Beyond company walls: Why CEOs need to focus on the world’s biggest crises

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Transcript

Alan Murray: Leadership Next is powered by the folks at Deloitte, who, like me, are super focused on how CEOs can lead in the context of disruption and evolving societal expectations. Welcome to Leadership Next, the podcast about the changing rules of business leadership.

I’m Alan Murray, and I’m here with my fantabulous co-host, Ellen McGirt. Is that a word?

Ellen McGirt (00:27): I think it is now. It is now. Well, you’re the wordsmith. So yes, it is. So as our listeners know, over the past few months, we’ve spent some time focused on the war on Ukraine. Back in early March, we spoke with the CEO of CyberArk about the threat of cyber warfare. More recently, we spent time with a CEO of IKEA, talking through the company’s decision to halt operations in Russia. But as this conflict has sadly continued, it’s become clear we really need to talk about the impact that this is having on people. What that means for leaders. Alan, you reached out to the CEO of Yara. Can you tell us what prompted that?

Murray (01:02): Oh, sure. Well, Yara is a fertilizer company and it provides fertilizer to the globe and I’ve gotten to know the CEO who I think is a shining example, Ellen, what you and I talk about so often on Leadership Next, he really is focused on making the world a better place. He has a focus on climate but also has worked hard to improve agricultural productivity in Africa, which is critical to the success of that continent, and he had said to me in one of our conversations that the Russia-Ukraine war was going to have potentially devastating effects on the global agricultural economy. So I thought it would be important for us to have a conversation with him about that.

McGirt (01:41): You know, you’re absolutely right. And he’s been working on food insecurity issues for so long. He was really the perfect person to weigh in. And even if there wasn’t a food crisis brewing, he’s such a perfect guest for the show.

Murray (01:53): Yeah, and I want to just point out one thing he said, highlight one thing he said in advance, he told us that he spends more than half of his time focusing on the social issues: global hunger, working with the World Food Organization, climate change. I’ve heard stories like that from so many CEOs in the last few years that they really feel like addressing social problems is key to their company’s success in the long term, and they think it’s worth their time to see what they can do to improve the situation.

McGirt (02:26): I also want to add that a bit later in the show, we’re going to hear from David Miliband. He heads the International Rescue Committee and is focused on helping refugees. Millions of Ukrainians have been displaced by this conflict. And while we don’t typically speak with NGOs, David makes clear that there’s definitely a role for business to play in alleviating this crisis. But first, let’s turn to Svein Tore Holsether.

Murray (02:52): So Svein, explain to people what is Yara?

Svein Tore Holsether (02:55): Yara is a fertilizer company that was founded 120 years ago when Europe was faced with famine because plants didn’t get enough nutrition. And one of the key ingredients for plants is nitrogen and our founder, Professor Birkeland. He came up with the innovation that was able to extract nitrogen from the air and turn it into nutrition for crops and today we’re a global company operation in 60 countries with sellers in close to 160 countries with an annual turnover of around $16 billion.

Murray (03:29): Let’s start with the news of the day. I mean, we have this brutal war going on in Ukraine which is critical in ways many people may not understand to global food supplies. Can you tell us what the impact is going to be?

Tore Holsether (03:41): Yeah, what is happening in Ukraine is just the devastating the Russian innovation back in February is causing a humanitarian catastrophe and the hardship that the Ukrainian people is going through now I’m really struggling to find words to describe that. And we have colleagues in Ukraine and working with Ukrainian farmers. Our office building outside Kyiv of it was hit by on a missile out on the third day of the war and seeing the office building with our logo on it and a big hole in it makes it very real and close. Fortunately in our people were physically injured but when we’re listening to the, to their stories, they’re joining our meetings every day from bomb shelters, the pictures we see of people fleeing the country, it’s devastating. It has ripple effect also outside Ukraine. Ukrainian is a world power in food production, one of the biggest wheat exporters in the world, one of the biggest corn producers in sunflower oil, so multiple crops. And when you combine that with the country that invaded in Russia, which is also a world power in food production, the combined impact to the food system is huge both on crops but also for inputs such as fertilizers.

McGirt (05:05): So when you think about what’s happening now, what are the scenarios that you’re dealing with? And how are you addressing those possible scenarios for the global food supply?

