Dr. Kelly Richmond Pope is a renowned expert in forensic accounting, risk, and white-collar crime research. She is the Dr. Barry Jay Epstein Endowed Professor of Forensic Accounting at DePaul University and has won several awards for her contributions to education and documentary filmmaking. Her expertise lies in identifying financial fraud risk and assessing corporate culture and compliance systems. Dr. Pope’s research on executive misconduct resulted in the award-winning documentary, All the Queen’s Horses, which explores the largest municipal fraud in U.S. history. She is also known for her TED Talk, “How Whistle-blowers Shape History,” which has been translated into 20 languages and viewed over 1.6 million times. Her new book Fool Me Once talks about the scams, stories and secrets from the trillion-dollar fraud industry. In this interview, I speak to Dr. Kelly Richmond Pope about the types of fraud and ethical missteps that leaders will encounter, the importance of governance and process, common holes in most companies that make them open to fraud and ethics issues, and how we can protect ourselves and our businesses.

Thought Economics

Dean Karnazes is a living testament to the limitless potential of the human spirit. He has become one of the most inspiring and accomplished ultramarathon runners in the world. Throughout his career, Karnazes has pushed the boundaries of physical endurance, completing seemingly impossible feats like running 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 consecutive days, completing the gruelling Badwater Ultramarathon through Death Valley, and running non-stop for 350 miles in just over 80 hours. His relentless determination and unwavering passion for ultrarunning have garnered him worldwide recognition, and he has been named one of the “Top 100 Most Influential People in the World” by TIME magazine. In this interview, I speak to Dean Karnazes, “Ultramarathon Man.” We discuss why running is part of who we are as humans and explore what it takes to prepare for and achieve some of the world’s most mind-blowing feats of endurance running including running non-stop, for 350 miles, in 80 hours. Dean shows us all what we can learn for our lives from his incredible journey.

Thought Economics

In this interview, I speak to Kira Rudik. She is a Member of Parliament of Ukraine and First Deputy Chairwoman of the Parliament Committee on Digital Transformation. Kira is Leader of Golos (Ukraine’s Liberal Political Party) and Vice-President of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE). Before politics, Kira Rudik was an IT entrepreneur who headed Ring Ukraine company and ensured its acquisition by Amazon for $1 billion. In our conversation, Kira describes the realities of life in Ukraine, a year into Russia’s invasion. We discuss the role of the international community, the threat of escalation, the strength of the Ukrainian people and what it will take to bring peace, and rebuild Ukraine.

Thought Economics

Dr. Joshua N. Weiss is one of the world’s foremost experts in negotiation. He is co-founder of the Global Negotiation Initiative at Harvard University and a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Negotiation Project. He is also the Director and creator of the Master of Science degree in Leadership and Negotiation at Bay Path University. Dr. Weiss has spoken and published on leadership, negotiation, mediation, and systemic approaches to dealing with conflict. In this interview, we discuss what it takes to be a great negotiator, why negotiation skills matter, and the secrets of how to effectively handle even the most complex negotiations.

Thought Economics

Will Ahmed is the Founder and CEO of WHOOP, which has developed next generation wearable technology for optimizing human performance and health. WHOOP members include professional athletes, Fortune 500 CEOs, fitness enthusiasts, military personnel, frontline workers, and a broad range of people looking to improve their performance. WHOOP has raised more than $400 million from top investors and is valued at $3.6 billion, making it the most valuable standalone wearables company in the world. In this interview, I speak to Will Ahmed about his mission to transform human-health, and what he’s learned from building one of the world’s most valuable startups.

Thought Economics

DoorDash is a remarkable business. Founded in 2013, the business now has millions of monthly active users, across 27 countries, who utilise the services of millions of Dashers on the platform to get, ‘restaurants and more, delivered to their door.’ DoorDash is empowering a whole new economic model – In the period from Q1 2020 through today, the platform has generated over $70 billion in sales for merchants, and over $25 billion in earnings for Dashers. It took 7 years for DoorDash to complete their first billion orders (from founding through October 2020), it took 10 months to complete their next billion – the scaling continues – in Q3 2022 alone, DoorDash delivered over 430 million orders. DoorDash IPO’d in 2020, and is regarded as one of the most valuable consumer businesses on the planet. In this interview, I speak to Christopher Payne, President of DoorDash. He served as COO from 2016-2021, and prior to joining DoorDash, he led the North American business at eBay, ran development of MSN Search (now Bing) and mapping (Virtual Earth) for Microsoft. He also led Amazon’s expansion beyond books into video, electronics, wireless, PCs and software. He is one of the world’s most accomplished technology leaders.

