to me this is a failure of government and both major political parties."

Professor Michael Mauskapf: What Makes Popular Culture Popular? Feb 04, 2019

Show notes

What makes an idea go viral, a song become a hit, or a startup turn into a stock-listed powerhouse? It often happens, according to Assistant Professor Michael Mauskapf, because of an optimal mix of oldness and newness. Be it a Billboard No. 1 or a blockbuster business idea, the concept catches on because it's similar enough to be recognizable but different enough to be edgy. "If your goal is commercial success and widespread adoption, you don't want to be radically different," Mauskapf says in this episode of Columbia Bizcast, which delves into his widely cited research paper into what makes pop music popular. Featured in the Economist, New York Post, and Quartz, along with Ideas at Work, the paper dissects the sonic attributes of six decades of songs from the Billboard Hot 100 to answer the question, "What makes a hit?" "There's a trade-off between being similar and being different," says Mauskapf, who is himself an orchestral trumpeter with dual doctorates in management and musicology; he teaches the MBA course Foundations of Entrepreneurship, an overview of the concepts and skills needed for both entrepreneurs and those who want to act entrepreneurially. "Novel is a necessary but not sufficient condition for being innovative."

Professor Rita McGrath: The End of Competitive Advantage Jan 14, 2019

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Developing a successful organizational strategy isn't easy, especially in an unpredictable business climate. Navigating a shifting landscape requires leaders to abandon pre-conceived notions and think differently, according to Rita Gunther McGrath, a professor in the Business School's Executive Education program. A globally recognized expert on innovation and growth strategy, McGrath argues that to maintain a competitive advantage in times of change, organizations must protect their key resource — personnel. "One of the few sources of advantage left is going to be that core group of people who carry the culture, who carry the norms, who are the secret sauce of the place," McGrath says in this episode of Columbia Bizcast, which highlights the critical importance for leaders to create a culture where all employees feel safe. "All leaders need to create psychological safety, need to communicate up and down the organization, need to be able to see what's going on out there, need to be able to hear uncomfortable information and not lash out at the person bringing it and so forth," says McGrath. "If you think about it, organizations would benefit by that style of leadership becoming more prevalent."

Phoebe Boyer '93: Helping Children to Learn, Grow, and Lead Dec 17, 2018

Show notes

"Engage," says the president and CEO of education nonprofit organization Children's Aid. "Don't sit on the sidelines." Child homelessness is at a record high in New York City, with one in 10 students in public schools living in temporary housing. Phoebe Boyer '93 is on the front-line working to prevent these children from falling through society's cracks. As president and CEO of Children's Aid, one of the nation's oldest and largest nonprofits serving children, Boyer is responsible for leading a team of more than 1,200 employees who provide health, education, and wellness services to New York City's needy and at-risk youths. "Kids who live in poverty, it's through no fault of their own," says Boyer, who studied nonprofit management at the Business School and earned the Joanne Martin Academic Award for Public and Nonprofit Management upon graduation. "With the right supports they can achieve anything, and that's been the motivator, I think, for my entire career." In this episode of Columbia Bizcast, Boyer discusses her important work in overseeing an organization with 45 citywide sites that provide a gamut of children's services, from adoption programs to summer camps to after-school education. As the first female CEO of Children's Aid — a role she took on in 2014 — Boyer has become something of a role model for both her staff and the many single mothers and young women that her organization works with daily. "We are in the opportunity business," says Boyer. "Our kids, because of the realities of living in poverty, they often face many barriers to the opportunities that I think other people take for granted, whether it's educational opportunities or opportunities to have high-quality healthcare. Our kids need those opportunities, and that's what we're providing them with."

Professor Jing Dong: Improving Managerial Decisions with Data Dec 10, 2018

Show notes

Any hospital patient basically wants two things: to get well and to get out. Jing Dong is helping that happen faster. An assistant professor in the division of Decision, Risk, and Operations, Dong is at the forefront of research into improving hospitals' operational and procedural efficiencies, from lowering admittance wait-times to speeding up discharges. "I still see a lot of exciting things to do in the healthcare domain," Dong tells Columbia Bizcast. "I'm helping hospitals identify the costs of a lot of the operational procedures they're running and then helping them to say, 'Okay, if I realize there is a cost and benefit to these procedures, what would be the best way of balancing this?'" In this episode, Dong shares how her parents encouraged her to study math when she was growing up in mainland China and how now, at the Business School, she has elevated her research by partnering with professors from across the divisions. The proliferation of data and analytics is transforming the way businesses operate, she says, which is allowing leaders to make more quantitative-driven decisions. "My research horizon has also been broadened since I came here," Dong says of joining the Business School. "It has simply improved my whole decision-making process a lot."

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