Tore Holsether (05:15): There will be a food crisis. It’s a question of how large the food crisis will be. Hence the importance to raise the issues to put mitigating actions in place. But this was a problem even before the invasion after decades of reduction in world hunger. This turned with the pandemic there were 100 million more people going hungry to bed at the end of 2020 than before the pandemic and that’s before the war and food is also energy. So when we have increasing energy costs that translate into more expensive food, and it becomes unaffordable to many people. Now we’re looking at scenarios where it could not only be a question about the price, but also the availability because of the shock that the food system will get as a result of this and depending on how you do the calculations, can be as many as 400 million people food dependent on Russia and Ukraine so that we’re talking really big numbers.

Murray (06:14): And so then what can be done to prevent that? I mean, this will play out over the course of the year I suppose, as we have a subpar harvest in Ukraine. But what can you or what can others do to try and prevent 400 million people from being without…?

Tore Holsether (06:31): The first and most important action is that the war ends, that’s what’s causing this new shock to the food system, then there are a number of…

Murray (06:41): Just drill down on that a little bit that the war ends in time to allow for a normal planting season?

Tore Holsether (06:48): I think that’s the way. The disruptions to the food system and the value chains that’s already happened, so it will not be avoided, but definitely it can be reduced. There are some measures that we can take now in order to reduce the impact and that’s doing whatever we can to keep train flows going both for food and for inputs and reducing the impact of policy measures such as export bans, and so on. If we go back to the 2007 2008 food crisis, 75% of the cost increases were a result of export bans and preventing the free flow of food. I’ve spoken with David Beasley who setting up the World Food Program on several occasions. He was already $6 billion short before the war and he’s been raising his voice to get some of the wealthiest individuals in the world to support in reducing hunger. I think it has to be a call to nations as well that to step up their efforts and their funding to help immediately now to reduce the impact.

McGirt (07:54): I can imagine that behind the scenes, CEO to CEO, leader to leader there are extraordinary conversations going on around this crisis and what people need to do. Can you give us a flavor of the kinds of conversations that are happening behind the scenes? And where the resistance is? Where the concerns are? And where there are signs of hope, if possible?

Tore Holsether (08:14): Yes, it’s important that we engage from business side and, and I have been quite vocal on this for several weeks now. After the invasion of Ukraine on the dilemmas and what this means for trade flows, especially in our business, crop nutrients or fertilizers to help farmers half of the world gets its food because of fertilizers. Plants need nutrition to grow and these are value chains and trade flows that have been developed over decades or even centuries and that Russia has a major role in that system. And we’re also sourcing from Russia and I raised that dilemma earlier that yes, I could stop sourcing right away, but it has bigger implications on productivity for farmers. And I wanted to discuss that dilemma with national governments and nationally as well. What’s the humanitarian effect of stopping that because of the impact to the food supply?

Murray (09:15): And what’s the reaction to that conversation been? I mean, we’ve seen extraordinary really unprecedented actions by companies in response to what happened in the Ukraine, cutting off their business ties. With Russia, you’re making a much more nuanced argument. Yes, take action against Russia, but don’t take action that’s going to cause people to starve elsewhere in the world.

Tore Holsether (09:36): Exactly. And I feel it’s important to at least discuss that dilemma so that we understand the full implications of what is happening to the ability for farmers to grow food or the affordability of food against the most vulnerable that will be the ones that have been hardest hit by climate, by COVID and now also by by the cost of food. Now sanctions are in place and of course, we will follow the sanctions and we’re working 24 hours a day, seven days a week in order to get new supplies of minerals, but it takes some some time. This is a much smaller crisis for for Yara than it is for the world. And then it was important to raise the voice explaining the connection between energy, minerals and food production and how that could impact food supply.

[Music]

Murray (10:29): I’m here with Joe Ucuzoglu, the CEO of Deloitte US, which is the sponsor of this podcast. Joe is one of the most thoughtful people I’ve met on the topics we discuss here every week. Joe, thanks for joining.

Joe Ucuzoglu (10:41): Alan, pleasure to be with you.

Murray (10:42): Joe leadership in crisis is very different than in normal times. You have to make these gut wrenching trade offs at very fast decisions. What kind of advice do you give to leaders who are navigating these very choppy waters?

Ucuzoglu (10:55): There are a few critical dimensions that have to come together seamlessly. You obviously need to be able to get to the right decisions quickly and that takes the ability of the executive team and the board to synthesize large volumes of information to make sense out of uncertainty. But just as importantly, communicate those decisions effectively, to take your full organization on the journey of demonstrating a sense of calm and confidence, finding that balance of delivering candor and straight talk while at the same time laying out a vision that’s optimistic. Instilling confidence that great organizations will come through challenging times with strength. There has to be a light at the end of the tunnel.

