Latest Interviews
Showing 481–495 of 597 interview transcripts.
Clear all filters- Goldman Sachs14 min
Sarah Casanova: Chief Executive Officer, McDonald’s Holdings (Japan)
McDonald's Japan CEO Sarah Casanova, a 28-year veteran of the company, spearheaded a strategic turnaround that modernized 92% of its 2,900 locations to restore customer trust and drive revenue in the world's second-largest McDonald's market. Her leadership model explicitly connects diversity initiatives to business performance, leveraging the fact that women control half of consumer spending decisions while challenging female employees to overcome confidence barriers to secure promotions. Casanova further advocates for an inclusive management style that prioritizes continuous improvement and mentorship, asserting that effective leadership in her global industry requires adaptability rather than adherence to traditional masculine personas.
- Goldman Sachs19 min
Weijian Shan: Group Chairman and CEO, PAG Group
Wei-Jian Shan's memoir, *Out of the Gobi*, chronicles his survival of the Cultural Revolution through self-directed learning in the Gobi Desert and his subsequent selection as a top-ranking scholar to enter the United States educational system. Leveraging the economic collapse of the pre-reform era as a catalyst, Shan later analyzed how China's market transition achieved over 60% private GDP contribution despite persistent US-China political friction driven by democratic expectations. His overarching philosophy rejects fatalism, asserting that professional success depends entirely on perpetual preparation rather than external availability.
- Goldman Sachs19 min
Warby Parker Co-Founders and Co-CEOs Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa
Neil Blumenthal, Dave Gilboa, Rob Sweeney
Founded in 2008 by Wharton classmates Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa, Warby Parker disrupted the eyewear market by combining an omnichannel retail strategy with a proprietary social mission that has distributed millions of glasses globally. The company distinguishes itself through physical locations designed to drive organic engagement and technological innovations like virtual try-ons and remote prescription checks, which collectively maintain a Net Promoter Score of 86. By prioritizing human-centric store experiences and rigorous cultural documentation, the founders have scaled the business to over 88 stores while rejecting the notion that physical retail is obsolete in favor of a seamless digital-physical integration.
- Goldman Sachs11 min
Aleksandra Gren: Diversifying Global Tech Talent
Aleksandra Gren, Sally Boyle, Alex Gren
Alex Gren, Country Manager for Fiserv Poland, outlines the strategic necessity of women's empowerment in STEM to mitigate global talent shortages and secure Intellectual Property creation. He highlights Poland's remarkable economic transformation from an outsourcing hub into an eighth-largest regional economy with advanced financial services sectors in major cities. Gren emphasizes Fiserv's commitment to democratizing access and financial literacy, noting that sustainable growth requires nations to cultivate domestic talent rather than merely importing technology.
- Goldman Sachs14 min
"Catch-Up With David": with Goldman Sachs' Sharmin Mossavar-Rahmani
Sharmin Mossavar-Rahmani, David Solomon
A senior Goldman Sachs executive outlines a continued strategic overweight in US equities, attributing this "American preeminence" to robust institutions, favorable demographics, and resilient political structures despite rising geopolitical risks. While identifying the evolution of the US-China relationship as the primary external threat, she argues that historical precedents and strong institutional safeguards make the US economy uniquely positioned to withstand internal and external shocks. Drawing on a diverse personal background spanning engineering and diplomacy, she reinforces her investment thesis through decades of client management and significant philanthropic efforts in foreign policy and healthcare sectors.
- Goldman Sachs18 min
Caryn Seidman Becker: Biometrics and the Future of Identification Technology
Caryn Seidman Becker, Amanda Rubin
Ariadne Capital founder Karen Seidman-Becker transformed Clear into a government-certified identity platform by acquiring the bankrupt firm in 2010 and pivoting toward biometric security solutions that merge quantitative science with qualitative user trust. Leveraging public-private partnerships with the Department of Homeland Security and TSA, the company now facilitates frictionless travel and entertainment experiences across airlines, stadiums, and rental car agencies while maintaining strict data privacy protocols that prohibit selling user information. Seidman-Becker positions the firm as a leader in eliminating physical wallets through advanced facial recognition and voice verification, anticipating a future where these technologies render traditional identification methods obsolete within five to seven years.
- Goldman Sachs18 min
José Neves: Moving Fashion Forward with Technology
Founded by Jose Neves in 2008, Farfetch established itself as a zero-inventory e-commerce enabler by integrating 25 boutiques and 500 brands into a platform that allows third-party API development and logistics data sharing. The company differentiates its growth strategy through a leadership team split evenly between fashion and technology veterans, allocating capital to optimize the core marketplace, expand into new categories like fine jewelry, and fund moonshot projects such as the Dream Assembly incubator. Neves anchors the organization's culture on an "enabler" philosophy and intense personal passion, explicitly rejecting the term "disruption" in favor of sustaining long-term brand value and relationships with traditional retailers.
