As a leader, letting go doesn’t mean abdicating responsibility. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Letting go to lead means encouraging your people toward mastery, infusing the workplace with a sense of purpose, allowing room for self-direction and giving others more autonomy in their jobs. In the Let Go & Lead podcast, Maril MacDonald, Founder and CEO of award winning strategy firm Gagen MacDonald, unpacks these topics and more in conversations with today’s business leaders, academics and creative thinkers.
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Margery Kraus | What It Takes To Be Truly “Glocal”
jeudi 17 juillet 2025 • Durée 40:37
Margery Kraus, founder and executive chairman of APCO, reflects on 40 years of leadership. She shares how APCO grew from a small team into a global advisory firm rooted in trust, values and innovation.
Margery discusses building a culture that thrives across borders, letting go of control to develop future leaders and applying lessons from motherhood to business. She also looks ahead to what’s next, including bold thinking around education, youth opportunity and social change.
Key Takeaways:
(00:28) Leadership journeys often begin with unexpected opportunities.
(03:04) An outside perspective can lead to more creative solutions.
(09:09) Culture is easier to scale when values are shared.
(11:30) Letting go of control is part of growing a company.
(21:33) Personal life lessons can influence leadership philosophies.
(23:02) Public praise and private feedback build trust and respect.
(26:31) Being underestimated can become a strategic advantage.
(33:45) Knowing when to step back is key to long-term success.
(36:19) Major change creates space for bold new ideas.
Let Go & Lead is a leadership platform created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership.
Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience—for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Gagen MacDonald is a woman-owned, human-focused transformation consulting firm and trusted partner to the C-suite. We specialize in internal communications, employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
To survive over the long term, businesses must constantly innovate and transform. All too often, however, forces inside companies stifle this change.
Greg Larkin has built a career as an internal disruptor. In his view, anyone who seeks to innovate from within, to transform a legacy company, naturally comes into contact with obstructionists — with people who, for different reasons, act as barriers to change. Larkin has identified five key obstructionist archetypes, and he has a playbook of strategies for overcoming each one of them. He talks with Maril about his career journey; about his leadership community for disruptive executives, Pinstripes & Punks, and what it means to be a business punk; and ultimately, about why pushing against the norm, attempting to drive change and being a “punk” is an act of love, not an act of war, for a business.
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change.
Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
General Jay Silveria | Leadership Lessons from the Cockpit
Saison 7 · Épisode 6
mardi 1 octobre 2024 • Durée 39:57
From the U.S. Air Force to higher education, General Jay Silveria’s leadership career has been as wide-ranging as they come. After leading pilots into combat and going viral for the anti-racist speech he made while Superintendent of the United States Air Force Academy, Silveria now serves as the Executive Director of Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government & Public Service. The thread beneath all his experiences is that he’s a true servant leader — one who invests time in getting to know his people as a mission imperative.
He and Maril discuss why innovation starts with leaders, and a “bottom-up” approach to fostering innovation rarely gets the job done; why it’s so critical to de-brief and review not just after things go wrong, but after they succeed as well; and why a leader’s responsibility is to looking ahead, imagining contingencies and planning for what could go wrong.
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
Umayma Abubakar | Harmonizing Cultures: The Art of Post-Merger Integration
Saison 7 · Épisode 5
mardi 10 septembre 2024 • Durée 38:17
In a world where so many M&A activities fail to deliver their promised results, Umayma Abubakar has firsthand knowledge of how to buck the trend, and truly create something new and better through all the change.
Starting in 2017, Abubakar helped lead one of the largest mergers in history, when Mubadala Development Company combined with International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) to form what is today known as Mubadala Investment Company. Maril talks with Abubakar, now Mubadala’s deputy chief communications officer, about the principles and practices that drove them through the merger, and what executives around the world can learn from their success. Over a wide-ranging conversation, they cover the importance of leading with respect and inclusivity; of tapping into the experts you already have in the room; of choosing your language carefully; of providing employees with a clear vision and path forward; and of deeply appreciating the many details and dimensions of the cultures you’re combining to truly get the best of both worlds.
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change.
Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
Bonnie St. John | Paralympian Medalist on Harnessing the Power of Positivity
Saison 7 · Épisode 4
mardi 20 août 2024 • Durée 45:12
Resilience is something Bonnie St. John knows in her core. The Harvard grad and Rhodes Scholar became a Paralympic medalist by getting up after she’d fallen down in a very literal way, and since then, she has helped leaders and businesses understand the power in that truth. Over a wide-ranging conversation, she and Maril discuss how there is no one right way to be a leader; why purpose is so important to resilience; and why positivity is such a potent reinforcement mechanism — for locking in learning, for persevering within challenges and ultimately, for accomplishing our goals.
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Julia Hobsbawm | Building Genuine Connection and Trust in a Hybrid World
Saison 7 · Épisode 3
lundi 29 juillet 2024 • Durée 44:06
Work has been in a chaotic flux since COVID-19 began, but as Julia Hobsbawm reminds us, it wasn’t going that well before the pandemic, either.