Murray (11:38): That’s not an easy task.

Ucuzoglu (11:39): I actually view being realistic and credible around the current situation as the price of admission to be able to talk to your people about a more optimistic future.

Murray (11:50): Joe, thanks very much for joining us.

Ucuzoglu (11:52): Thanks for having me.

[Music]

McGirt (12:00): All right. As I mentioned earlier, the war in Ukraine has spurred more than one crisis. It didn’t feel like we could talk about the impending threat of a food shortage and not mention the immediate emergency facing millions of refugees who have been forced to flee their homes. And that’s where the International Rescue Committee comes in. It’s a global organization headquartered in New York, originally founded, I didn’t know this, by Albert Einstein in the 1930s to rescue people persecuted by the Nazis. David Miliband is the president and CEO of the IRC. He has a unique take on how for profit companies can be partnering with governments and NGOs to address this crisis.

David Miliband (12:39): We work with those who are displaced by war, whether as internally displaced or as refugees, which means that they cross a border into a neighboring state. And we’re also the largest refugee resettlement agency in the U.S. with 25 offices across the country. So we are now a large, focused global humanitarian agency that sees some of the most vulnerable people in the world. We’re an organization with deep roots in the communities that we work because 90 plus percent of the people who we employ are actually local people who are from the areas that are under fire, or are refugees and displaced people themselves. And so our job is to help people survive, recover and gain control of their lives.

McGirt (13:22): Can you tell us what’s going on in Ukraine right now? And how big is this crisis and how do you work under those conditions?

Miliband (13:31): Yeah, horrifying is the right word. It’s a crisis across three fronts. There are people—civilians—caught up in cities under fire. There are people on the move inside the country fleeing the fighting. Those are the internally displaced. And the third front is the refugees, the people who have crossed into Poland, Hungary, Moldova, or moved on into Germany or even the U.K. So there are three fronts. They have a humanitarian crisis.

You ask how big is it? I mean, in numbers terms, here’s something quite interesting. It took for a million people to be displaced in the Syrian civil war 10 years ago, which started in 2011, it took about three months for a million people to become refugees in neighboring states like Jordan and Lebanon. In the case of Ukraine, it took five days for a million people to become refugees. And essentially, what’s happened today is that you’ve got four and a half million refugees from Ukraine into the neighboring states. You’ve got probably 8 million people displaced inside the country. And the equivalent figure for Syria 10 years on is 6 million Syrians who are refugees and 8 million internally displaced. So essentially, what’s happened in warp speed in the Ukraine crisis is what took years in other crises.

McGirt (14:50): Before the war started, Ukraine was an enormously technology-forward country with tremendous engineering talent and real ambitions of creating a digital business-friendly country going forward, really, really top notch. That is not true every place. How do you differentiate your approach, your needs assessments and your partnership strategy in a place that has the resources that Ukraine does or an in place that does not like Afghanistan?

Miliband (15:19): Yeah, that’s a really interesting point. What we learn in the Syria crisis is deeply relevant in the Ukraine crisis. What’s the first thing that a Syrian refugee did when they got off a boat in Greece? They got their mobile phone out to find out where they were and how could they get round. That’s where actually in a really powerful partnership with various tech companies and others, we developed for the Syrian crisis what’s become a global resource called Signpost which is an online information exchange about where people displaced by war can find out what they need. We’ve made a point of making information provisioning an important part of our effort. It’s also important to say that one of the best things that you can do and there’s good evidence to back this up in the humanitarian meeting humanitarian need, is give out cash. Now in some places, you’re literally giving out cash, but in a Ukraine-style situation you can use cards. There are ATMs that are functioning. So the technology enables a different kind of response.

McGirt (16:22): Just listening to you for the few minutes we’ve been together, I’m developing an internal list of ways big organizations can help. What is your wish list for big companies with resources to be more responsive to the needs of refugees or displaced people, wherever they may be? But particularly now?

Miliband (16:40): Yeah, I think there’s four or five things, one, ideas. We’re always interested in good ideas, I mean, bigger, successful businesses have got good ideas. So I mentioned the online information exchange that we develop, but frankly, there are organizations with strategy units who want us to share their ideas. There are legal organizations that want to offer pro bono services. So ideas and expertise number one.

