The Amazing Leader Series

We're excited to welcome our next Amazing Leader in our series, Ari Weinzweig, CEO of Zingerman's Deli.

After getting his degree in history and realizing he didn’t want to continue in that field, learn how Ari went from working the “back of the house” in restaurants to opening Zingerman’s Deli and 40 years later, 12 businesses.

Discover how his anarchist belief system has affected the way he runs his companies and learn more about Ari’s company’s 3 bottom lines of great food, great service, and great finance.

Listen as he discusses his metaphor on connection across the organization, why it’s essential to the cultural health of a company and hear his philosophy on trust in the workplace.

And finally, learn why Ari thinks vision is so important and when you believe in what we’re doing, things go better.

We're excited to announce that NK Chaudhary, social entrepreneur and founder of Jaipur Rugs, is the next amazing leader in our series!

Often referred to as the “Gandhi of the Carpet Industry,” discover how NK started with two looms in a small house and grew into a global brand. Learn why he believes that the deeper you go into your core, the harder it is for your global competitors to copy you.

Find out why NK reject the company models driven by greed and fear and why he believes companies driven by love will not only succeed but heal society.

Listen as he describes 6 qualities he believes every company should have and which one he believes is the one we need most right now. Find out why NK believes CEOs need to unlearn what they know and discover NK's concept of totality and how it impacts his business. Enjoy the podcast!

Vanessa Hall, CEO of Entente, is the next amazing leader in our series!

Affectionately known as The Trust Lady, discover why Vanessa's background in compliance and risk management in financial services made her want to create a more trustworthy business environment. We'll dive into her trust model called ENP: Expectations, Needs and Promises and learn the difference between explicit and implicit promises and how those apply.

Listen as Vanessa explains the secret to having strong trust in business relationships and discover what Vanessa believes is the best way to build a culture of trust and what leaders need to do to implement it. Enjoy!

Our next Amazing Leader is Jeffery Crabb, CEO of Diamond C Trailers.

Learn about Diamond C's 28 Foundational Behaviors, why it focuses on actional behaviors vs ideas of values and why is makes up his dream for his company culture.

Listen as Jeff explains the impact of the pandemic, how it actually accelerated growth for his company and exposed opportunities for improvement for their leadership infrastructure.

Find out how he feels about the idea of "cancel culture" and the good piece of advice his mother gave him that applies to his responsibilities as a CEO. And hear Jeff explain why it's important to maintain in-person human connection and why it helps build trust and respect.

We're excited to welcome our next Amazing Leader, Rikard Josefson, CEO Avanza Bank.

Learn what the gamechanger was for Rikard's business and how it shifted the way he worked. Discover what inspires him, how helping people reach their full potential is so important and how he accomplishes that.

Learn more about Rikard's "brainy day" events and why he believes everyone is equally important in a company. Find out how he believes the pandemic affected the financial industry and why it's important to be transparent in banking.

Listen as Rickard explains why he believes cost-cutting is not the way to move a business forward and why he feels investing in people is best the way to run a company. And hear him talk about how uncertainty is one of the biggest challenges facing CEOs today and why being flexible is critical to a company's success.

The next installment of our Amazing Leaders Series features Kristen Hadeed, CEO of Student Made and author of Permission to Screw Up.

Kristen talks about her calling of "bringing humanity back into business" and why it's so important to be authentic and embrace who we are. Discover why Kristen thinks the environment and culture of a company is more important to most people than a big paycheck or a glamorous title.

Learn why she is pivoting from a cleaning company to a student development company and listen to her advice on aligning multiple generations and why it's important to ask the hard questions.

In this episode, you'll learn how Kristen's journey from cleaning houses to earn extra money led to her becoming the CEO of a cleaning company. Find out how the experience of the majority of her employees quitting early on led her to realizing that failure is just a chance to grow.

The next installment of our Amazing Leader Series features Chester Elton, co-founder of The Culture Works, a global training company and author of several bestselling books including Leading with Gratitude.

In this episode, you'll learn why Chester thinks it's important to surround yourself with people smarter than you. Discover why gratitude is a key component to leadership and how it leads to extraordinary results.

Find out what two things need to accelerate during a crisis or big change and why Chester believes assuming positive intent is an important quality of leadership. Discover why leaders that are more vulnerable and more transparent are the ones winning over their employees and why as a leader, you DON'T always have to have the answers.

The next installment of our Amazing Leaders Series features Rachel Faller, Founder and Creative Director of tonlé, a zero-waste fair fashion company.

Discover why Rachel was initially against entering the fashion industry and why she changed her mind. Listen to why she feels like a lot of CEOs are stuck between a rock and a hard place and why it's so important to stay true to your values.

Learn why company culture was always Rachel's first priority, why she feels new technology is not the solution and what she feels is the real answer. And hear her piece of advice to CEOs about how important equitable exchange is.

Enjoy the interview!

Our next installment of The Amazing Leaders Series features Richard Sheridan, CEO, Chief Storyteller, and co-founder of software of IT consulting firm Menlo Innovations, Inc as well as bestselling author of Joy, Inc.: How We Built a Workplace People Love.

Find out why public speaking is one of Richard's favorite parts of his work and what it really means to him.

Discover why during this unique time, there is no longer a space for individual heroes and how important a team-based environment and hear Richard explain why and how trust works in a company.

Learn four things Richard believes artificial intelligence will never take over from humans and why he believes his biggest job as CEO is to pump fear out of the room.

Discover how a moment with his 8-year-old daughter forever changed his view on leadership. And learn why having an intentionally joyful culture is integral to a company and why almost leaving his industry ultimately propelled him to his current success.

