Episode 255: Meredith Bell, Co-Founder & President, Grow Strong Leaders (replay)

This week, we revisit our interview with Dr. Carole Robin. She has been in the business of helping leaders grow for over 35 years. Most recently, she served as the Faculty Director of the Interpersonal Dynamics for High-Performance Executives Program and Director of the Arbuckle Leadership Fellows program at the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB). She received the MBA Distinguished Teaching Award for her work in numerous courses, including Interpersonal Dynamics (the most popular elective course at the GSB for over 45 years). She is the Co-Founder of Leaders in Tech for leaders of high growth tech companies committed to building high-performing and culturally healthy organizations. In addition to her teaching, she has coached and consulted for individuals and groups of high-profile executives for the last fifteen years. Her clients work with her to develop their interpersonal skills, update limiting mental models, and learn to modify their style. She has become internationally known for her expertise in interpersonal relations and, particularly, experiential small group learning. This type of training gives participants the capacity to become more effective leaders, build higher-performing organizations, and have richer, more fulfilling personal and professional relationships.

This week we revisit our interview with Wayne Baker. Wayne is the author of the book All You Have to Do Is Ask, and the Robert P. Thome Professor of Business Administration and Professor of Management & Organizations at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. He is also a Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan and Faculty Associate at the Institute for Social Research. He currently serves as Faculty Director of the Center for Positive Organizations. His teaching and research focus on social capital, social networks, generosity, positive organizational scholarship, and values.  He has published numerous scholarly articles and four books.  His management and leadership articles appear in venues such as Harvard Business Review, Chief Executive Magazine, and Sloan Management Review. Prior to joining the Michigan faculty, he was on the faculty at the University of Chicago business school. He earned his Ph.D. in sociology from Northwestern University and was a post-doctoral research fellow at Harvard University.

This week ,we revisit our interview Shellye Archambeau. Shellye is an experienced CEO and Board Director with a track record of accomplishments building brands, high-performance teams, and organizations. She shares lessons learned from her life that she has written about in her new book, Unapologetically Ambitious: Take Risks, Break Barriers, and Create Success on Your Own Terms. A book that will inspire you, and provide the tools to enable you to fight the battles, make the tradeoffs and create the life you want. Shellye Archambeau currently serves on the boards of Verizon [NYSE:VZ], Roper Technologies [NYSE: ROP], and Okta [NASDAQ: OKTA]. She has also served on the board of Nordstrom [NYSE: JWN] and has been a strategic advisor to the Royal Bank of Canada, Capital Markets Group, and Forbes Ignite. Shellye has over 30 years of experience in technology. She is the former CEO of MetricStream, a Silicon Valley-based, governance, risk, and compliance software company. During her tenure, MetricStream grew from a fledgling startup into a global market leader. She is also a Forbes contributor and the protagonist of the Harvard Business School Case Study: Becoming a CEO. To learn more about Shellye, visit shellye.com

This week, we revisit our interview with Dave Murphy, and he shares lessons learned from his career. Dave served as President & CEO of Red Wing Shoe Company Inc. for fifteen years and retired in December 2015. Before joining Red Wing Shoe Company in 2001, Murphy spent 23 years in increasingly responsible positions at Minneapolis-based General Mills, a $12 billion global manufacturer and consumer foods marketer.   Dave is active in the local community, having served as Chairman of the Minnesota Public Radio and American Public Media Boards of Directors. In addition, he serves as Chairman of the Board for Wenger Corporation, a Board Member of Red Wing Shoe Company and Mortenson Construction. Dave has a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Dartmouth College and an MBA degree from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

This week, we revisit our interview with Paul Batz, the CEO and Founder of Good Leadership Enterprises. Paul Batz has ushered in the golden era of executive team coaching, changing the conversation about what modern leadership looks like. He founded Good Leadership to help CEOs, business owners, executives, and community leaders grow and thrive with the idea that goodness pays. Paul’s not-so-secret sauce teaches how alignment, commitment, and open accountability within teams are rewarded with great business results.   Paul’s personal mission is to help teams weave goodness into their work, achieving more together than they ever could alone. He uses goodness as the subject for team coaching, training, speaking, and inspirational programming. The movement began when the Good Leadership Breakfast Series took off like a rocket. Since 2010, more than 30,000 guests have attended what is now the hottest leadership development networking breakfast series in the Midwest. In 2017, Paul started Good Leadership Press, a publishing label that produces positive books and tools to help good leaders create great results in their personal and professional lives.   Paul is blending the Seven Fs with his business partner and wife Melinda and their three adult children who all touch the business. He is hopelessly addicted to golf, an Elton John wannabee piano player, a philanthropist, and he loves hosting dinner parties at their home in Bloomington, MN.

