Meet the Leader

Making tough calls and earning team buy-in: Cisco’s Liz Centoni on driving big change

Big change is often fraught with big fallouts and big feelings. Cisco's chief customer experience officer Liz Centoni runs a team with tens of thousands of employees and has 25 years of experience making the tough calls needed to drive needed technological change and earn critical buy-in and support. She shares what she's learned about tackling team fears and frictions head on and the importance of breaking down complex shifts into manageable ‘chunks’ to bring people along. She explains why she recommends leaders embrace the 'power of the pause’ -- and wait to speak in meetings -- and what's needed to get truly honest feedback in pivotal moments. Learn more about her approach – and the empowering lessons she learned about transformation from books like ‘The Courage to be Disliked’ and the famed psychologist Viktor Frankl.

There's a potential $400 trillion retirement savings gap. How leaders can fix it

The retirement savings gap could grow to $400 trillion by 2050 -- a global problem that can’t just be tackled by simple saving alone. Meanwhile, we’re living longer and longer, a reality that is changing the way we live in our later years while making it trickier to save. Yie-Hsin Hung, the CEO of State Street Investment Management, will break down this problem and the new multi-prong approaches from all parts of society that will be needed to fix it. She also shares the moments that shaped her as a leader (like the simple question she asked early in her career that has helped her get honest feedback to this day). 

How one global health leader prepares teams for the unexpected: Gavi CEO

How does the CEO of an organization brought in to help respond to fast-moving health crises like Mpox and other infectious diseases plan for the unexpected? Sania Nishtar heads up Gavi - The Vaccine Alliance, an organization that has helped vaccinate over one billion children in the world's poorest countries and prevent more than 18 million deaths worldwide. Sania talks to us about the planning, mindsets, technologies and scenario planning her team uses to be ready for any emergency. She explains the importance of securing ‘crystal clarity’ in advance for what its expected to deliver and how that helps the organization prepare for a range of circumstances and efficiently coordinate with governments and other global organizations when time is of the essence. This organization was launched at Davos 25 years ago and she shares what what’s needed for global health security and strengthened public health systems now and in months and years ahead. This interview was recorded in January 2025 at the Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland

A Gen Z founder on breaking down big stigmas and surviving hustle-culture

Nadya Okamoto is a social entrepreneur who got her start founding a nonprofit as a teenager that distributed menstrual pads to the homeless in San Francisco, an organization that grew into one of the largest youth nonprofits in the world,.She has has since founded August, a lifestyle period brand, and knows first-hand that being a founder in this space requires tackling the shame and stigma that historically followed menstruation and menstrual products, one that today continues to creates barriers for everything from health equity to securing funding and support to bridge these gaps. In this wide-ranging conversation, she shares the unique, boundary-pushing ways she works to break down stigmas to bridge period equity gaps while driving growth for this sector, and how running teams at the height of startup mania, hustle culture and girl boss memes helped her learn the hard way how to prioritize rest and sidestep burnout.

7 women leaders on the books that shaped their lives

In this special collection episode, top women leaders in business, non-profits and more share the books that inspired them, informed them and changed their minds. These books will make you take a second read of a classic - whether it's a favorite business book or an Agatha Christie mystery. And these insightful picks will have you thinking differently about a range of big problems, from geography's role in a fractured society to how transit design can widen gender gaps. These books will help you get sharper at your role -- and even find new ways to make room for joy.