- Goldman Sachs14 min
"Catch-Up With David": with Chief Economist Jan Hatzius
Goldman Sachs Chief Economist Jan Hatzius projects a global economic slowdown to approximately 3.5% through 2020 driven by US full employment and Federal Reserve rate hikes, though he maintains that recession risk remains low under this gentle deceleration trajectory. Drawing on 2018 forecasting errors regarding emerging markets and the historical lesson of the Berlin Wall's sudden fall, Hatzius advocates for a professional philosophy that balances rigorous modeling with the artistic judgment required to challenge conventional consensus. He concludes that effective forecasting fundamentally depends on acknowledging the inherent limits of predictive knowledge, a principle he applies by abstaining from speculating on unpredictable events ranging from geopolitical shifts to major sporting outcomes.
- Goldman Sachs14 min
Kevin Plank: Building the Ethos of Under Armour
Over fourteen years, Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank steered the company away from a $750 million acquisition to an independent IPO, guided by a small circle of advisors including Sean Combs and his own wife. The organization has since scaled to over 14,000 employees while shifting its marketing focus from traditional media to a digital "Connected Fitness" ecosystem serving more than 50 million monthly users. Plank also reinvented the brand's athlete strategy by betting early on underdogs like Jordan Spieth and Stephen Curry, emphasizing long-term partnership development over immediate financial gains to maintain a culture of resilience.
- Goldman Sachs19 min
Hamdi Ulukaya: Creating the Culture of Chobani
Hamdi Ulukaya, a Kurdish refugee who fled Turkey in 1994, founded Chobani by purchasing a defunct Kraft yogurt plant in New York in 2005 to create a billion-dollar dairy brand rooted in accessibility and immigrant empowerment. The company now employs thousands of refugees and immigrants from nineteen nationalities, fostering a culture of shared ownership that has grown the startup from five employees to a market leader in just seven years. Beyond corporate success, Ulukaya established The Tent Partnership to mobilize CEOs in providing jobs and integration support for refugees, translating his personal history of resilience into a global strategy that prioritizes human dignity over traditional aid.
- Goldman Sachs20 min
Peter Chernin: The Future of Digital Entertainment
Peter Chernin, John McCutchan, John McWhorter, Eric Schmidt, David Rockefeller Jr., Peter Singer
John McCutchan leveraged his experience founding Fox News to establish Otter Media, where he successfully built a 2.2 million subscriber operation free from legacy media constraints. He contrasts this agility with the stagnation of platforms like Hulu, which he argues was suppressed by parent companies prioritizing ad revenue over a potential $175 billion market opportunity. McCutchan and Eric Schmidt further warn that traditional media faces an imminent crisis as all major direct-to-consumer streaming services currently operate with significant losses, necessitating a fundamental shift from brand marketing to customer-centric problem solving.
- Goldman Sachs10 min
“Catch-Up With David”: ThirdLove’s Heidi Zak and David Spector
Heidi Zak, David Spector, David Solomon
Co-founded by Heidi Zak and Dave Binnings, Third Love disrupted the intimate apparel market by leveraging a proprietary "Fit Finder" algorithm that analyzed millions of user data points to address the statistic that 80% of U.S. women wear incorrect bra sizes. The company successfully scaled its operations to produce hundreds of thousands of units monthly without external venture capital, distinguishing itself from competitors through a female-centric culture and marketing focused on inclusivity rather than traditional retail narratives. This data-driven approach, combined with their dual-CEO leadership model, enabled the founders to refine 70 unique bra sizes and build a resilient supply chain that prioritizes precise fit and customer satisfaction over conventional industry practices.
- Goldman Sachs13 min
David Harding: The Future of Quantitative Investing
William Harding challenges the trend-following orthodoxy and public hype surrounding artificial intelligence while grounding his firm's strategy in extensive historical data analysis stretching back to 1919. He prioritizes organizational resilience by balancing the conflicting interests of stakeholders, maintaining low leverage, and preparing for catastrophic drawdowns that exceed standard probabilistic models. This approach validates Winton's long-term conviction that quantitative modeling offers a robust, non-controversial solution to market volatility without relying on speculative technologies.
- Goldman Sachs19 min
Peter Fonagy: Combating a Mental Health Crisis
Peter Fonagy, drawing on his personal survival of childhood depression and evolutionary biology, argues that child development depends on community "alloparenting" rather than isolated maternal care, criticizing modern separation policies and industrial family structures. He contrasts these systemic failures with evidence that punitive parenting and excessive educational pressure undermine mental health, while advocating for sensitivity-based discipline and the public skills training necessary to replace current destigmatization efforts. This perspective is further applied to organizational settings where a disconnect between leadership perception and employee reality perpetuates anxiety, highlighting the urgent need for adults to actively regulate emotional environments across both domestic and professional spheres.
- Goldman Sachs9 min
"Catch-Up With David": Lloyd Blankfein
Lloyd Blankfein, David Solomon
Outgoing CEO David Solomon prepares his successor by urging the management of the transition chasm and a strict prioritization of stakeholder obligations over personal entitlement. Drawing on a decade of experience, he emphasizes that leadership demands constant engagement with difficult decisions and utilizes public platforms strictly to serve the firm's interests. Solomon steps down to facilitate a fresh vision, advising the incoming leader to sustain a marathon pace of humility and energy while anticipating his own future shift toward unrestrained personal expression.