Motivated to Lead Podcast - Mark Klingsheim

This week, we revisit our interview with Molly Fletcher. Molly made a name for herself as one of the first female sports agents. During her almost two-decade career as President of CSE, Fletcher negotiated over $500 million in contracts and represented over 300 of sports’ biggest names, including Hall of Fame pitcher John Smoltz, PGA Tour golfer Matt Kuchar, broadcaster Erin Andrews and basketball champion coaches Tom Izzo and Doc Rivers. Today she is one of the world's top 50 keynote speakers, and her TED Talk, “Secrets of a Champion Mindset,” has more than one million views.

As host of the popular podcast “Game Changers with Molly Fletcher,” she interviews experts and celebrities in every field. Fletcher is the founder of Game Changer Performance Group training company and the author of five books, most recently “The Energy Clock.”

This week we interviewed Craig Sider. Craig is passionate about unleashing potential in others. He partners with leaders and organizations to help them identify - and move courageously toward - a preferred future. For over three decades, Craig has walked with and served leaders from business, non-profit, and education. He combines insights gleaned from his degrees in business, theology, and leadership development. Craig's approach is to listen deeply and then ask questions that draw out deeper reflection and inspire fresh thinking. Craig shares insights from his new book, “Beyond Your Box: Break Free to Pursue Your Dream”

This week, we interviewed Doug Hoekstra. Doug worked at Medtronic for 30 years and retired in August 2021. At Medtronic Doug held the position of Vice President and Global Controller for 12 years. In this role, he led global finance operations and reporting, financial planning, business development support, finance enterprise excellence, and the finance training and development programs. He also co-chaired the Finance Executive Committee, which focused on business operations and results, functional strategies and planning, key functional objectives, and talent management. Prior to this position, Doug served in a variety of other finance roles, including roles in several business units and at the Corporate level.

Prior to Medtronic, Doug was an audit manager at KPMG, a public accounting firm. He graduated from the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management in 1986.

Doug is currently serving on the Board of a privately held company, focusing on coaching and mentorship.

This week, we revisit our interview with Marie-Pierre Dhers. She founded an advisory firm in 2013 in New York City. Her network of partners advises investors and entrepreneurs in aviation and aerospace, transportation, energy, and new technology in the US and Europe. She is actively serving on several boards.

Before that, Marie-Pierre held senior executive positions for more than 20 years at Air France-KLM, one of the largest European airline Groups with over $30B in revenues. She built a track record of driving growth and leading large complex transactions and transformations.

She holds a Master of Science from Cranfield University, UK, a Master degree in engineering from the French College of Civil Aviation, ENAC (Grande Ecole Ingenieur), Toulouse, France, and an Executive MBA from Saint John's University, New York, USA. She is certified in Corporate Governance by INSEAD.

This week, we interview Steve Nash, the Founder of Traditional Human Performance.

Steve’s background experience includes almost 25 years as a military officer/commander, serving at home and abroad in The Royal Canadian Regiment, the Canadian Airborne Regiment, the UK Parachute Regiment (on exchange), and the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command.

Further, he has 10+ years working with at-risk youth and 20+ years running his own company, Traditional Excellence Human Performance. His activities span from more formalized boardroom/conference room presentations and classroom courses to outdoor/experiential events through fitness, wilderness adventure, and beyond. Steve is an 8^th-degree black belt in Shotokan Karate.

This week we interviewed Dr. Kevin Fickenscher who is a senior physician executive with extensive domestic and international experience in large, complex healthcare organizations. Throughout his career, he experienced strategic and operational management roles related to the development and expansion of programs as well as turnaround initiatives by serving in various C-suite positions.

He holds demonstrated expertise in healthcare system development, consulting, technology management, informatics, infotech deployment, transformation, and care management with related experience in leadership and organizational development, strategic planning, clinical quality, and health policy with an established national reputation as a dynamic, visionary, and strategic leader in healthcare.

This week, we interviewed Paula Cruickshank. Since June 2020, she has held the role of Senior Vice President in Ontario, overseeing BDC’s financing and consulting services across the province's 33 Business Centres.

Paula has more than 25 years of banking industry experience.Prior to her current role in Ontario, she held the role of Senior Vice President, British Columbia and North, from 2017 to 2020, where she successfully grew the bank’s financing and consulting services throughout that region.