Thought Economics

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, a New York Times #1 bestselling author, has written or edited 51 books which have sold over 3 million copies, been translated into 32 languages, and become bestsellers in 12 countries. Amazon recently recognized the ‘100 Best Leadership & Success Books Ever Written’ – and included Marshall’s Triggers and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. He is the only living author with two books on the list. His other bestsellers include: MOJO, Succession: Are You Ready?, The Leader of the Future and How Women Rise (with lead author, Sally Helgesen). His new NYT bestseller, The Earned Life, is an Amazon Editor’s Choice for Book of the Year So Far in 2022. Marshall’s acknowledgements include: Global Gurus – Corps D ’Elite Award for Lifetime Contribution in both Leadership and Coaching, Harvard Business Review – World’s #1 Leadership Thinker, Institute for Management Studies – Lifetime Achievement Award for Teaching, American Management Association – 50 great thinkers who have influenced the field of management and BusinessWeek – 50 great leaders in America. His life is featured in the documentary movie, “The Earned Life” and the New Yorker profile, “The Better Boss”. He is one of a select few executive coaches who has worked with over 200 major CEOs and their management teams. He served on the Advisory Board of the Peter Drucker Foundation for ten years. In this interview, I speak to Dr. Marshall Goldsmith about finding our path in life, the pursuit of happiness, the scorecards for success, the power of mentorship, discipline and what it takes to live the life you deserve.

Thought Economics

Alibaba combines the economic might of Amazon, the penetration of Facebook, the ubiquity of Google and the cultural significance of YouTube. In China alone, Alibaba has over close to 1billion active customers and over 250,000 employees. At peak, the platform processed over 583,000 orders per second. Each year, Alibaba receives over 12.7billion orders, and over half of China’s domestic parcels relate to Alibaba. Brian A. Wong is a Chinese American entrepreneur and investor. He was the first American, and only the 52nd employee to join Alibaba Group, where he contributed to the company’s early globalization efforts and served as Jack Ma’s special assistant for international affairs. During his sixteen-year tenure, Wong established the Alibaba Global Initiatives (AGI) division and was the founder and executive director of the Alibaba Global Leadership Academy. In his new book the Tao of Alibaba, Brian A. Wong reveals the secret sauce of this remarkable global business, a consciously cultivated ethos and spirit that has enabled Alibaba to weather tough times and setbacks, and to persist towards a common mission. In this interview, I speak to Brian A. Wong about the management philosophy of Alibaba and how purpose-led entrepreneurship played a key role in creating one of the world’s fastest growing, and most successful businesses.

Thought Economics

In this interview, I speak to Jud Brewer MD PhD (“Dr. Jud”), one of the world’s foremost experts in habit change, addiction, self-mastery and mindfulness. Dr. Jud has more than 20 years of experience in research and clinic, and we discuss the very fundamentals of building and breaking habits, the importance of mindfulness, paying attention, and how curiosity can change our lives.

Thought Economics

Jody Michael is one of the world’s top leadership coaches. She’s an internationally credentialed Master Certified Coach, Board Certified Coach, University of Chicago trained psychotherapist, and Licensed Clinical Social Worker. She has delivered over 40,000 hours of coaching over the last 25 years, including 15 years working in corporate leadership with firms including: Goldman Sachs, Chicago Research and Trading (CRT)/Nations Bank, and Kidder-Peabody. Jody has coached some of the nation’s top performing leaders and teams across diverse industries and organizations, from hypergrowth tech companies to global Fortune 100 organizations. Among her clients are more than 120 senior executives across 18 Fortune 100 companies. In her new book Leading Lightly, Jody shares her radical model for leadership, a powerful way to transform performance, make better decisions, gain greater self-awareness, and develop the capacity to manage work and life with enduring ease and clarity. Jody argues in her book that stress and difficulty don’t need to be a given, and that learning to lead lightly and mindfully can profoundly change the trajectory of our lives. In this remarkable interview, I speak to Jody Michael on the concept of mental fitness, and how we can lead differently feel lighter, and achieve more in our professional and personal wellbeing.

Thought Economics

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