The author, Bloomberg columnist and futurist of work has been researching connectivity, social health and humans’ relationship with technology since before the age of hybrid work. She talks with Maril about the ways work is changing — from new office models to technology developments to the norms of new generations — and what the best leaders can do to build productive, fulfilled, connected cultures through it all.
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ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
Mark Miller | What Chick-fil-A Has Figured Out About Leadership
Saison 7 · Épisode 2
mardi 9 juillet 2024 • Durée 46:27
At the heart of Chick-fil-A’s iconic culture is a simple but consistent focus on studying and developing good leaders.
Mark Miller, the former Vice President of High Performance Leadership at Chick-fil-A, was there decades ago as the company first asked what it takes to be an effective leader. He was also there leading the charge as they worked to scale the learnings they found. He and Maril discuss the traits that set transformative leaders apart; the power of asking questions; why unclear aspiration is the root of so much organizational culture struggle; and why it’s so important for leaders to value both relationships and results.
LEARN ABOUT
2:56 The most critical competencies for a leader
8:09 How to avoid “leadership quicksand”
13:50 How leaders put curiosity into practice by asking good questions
20:04 The leader’s role in culture
24:19 Maintaining culture with a hybrid workforce
27:30 The importance of storytelling
34:17 Finding the balance between relationships and results
44:14 What leaders most need to let go of
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change. Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers. Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
Kate O’Neill | How leaders can create bankable foresights and scale optimism
Saison 7 · Épisode 1
mardi 18 juin 2024 • Durée 37:17
In a world increasingly driven by technology and data, is it possible to preserve the health of the human experience and the broader planet?
One of the first 100 employees of Netflix, Kate O’Neill has long innovated at the intersection of technology and humanity. In the view of O’Neill and her signature “strategic optimism,” the future is still ours to shape, and businesses have a bigger role to play than they’ve ever had in the past. She and Maril discuss the human specialty of meaning-making, and the ways it manifests into organizational purpose work; why there’s no such thing as being future-proof, only future-ready; and why it’s so critical for leaders to approach societal forces and global headwinds through an integrated, future-forward lens.
LEARN ABOUT:
2:03 The most significant change we’re going through right now
3:54 “Strategic optimism” and why it’s important
8:13 The biggest issues Kate believes companies are facing
11:17 The importance of the “in-between” spaces between questions and answers
16:19 On return-to-office debates and creating meaningful digital experiences
26:24 Scaling optimism and resilience in the face of fatigue
32:06 What leaders most need to let go of
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ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change.
Sally Jenkins | The seven factors of high performing leaders
mardi 17 octobre 2023 • Durée 29:45
In Pulitzer-nominated sportswriter Sally Jenkins’ experience, great leaders are less in the business of winning than the business of teaching.
Over a wide-ranging conversation, Maril and Sally explore the leadership lessons Sally has learned from a career interviewing and writing about the world’s great athletes and coaches. They discuss why discipline is something that leaders can’t impose, but have to call up from within people; why it’s less important to take a popular position than a good position; and why leadership is less like holding the steering wheel and more like conducing an orchestra.
Learn about:
3:18 The leadership factor with the most impact 6:21 Why winning isn’t the only motivator for leaders
7:49 Why discipline is misunderstood and an interior construct
24:44 What leaders most need to let go of
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Sally Jenkins began her second stint at The Washington Post in 2000 after spending the previous decade working as a book author and as a magazine writer. She was named the nation’s top sports columnist in 2001, 2003, 2010 and 2011 by the Associated Press Sports Editors. In 2013, she won a first-place award from the AP for an investigative series co-written with Rick Maese on medical care in the NFL, titled “Do No Harm.” Jenkins is the author of 12 books, four of which were New York Times bestsellers, most recently the No.1 “Sum It Up” with legendary basketball coach Pat Summitt. She is also the author of “The Real All Americans,” the historical account of how the Carlisle Indian School took on the Ivy League powers in college football at the turn of the century and won. Her work has been featured in Smithsonian, GQ and Sports Illustrated. A native of Texas, Jenkins graduated from Stanford and lives in Sag Harbor, New York.
Honors and Awards: 2017 National Press Foundation Chairman's Citation; 2017 Best Sports Stories; 2013 First Place, Associated Press Sports Editors for Investigative Series; 2011 Sports Columnist of the Year, Society of Professional Journalists; 2011 First Place, Associated Press Sports Editors, Columns; 2010 First Place, Associated Press Sports Editors, Columns; 2008 Sports Columnist of the Year, Society of Professional Journalists; 2007 Best Sports Stories; 2005 Inducted National Sports Writers and Sportscasters Hall of Fame (first woman); 2003 First Place, Associated Press Sports Editors, Columns; 2001 First Place, Associated Press Sports Editors, Columns; 2001 Sports Columnist of the year, Society of Professional Journalists.