This week, we revisit our interview with Dr. Vanessa Patrick. Vanessa is a Professor of Marketing and the Associate Dean for Research at the Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston. We discuss her book The Power of Saying No. Vanessa has published dozens of research articles in top-tier academic journals in psychology, marketing, and management, and popular accounts of her work have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, Los Angeles Times, Business Week, Fast Company, Forbes, Huffington Post and Washington Post. In her research, she investigates strategies to achieve personal mastery and inspire everyday excellence in oneself and others and is a pioneer in the study of everyday consumer aesthetics.  She has a PhD in Business from the University of Southern California and an MBA in marketing and a BS degree in microbiology and biochemistry from Bombay University in India. Vanessa lives with her family in Houston, Texas

This week, we revisit our interview with John Milad. John has 25 years of experience as a start-up executive, venture investor, and banker specializing in healthcare innovation across the UK, Europe, and the US. He had 10 years of life sciences venture experience at a family office, Atlas Venture, NBGI Venture and Downing. Notable exits include Symetis, ACT/EPIX, BoneSupport and Medcast/WebMD. John is a Co-founder of Quanta Dialysis Technologies, which I led as CEO for 8 years. Notable outcomes include creating an award-winning, disruptive portable dialysis system; raising nearly $400m in funding; commercially launching in UK and US; and establishing trans-Atlantic commercial operations. For another 2 years, he served as an executive at Nitec Pharma, which was ultimately sold to Horizon Therapeutics. John has held multiple board positions across the sector. He has been an advisor to NIIR/I4i programme, mentor at the Enterprise Hub of the Royal Academy of Engineering.  He has been recognized in the Sunday Times Maserati List of the UK’s Top 100 “Game Changing Innovators and Entrepreneurs”; Winner of the 2022 MacRobert Award from the Royal Academy of Engineering for outstanding engineering innovation.

On this week’s podcast, we revisit our interview with Meredith Bell, co-founder and President of Grow Strong Leaders. Her company publishes software tools and books that help people build strong relationships at work and at home. Meredith is an expert in leader and team communications, the author of three books, and the host of the Grow Strong Leaders Podcast. She co-authored her latest books, Connect with Your Team: Mastering the Top 10 Communication Skills, and Peer Coaching Made Simple, with her business partner, Dr. Dennis Coates. In them, Meredith and Denny provide how-to guides for improving communication at work and serving as a peer coach to others.

 This week, we revisit our interview with Anjan Thakor, Senior Associate Dean, and John E. Simon, Professor of Finance at the Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis. Anjan was previously The Edward J. Frey Professor of Banking and Finance at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, where he also served as chairman of the Finance area. He has served on the faculties of Indiana University, Northwestern University, and UCLA.  He has worked with many companies, including Whirlpool Corporation, Allision Engine Co., Citigroup, RR Donnelley, Dana Corporation, Anheuser-Busch, Zenith Corporation, Lincoln National Corporation, J.P. Morgan, Landscape Structures, Inc., CIGNA, Borg-Warner Automative, Waxman Industries, Reuters, The Limited, Ryder Integrated Logistics, AT&T, CH2M Hill, Takata Corporation, Tyson Foods, Spartech. He has published over 75 research papers and seven books. He is past managing Editor of the Journal of Financial Intermediation and past president of the Financial Intermediation Research Society. He has a Ph.D. (Finance) from Northwestern University.

This week we interview Dr. Brian Epperson. Brian is the Founder of Human Performance Advisors, a performance and executive coaching firm. He works one-on-one with senior leaders, helping them navigate challenging issues that impact them professionally and personally.  Prior to starting Human Performance Advisors, he worked in banking and telecommunications, where he gained extensive experience leading large-scale change and reengineering initiatives in finance, operations, information technology, engineering, human resources, and business development.  Dr. Epperson is a Full Professor of Business at Newman University, teaching leadership, cultural and, executive development in both the Master of Business and Doctorate of Business programs. at He is a frequent speaker, panelist, and trainer in the areas of coaching, leadership, leadership dysfunction, personal transformation, organizational change and innovation. Recognizing today’s fast-paced and challenging corporate landscape, he developed a proprietary change and innovation model designed to lead change and innovation initiatives within organizations.  Brian earned his Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma and has conducted post-graduate work in positive psychology, sports psychology, and human development. Brian is a proud veteran of the U.S. Marines Corps.