This episode of the The Amazing Leader Series features Tom van der Lubbe, CEO and founder of finance service company Viisi.

Discover how a personal crisis early in Tom's life shaped his outlook and learn why he thinks managers should read more books on philosophy and ethics less books on management.

Hear his thoughts on why your employees need to feel safe in their companies and how solidarity creates more productivity. You'll learn Tom's company philosophy of holacracy: what it means and why it works.

Find out why 2020 was his company's best year and how it's thriving during hard times. And learn why he believes culture and trust should be at the core of any business and why companies should reflect the rest of society.

Johan Birgersson, CEO EasyPark is a progressive CEO committed to developing people and creating a great culture. He  shares insights on his journey as CEO of EasyPark, a fast growing digital app company with a purpose of making cities more livable.

EasyPark is in 2000 cities, over 20 countries, and has been recognized as one of the Best Managed Companies by Deloitte for the last two years.

Learn from Johan's mistakes on culture and what to focus on to transform it. Discover why culture must have leaders on board, how trust impacts the company and the culture what happens when there isn’t a culture match and so much more!

Ronald Abvajee is the CEO of Healthy Living Consulting (HLC), whose purpose is to inspire a healthier nation.

Ronald is a media personality, inspirational speaker, a health and engagement expert, a physiologist, as well as a 5th-degree black belt and world champion in karate. Under his leadership, HLC  was the winner of the Future of HR Awards in 2019 in the Corporate Wellness Champion category.

Discover how this CEO for an 8 figure corporate wellness business is making a huge impact in South Africa. Learn Ronald’s secret to success in less than one minute that has transformed his life and business and discover the highest priority for leaders and how to manage stress.

Ronald will share how to make your challenges relevant to your team to reach all of your goals and how to get e inspired by how to tap into your grit to get through anything. He's launching ground-breaking health tech to assess wellbeing needs, provide expert information and content, access to healthcare providers, training, mentoring and e-learning.

In this episode, learn from Bobby Herrera, the CEO of one of the fastest-growing HR services companies, Populous Group, with annual revenue over $600 million and many Fortune 100 customers.

Listen to this purpose-driven leader with a passion for building strong culture and communities through trust and storytelling and discover how Bobby’s leadership style is about empowerment, connections, and ensuring everyone has the opportunity to succeed and his three tips for leadership excellence. By sharing his personal purpose, Populous grew from $100M to over $500M in a few short years

Bobby is also the author of the bestselling book, The Gift of Struggle, a book about leadership and the life-changing lessons we learn through our struggles and he shares some of his best tools to thrive in our conversation.

In this episode, Stephen M.R. Covey, Bestselling Author of Speed of Trust & Smart Trust, CEO of CoveyLink will teach about the essence of true leadership from his years of experience both as a hands on CEO as well as global thought leader. Discover how to increase profits and the 3 times multiplier for performance in your organization, understand the Four Cores to Credibility and how they impact your relationships and teams, hear why collaboration, trust, joy and purpose all have a huge impact on your business and much more!

Listen in on this Amazing Leaders conversation on leadership during the global pandemic with wisdom on how to manage and bring back companies in a strong and caring way that genuinely supports the people. Featuring great insights, experience, and knowledge from Bob Chapman, CEO of Barry-Wehmiller, Garry Ridge, CEO of The WD-40 Company, and Jason Lippert, CEO of LCI Industries.

All three companies have gone through a proven culture journey, taking them to multi-billion dollar growth, each with over 11,000+ employees, and operations in many countries. You will be inspired on their insights to leadership, culture, and people!

Katarina Walter, CEO Antrop AB, is an inspiring leader who has won CEO of the Year with her company that has won Agency of the Year several times. In this episode, Katarina discusses the journey of taking a professional services business into a sustainable model and HOW they actually measure their impact – insights into why values, purpose, and sustainability are vital to the future success of a company. We also talk about why it is vital to develop your employees and what is keeping this company together during the global coronavirus crisis.

Jason Lippert, CEO and Director of LCI Inductries, talks about how his $2.5B manufacturing company has transformed its culture over the last seven years and how they reduced employee turnover 75%. He'll discuss insights into developing leaders through dedicated coaches and the impact having a dedicated philanthropy team had on their business.

Bob Chapman, CEO of St. Louis, MO-based Barry-Wehmiller, Co-Author of Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family. In this episode, learn about Bob’s journey to take an outdated 80 year old $20M company and grow it to a $3B global company with over 100 acquisitions along the way. Discover what key events changed Bob’s outlook and management style forever and why Barry-Wehmiller has an amazing culture and how they’ve been able to train their leaders and managers to truly care, making them a preferred employer.

Paul Zak PhD, Founding Director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies and Professor of Economics, Psychology and Management at Claremont Graduate University

In this episode, learn the simple formula to truly transform into a high performance organization, why the future include “neuro job crafting” and the implications to the workplace and understand the latest neuroscience research on how to create trustworthy leadership and why it is essential for any organization.

Garry Ridge, CEO of the WD-40 Company 

In this candid conversation between Karin Volo and Garry Ridge, they discuss insights from Garry's long experience in growing the company to $2.6B in revenues. This interview will definitely inspire you if you care about culture and creating a great workplace! Some of the highlights you'll learn in this are:

• how language shapes the culture
• changing managers to coaches and why that matters
• how he took WD40’s market cap as a public company from $250M to $2.6B in 15 years with a compound annual growth rate of total shareholder returns of 15%