What Else Do You Want To Know About Yourself?

Sir Andrew Strauss is the former Captain of the England cricket team which he led to become the number one team in the world for the first time in England's history. He then became England's Director of Cricket and he's recognized as the architect of the country's first ever one day World Cup victory.

In 2019, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to charity, sport, and cricket.

Being captain of a cricket team requires the same skills needed to run a business. Amplified.

Who Do You Trust?

Jim Stengel is the former CMO of P&G, and he's now a hugely successful author, speaker, coach, consultant, and advisor. He's also the host of the brilliant CMO Podcast.

In our conversation, Jim and I started to lay the framework for how we think that leadership is going to have to evolve as the confidence in most institutions, including government, continues to deteriorate.

How Will The Best Leaders Lead In 2025?

This episode is designed as a provocation, an inspiration, and a roadmap for the leaders of businesses, for whom unlocking creative thinking is critical.

What Does Your Company Reject?

Karl Lieberman is the Global Chief Creative Officer of Wieden + Kennedy.

To unlock creativity and unleash its power to maximum effect, you have to be willing to break the norms, to encourage the irrational and sometimes even the absurd.

You have to reject predictability for possibility.

And when you're yelled at, because no one has ever done it like that before, you have to be willing to shrug.

What Are You Willing To Compromise?

Lina Polimeni is the Chief Corporate Brand Officer at Eli Lilly and Company. This is a business whose work is often the difference between life and death, where they are trying to cure cancer, and where the outcome is very personal.

No one can lead effectively without compromise. 

But what we choose to compromise has a huge part to play in whether we’re successful.

Are You Centered?

Kerry Sulkowicz is the Past-President of the American Psychoanalytic Association, and the Founder and Managing Principal of Boswell Group. They provide leadership advice to boards and CEOs.

Leadership is sometimes about taking action and it is sometimes not.

But it is always about being centered.

What Is Your Pain For?

Taban Shoresh is the Founder of The Lotus Flower, a UK-based charity that supports women and girls that have been displaced by conflict, and helps them to build sustainable futures. Since 2016, the charity's projects have impacted more than 60,000 women, girls, and community members. 

She has experienced staggering trauma, she has known realities that I'm sure I would not have survived, and she has taken all of that pain and turned it into creative leadership of the most consequential kind. As you'll hear, for reasons both global and personal, she's in a hurry. 

Is That Good?

Heather Freeland is the Chief Brand Officer at Adobe, a business that, as Heather describes, is undergoing significant change to prepare itself for the future to come, and the one that is already here.

If human beings are to create a dividing line that AI can not cross, the question, “Is that good?” may be the beating heart on which that barrier depends.

Why Are You Doing What You’re Doing?

Gabriel Schmitt has just celebrated his one year anniversary as the Global CCO of Grey.

He has learned over his career one of the most important leadership lessons that I think often gets overlooked.

The importance of context.

How Well Do You Know Yourself?

Lisa Smith is the Global Executive Creative Director at JKR.

When you meet Lisa, her energy is infectious. As you’ll hear in our conversation, she wants to make a difference.

She also knows herself well enough to have learned that her energy sometimes needs an adapter.

What Direction Are You Going?

Nils Leonard, one of the co-founders of Uncommon - the award winning global creative studio - has been a regular guest on this show since I started Fearless seven years ago.

In all of that time, I’ve wondered about his partnership with his two co-founders, Natalie Graeme and Lucy Jameson.

Why did they decide to go into business together? How does it work and what might get in the way?