Vada Manager | Leadership lessons from a career of service
mardi 3 octobre 2023 • Durée 42:43
For Vada Manager, everything comes back to relationships. Throughout a career serving on countless Boards of Directors and advising everyone from Nelson Mandela to Nike founder Phil Knight to the New York Yankees’ George Steinbrenner, Manager has accumulated more than 14,000 contacts in his rolodex, and he’s quick to tout this number with students and mentees. Relationships, he says, come full circle — and his career has been driven by them. Nurturing those relationships through thoughtful gestures and regular contact means that you’re always top of mind for opportunities and your connections remain eager to assist you when they can.
Over a wide-ranging conversation, he and Maril discuss the evolving role of corporate Board members; what companies should ask before they get involved in ESG issues; and the strong culture and leadership that successful businesses of all sizes have in common. To Manager, the best leaders trust the people they hire, build cultures of high “failure tolerance” and remain humble enough to give all ideas the weight and consideration they deserve — no matter who they come from.
Learn about:
3:47 The importance of being prepared
6:55 Relationship building 101
12:30 How to work with the C-suite
17:35 How to be an effective board member
21:53 Lessons for leading in uncertain times
30:50 How leadership and culture intersect
38:58 What leaders need to let go of
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Vada O. Manager, member of APCO Worldwide’s International Advisory Council, is a premier global business and C-Suite strategist with unique expertise in sport and product brand marketing, mergers & acquisitions, crisis management, litigation communication, corporate governance and issues management. Savoy Magazine named Vada to its “Power 300 Most Influential Black Directors” in all three of its editions (2016, 2017 and 2021).
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At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Gagen MacDonald is a woman-owned, human-focused transformation consulting firm and trusted partner to the C-suite. We specialize in internal communications, employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Gagen MacDonald is a woman-owned, human-focused transformation consulting firm and trusted partner to the C-suite. We specialize in internal communications, employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Gagen MacDonald is a woman-owned, human-focused transformation consulting firm and trusted partner to the C-suite. We specialize in internal communications, employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Gagen MacDonald is a woman-owned, human-focused transformation consulting firm and trusted partner to the C-suite. We specialize in internal communications, employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future. We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Full episodes also available on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/let-go-lead-with-maril-macdonald/id1454869525
Gagen MacDonald is a woman-owned, human-focused transformation consulting firm and trusted partner to the C-suite. We specialize in internal communications, employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change.
Over the course of the past 12 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 120 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For almost 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
Mr. Manager manages the diversified investment arm/corporate advisory firm, Manager Global Holdings LLC (which includes the Manager Global Consulting Group LLC) and modest NBA franchise ownership interest via private equity. Prior to founding Manager Global Holdings, he was senior director of global issues management for Nike, Inc., where his broad portfolio of responsibilities included labor practices/global sourcing procedures; marketing communication support for subsidiaries; and crisis management for athletes, product recalls and corporate issues. During his 12-year tenure, in which the company experienced exponential growth, he served on the launch team of nike.com and strategized on new business acquisitions such as the Converse and Starter brands. He was among the early architects of Nike’s renewed corporate responsibility strategy and served as a member of the corporate leadership team, Nike’s most highly valued cohort of global executives. He was Nike’s senior crisis and issues strategist on issues such as the Olympics, the World Cup and company response and business resumption after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Prior to joining Nike, Mr. Manager was senior manager of global communications for Levi Strauss & Co, providing strategic communication counsel to the global leadership team as the company successfully launched and expanded its Dockers and SLATES brands. He was also a vice president at Powell Tate, where he co-managed accounts for key clients such as the PGA Tour, Major League Baseball and Court TV. While there, he also consulted the African National Congress in their transition to power in South Africa under newly elected President Nelson Mandela with sponsorship from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Manager served as vice president of public finance for a NYSE investment banking firm (acquired by Wedbush Securities) and as a senior communication professional on the team administering the Democratic National Convention (1992, 1996 and 2004) and the Commission on Presidential Debates (1992-1996). In 2023, he added ‘executive producer’ to his body of work for the documentary film: “Stewart Udall & The Politics of Beauty.”
A frequent presenter on business strategy and his pioneering concept of “issue marketing,” Mr. Manager has appeared on CNN, CNBC and NBC’s The Today Show, and has been quoted in various thought-leading global print publications. He has affiliations with several national and global organizations, including the American Council on Germany; the U.S. Military Academy (West Point) Civilian Public Affairs Committee (chair); the Issue Management Council (chair, 2007-2009); and the Arizona State University Alumni Council. Mr. Manager also serves on the board of directors (Chair, Governance & Nominating Committee) for lubricants company Valvoline Inc. (NYSE: VVV); a pre-IPO commercial unit of Fortune 500 Ashland, Inc., a specialty chemical company.
Mr. Manager holds a Bachelor of Science from the Arizona State University and is an inductee in its Hall of Fame (College of Liberal Arts, 2000) and member of its Board of Trustees. He also undertook post-graduate (non-degree) study at the London School of Economics.
ABOUT LET GO & LEAD
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change.
Over the course of the past 12 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 120 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
ABOUT GAGEN MACDONALD
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For almost 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
Gagen MacDonald is a strategy execution consulting firm that specializes in employee engagement, culture change and leadership development. Learn more at http://www.gagenmacdonald.com.