Number two, not to be neglected: voice, the voice of business matters. And we hope that when the United States develops policies for helping refugees or not, that its business community speaks up. That’s important.

Thirdly, refugees need jobs and some of the work we’ve done in Germany, for example, with Syrian refugees has been all about getting refugees into jobs, not unqualified people for jobs but the right job for the right person in the right place. So my message would be give people a chance, give our clients a chance. Don’t just partner with us. Think about partnering with us for the direct benefit of our clients.

I think, fourthly, and importantly, help us design programs that really take a client-focused approach. The humanitarian sector has a lot of programs that are developed on the basis of what we think clients want. That’s the history. But business, successful business knows you have to be genuinely client oriented, generally customer oriented. And we’ve found that in some of our human-centered design work, we’ve really learned from the way the private sector has gone about this.

Fifthly and finally, there’s real work I think that we can do to use the resources, both of the corporate sector and its employees, to make a difference. Often the first instinct of a business might be well, we want to do something different. I always say, look, we’ve proven a lot of things that can work in health or education or livelihoods or women’s protection, but we can’t scale them. because of the way the funding system works for NGOs. And so think about scaling what works and taking pride in making a difference. Often, we’re finding that our most successful partnerships with business have a corporate philanthropic contribution, but they also have a match campaign for the employees and they have us reporting back about the differences being made because it’s easy to feel a sense of disempowerment at the moment. And what we try to do to overcome that is to be a solutions-focused NGO where we’ve got expertise and experience and boots on the ground. And then we match with people with passion and idealism to make a difference.

McGirt (19:09): So I want to dig in a little bit more on the structure of NGOs, because I think you said something really interesting, particularly in the light of the growth of ESG as a conversation about governance, as a conversation about social responsibility and social impact. What does that look like? You’re already a fairly magical person, but if I gave you a magic wand to go along with that, how would you redesign how NGOs operate or are funded? Or is this a broader conversation about philanthropy in general?

Miliband (19:39): Well, I think it’s a broader conversation about how the world works really, in a way I don’t want to seem grandiose about it, but just a couple of things. One, you mentioned ESG. And of course, the prior genesis of this was CSR corporate social responsibility. If I could wave a magic wand, it would be to say it will be to ban the word responsibility and insert the word results so that we’re talking about corporate social results, not corporate social responsibility.

And our offer to the business sector is to say, look, if you want to make a difference for good, we can help you do that. And you can help us do that. And that’s what the partnership is about. But it’s got to be about results. Every one of our programs is dedicated towards an outcome. That may seem simple, but actually that’s quite a big change. We’re not just interested in inputs, we’re interested in outcomes. And I think that a, an approach that stresses corporate social results immediately puts the clients at the center. That’s our big idea that we tried to live up to. So that’s the first thing that I would say.

Secondly, I think for the NGO sector, the big temptation is to chase the money. And what we tried to emphasize and this is explicit in our new strategy, is we don’t just want more money, we want the right kind of money. The right kind of money is outcome focused., it’s client centered, it’s multi year, because I think NGOs don’t do themselves any favors when they say to the corporate sector, give us money and we’ll solve this problem in a year. Very few serious problems get solved in the space of a year. So we emphasize the right kind of money and the right kind of partnership, because the money is only one part of the partnership. That’s why I answered your previous question by starting by talking about let’s share ideas, let’s share experience, let’s share expertise. Yes, let’s take your money, but that’s part of a wider conversation.

We’re at $1.2 billion organization. Three quarters of that money comes from governments, but the average length of a government grant is about 11 months. And so it’s a short-term grant horizon. The average size of a grant is one or one-and-a-half billion dollars. You’re not going to really shift the dial in that way. You need to think of a multi-year you think need to think about larger pools of money. And so what we tried to say to our business partners is look, come in and with others help us scale and help us make a difference for more people, more impact for more people. And I think we’re having much more honest conversations now about shared endeavor, but it’s very exciting. really.

McGirt (22:03): I know I have to let you go. We typically ask our guests three questions about how they’re thinking about the economy and COVID and their own leadership development. But I think it’s more important to ask you how you’re doing and how you and your colleagues and the people on the ground stay resilient in the face of this work.