In 2023, Paula was recognized by Women We Admire as one of the Top 50 Women Leaders of Toronto. She has been a board member of Futurpreneur since 2020. She holds an International MBA from the Schulich School of Business and an LLM in Banking and Financial Institutions from Osgoode Hall Law School.

This week, we revisit our interview with Gayle Packer, Board Chair, CEO, and President of Terracon. She joined Terracon (ENR#24)* in 2004. During her 17 years with the company, Gayle has served in multiple leadership roles, including attorney, co-general counsel, director of corporate services, and chief administrative officer. She has been instrumental in Terracon’s growth, coordinating the acquisition of more than 50 companies and expanding the company to over 150 offices nationwide.

Gayle holds a Juris Doctorate from the University of Minnesota and a Master of Laws from the University of Arkansas. In addition, she also has earned bachelor’s degrees in political science, international studies and agricultural economics, as well as a master’s degree in agricultural economics and applied business management from The Ohio State University. Prior to joining Terracon, Gayle held roles in sales and public relations for the agricultural broadcasting network in Ohio and was as an attorney (specializing in the areas of corporate, tax and employee benefits) at regional and national law firms in their Kansas City offices.

In April 2021, Gayle was elected to the board of VHB, Inc., (ENR#56)* an employee-owned transportation and energy engineering firm, and she serves on VHB’s audit committee. Gayle was recognized in the Kansas City Business Journal’s Women Who Mean Business class of 2010 and Ingram’s top Women Executives in 2020. She currently serves on local, regional and national non-profit boards of directors, including the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation (audit committee and investment committee), ACE Mentor Program, ACEC Research Institute (finance committee), Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce. In addition, Gayle was recently elected to the executive committee of the Design Professionals Coalition. Gayle is a member of both the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) and Women Corporate Directors where she has served on the programming committee for the local chapter.

This week we revisit our interview with Dr. Julia Lee Cunningham. Julia Lee is an Associate Professor ofManagement and Organizationsat the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, and aNational Geographic Fellow and Explorer. She currently serves as a faculty co-director forCenter for Positive Organizations. She is also a faculty affiliate at theSanger Leadership Center, andErb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterpriseat the University of Michigan. Prior to joining Ross, she served as a Lab Fellow in Institutional Corruption at theEdmond J. Safra Center for Ethics,and a Research Fellow inWomen and Public Policy Programat Harvard University.She earned her PhD, MPP, and AM degrees at Harvard University, where she was trained in organizational behavior, psychology, and behavioral economics.

Dr. Lee Cunningham studies the psychology of narratives, lay theories, and behavioral ethics. She is passionate about understanding the power of narratives in shaping objective reality, discovering the mechanisms that alter them, and illuminating how narratives can be leveraged to yield more ethical, sustainable, and adaptive behavior in the workplace. Her research has been published in a number of top scientific journals in management and psychology, includingAcademy of Management Journal,Organization Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Psychological Science, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes,andJournal of Applied Psychology.

Dr. Lee Cunningham strives to promote the use of scientific evidence in diagnosing and addressing critical problems in public policy and business practices, and has many years of experience in consulting and conducting field research with leading companies, non-profits, and governments. She teaches BBA, MBA, and executive education courses onleadership, teams, negotiation, and conflict resolution, and was named one of theTop 50 Undergraduate Business Professors byPoets and Quantsin 2020.

This week we interviewed Jeff Lackey. Jeff is the founder and CEO of JKL Advisors, a consultancy whose purpose is to help grow small, medium, and large corporations that need to unlock their growth strategy with people. Jeff recently served as Vice-President of Talent Acquisition for CVS Health, where he led the award-winning Global Talent Acquisition team for a $300B / 300,000-person enterprise for more than 7 years. He has also led Talent Acquisition for other globally recognized brands, including Rolls-Royce, First Energy, and Corning Incorporated.

Over his 25+ year career, his teams have hired over 1 million people in over 70 countries and across 8 industries – including healthcare, retail, insurance, aerospace, defense, energy, communications, and executive search.

Jeff is continually evaluating new technologies and innovative approaches to Talent Acquisition. He regularly meets with company leaders who are shaping the landscape of Talent Acquisition and includes some of them on his weekly podcast Growing your business with People.