Miliband (22:22): The truth is that it’s relatively easy for me compared to my colleagues on the front line, nevermind for the clients we are serving. So I really, you know, for all the unanswerable depressingnus of the last two years of COVID and all the rest of it. We’re living a comfortable middle class lifestyle in New York. So I mean, one’s got to have a sense of humility about this. So I think our own sense of privilege is very, one’s very aware of that, however tough. We feel it is for us, relatively speaking.

Now, you asked a very interesting point, how do my colleagues retain resilience? And I think the truth is that they’re very mission driven. I think that’s really important. Secondly, we try to support them properly, with much more emphasis on their own mental health and their own resilience, which I think is underestimated as importantly, you’ve got to worry about people who are very mission driven that they burn out. So we’ve got to be aware of that as an employer.

But the real lesson I think about how you retain hope, I’m not sure if you used the word hope, but I think you said resilience but, is this idea that if you look at the statistics, you get depressed, if you look at the people you’ve got hope. The fact that through the tears in Ukraine or Afghanistan or Ethiopia, people, our clients say that they’re, they’re working so hard to sustain themselves because their own lives might be ruined, but they determined thaeir kids get a chance. That’s a very, very powerful motivator to keep you going. I think that combination of the high level of need that draws people [hard to hear] tried to offer but above all, you don’t want to let your clients down. That is a great source of I think resilience because the greatest role in helping people survive, recover and gain control of their lives obviously comes from from those who are affected, but we are there to support them and that’s what we try to do.

McGirt (24:26): David Miliband, thank you so much for being here. Best of luck and please stay in touch.

Miliband (24:30): Thank you so much. Really good to talk to you.

McGirt (24:34): And we are back with Svein Tore of Yara. I want to go back to 2015 when you were persuaded and moved by the arguments surrounding the Paris Climate Agreement, and you decide to transform your legacy company into a solution to decarbonize the food supply, in part by making a commitment to produce green fertilizer. Tell us about that. Why was that so important?

Tore Holsether (24:57): This transformation of our company is more important now than ever. We need more food for a growing population. At the same time we need to do that in a way that results in less emissions and the food system represents 25 to 30% of greenhouse gases is very clear. We’re not going to be able to reach the Paris Agreement unless we solve food and that starts with how food is grown. And half of the world’s population gets his food because of mineral fertilizer and it takes energy to produce fertilizer. We need to see what we can do to move that from fossil to renewable and this is possible we can then move from the traditional way of producing nitrogen and ammonia which goes into fertilizer to use electrolytes to produce green, green hydrogen to produce green ammonia with renewable electricity. And we’ve been seeing that now very clearly that Europe and indeed the world has become too dependent on energy sourcing or for sale from Russia, and the implications that pass for affordability of energy. So let’s now speed up the build-out of renewable energy. Use that to change the so called hard rebate sectors by electrification and moving them over to renewable energy.

Murray (26:14): And when do you expect to complete the transition to green fertilizers?

Tore Holsether (26:18): That’s not entirely up to me. It’s also about creating the market for this so that there’s a demand for a product. We’re ready to transform and we made the first step the first green fertilizers will be available already in by by next year. Compatibility requires a value chain approach to it.

Murray (26:37): Yeah, I think that’s a really important point. We got to stick with that for a minute because more and more large companies are taking the approach that Yara took starting in 2015. Say we get, it there’s a problem here. We’re responsible. We’re going to take action. I think more than a third of the Fortune 500 now have made Net Zero commitment to something similar. But what I keep hearing from many of those leaders is the problem is kind of mid-market companies that don’t have the resources, the knowledge in order to address it with the seriousness that companies like Yara are addressing. And farming is probably the worst example of that. It’s very distributed ecosystem, lots of small players within it, and it’s a huge contributor to the emissions problem. So how do you deal with the demand side of it? How do you get this distributed global farming ecosystem where it has to get to deal with the climate problem?

Tore Holsether (27:37): Exactly. And that’s why it’s so important that we now approach this on full value chains rather than seeing everything in isolation. That we need to create the transparency on this let consumers understand how food is produced. And how sustainable it is and what is too expensive for our company to do alone. And what is also too expensive for farmers alone to deliver in terms of increased prices for green fertilizer. If you look at this whole value chain, the cost is actually quite small. And that’s why it’s so important that we have the discussion throughout the food industry. I’m working a lot together with former Unilever CEO Paul Polman on getting that full value chain from input to retailers and bigger food companies to enable this farmers to get a market for products that are produced in a more sustainable way. So that’s the responsibility I think on the larger companies to create an enabling environment to pull the mid and smaller size companies and farmers with them to make this transformation.

McGirt (28:38): Well, when you talk about it that way, and I’m not convinced everybody fully sees the value of this work, and it’s certainly there have been more skeptics earlier in the journey. It sounds like it’s completely changed the way you operate as a CEO, that you spend more time cultivating these relationships, crafting these new deals and blazing brand new trails here with folks than you did before. Can you talk about the leadership impact of this commitment and how the company has responded?

Tore Holsether (29:05): And this is absolutely necessary. I think it makes a lot of business sense, as well because no company will prosper in a society that is not prospering. And frankly, we should have seen this four decades ago. The scientists explained to us what would happen to the climate if it continued on the trajectory of emissions yet we didn’t do anything so that only big scale transformations throughout the whole value chains will enable it. So what could have been done as a fine tuning individually 40 years ago now has to be a collective approach and that’s why it’s has to be CEO-led, it has to be the value chain approach to understand the totality, and that’s the commitment that all CEOs need to take now.

Murray (29:47): That’s a fascinating point. I mean, how much of your time would you say, today you spend on the societal problem, the collective action problem working with people who once upon a time where your competitors are working across the whole value chain to make progress on this? How much of your time does that take up? And how does that compare to your predecessors of 20 years ago?

Tore Holsether (30:08): I think the the role of the seals has changed dramatically over the last decades and even during my time here at Yara.First you have to get your own house in order but with that in place, instead of the way forward for our company and in the the whole industry is only we’re able to get around things full value chain role in society. So I’m spending much more than half of my time maybe as much as 75% of my time is spent on the instead of creating the enabling environment to support the farmers to get paid for what they actually do and get agriculture part of the solution. That’s about a lot of my time, but at the same time, it’s the only way forward and that’s how we will be able to develop our companies. Fits for the strategy. I suppose it makes sense, but it’s probably much more than my predecessors spent of their time outside the company.

McGirt (31:01): Well, we’ve been asking all our guests this season to answer three questions. Top of mind, lightning round. So first question is what’s top of mind for you when you think about COVID?

Tore Holsether (31:14): Top of mind this has been an extremely challenging period. It has also increased distrust across the world because of how it’s been handled. Some countries very good, some not so good and some people were left behind. It’s a reminder of how vulnerable our communities are, but also in the positive sense how we’re able to solve problems quickly as well when we’re faced with a very clear and present danger.

McGirt (31:45): Top of mind for you when you’re thinking about the global economy.

Tore Holsether (31:48): I’m worried about the impact that we will see now to global trade flows. We’ve already seen the impact as a result of the pandemic and what that means on trade flows, bottlenecks and the lasting effect of that. Wow with the war as well, we have another shock to global trade flows that will likely have impact in terms of inflation and availability of several goods.

McGirt (32:15): And finally top of mind for you as you think about what’s next for you as a leader.

Tore Holsether (32:19): Well, it’s really accelerating what we’re doing now and we already had a food system that was broken. Now it has become worse to the extent that maybe this is the strongest wake-up call for all of us to really step up and accelerate our way forward to create a more resilient robust and fair food system that also reduces its emissions. And for me as a leader, my contribution to that will be to work on that in a transparent way across the industry and involving the farmers and communities.

Murray (32:56): Svein Tore Holsether, thank you for joining us from Oslo. A fascinating and disturbing conversation about the crisis in the global food system, but we appreciate everything you’re doing on this front and appreciate your time.

Tore Holsether (33:09): Thanks for having me.

Murray (33:15): Leadership next is edited by Nicole over gala written by me Murray, along with my amazing colleagues, McGirt and Megan Arnold. Our theme is by Jason Snell executive producers are Mason Kohn and Megan Arnold. Leadership next is a production of Fortune media.

Alan Murray: Leadership Next is edited by Nicole Vergalla, written by me, Alan Murray, along with my amazing colleagues, Ellen McGirt and Megan Arnold. Our theme is by Jason Snell. Executive producers are Mason Cohn and Megan Arnold. Leadership Next is a production of Fortune Media. Leadership Next episodes are produced by Fortune‘s editorial team.

The views and opinions expressed by podcast speakers and guests are solely their own and do not reflect the opinions of Deloitte or its personnel. Nor does Deloitte advocate or endorse any individuals or entities featured on the episodes.