MIT EMBA - SPREADLOVEIO

Co-Creator of Impact – Alon Shklarek

SpreadLove In Organizations

Co-Creator of Impact - Alon Shklarek

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“What makes you tick?” Alon Shklarek took this question to a deep reflection that led him to be free. Free to create impact through businesses, live his purpose to improve the world, and fix meaningful problems. His deep belief is that every company should have a social impact focus, and deeply think about how with their capabilities they can make the world a better place. Hear his thoughts on leadership being a team sport, his views on entrepreneurship, him not being George Clooney, and his words of wisdom on impact.

“When I see a problem I care about, I start a business.”

MEET OUR GUEST Alon Shklarek, serial impact entrepreneur, investor, and enabler.

Alon has founded, co-founded, and invested in over 25 businesses across 16 countries to date. Whether it is his ventures in the digital health space that are improving health outcomes for thousands of patients every day or his sustainability-focused ventures such as his leading plastics recycling company that gives over 100.000 tons of plastic waste a second life every year, all his companies are focused around leading with purpose and impact.

As an active Impact Investor Alon directly supports and mentors selected social entrepreneurs and is an ASN member of Ashoka, the world’s leading social entrepreneurship organization.

Besides, Alon teaches Leadership and Entrepreneurship as Guest Lecturer at MIT.

Transcripts

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: Alon Shklarek

Naji: Hello, leaders of the world. Welcome to spread love in organizations, the podcast for purpose-driven healthcare leaders, striving to make life better around the world by leading their teams with genuine care, servant leadership and love. I’m Naji your host for this episode, joined today by Alon Shklarek serial entrepreneur investor, and a serial entrepreneur. Alon has founded co-founded and invested in over 25 businesses across 16 countries. Whether it is duct plexus, the largest Indian doctors platform that solves thousands of patient cases every day, or sky plastics, a leading European recycling company that recycles over 100,000 tons…

Know When to Go – Jonathan Fleming

SpreadLove In Organizations

Know When to Go - Jonathan Fleming

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It starts with the right people to solve the 75 steps! Jonathan Fleming is clear on what it takes to build successful biotech companies. He has built, cofounded, and funded several companies serving and changing the lives of millions of patients worldwide. Great leaders are humble and mindful enough to understand the blessing they were given for them to give back. They lead with care and love, especially in healthcare. Leadership is also about knowing when to go. In this provocative episode, you will hear incredible insights and straightforward words of wisdom. A great summary for us leading healthcare organizations: we should never forget our moral, ethical, and legal responsibility for patients, employees, and shareholders.

“Leading with love and care is something you should do to the core of your being in healthcare.”

MEET OUR GUEST Jonathan Fleming Executive Chairman of QurAlis and Enclear Therapies. Former President and CEO of Q-State Biosciences, and former Managing Partner of Oxford Bioscience Partners, an international venture capital firm specialized in life science investments.

Jonathan has been founding, financing, and operating breakthrough life science companies for over 30 years in the USA, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. During his career, he has raised more than $1 billion for early-stage investment funds that made more than 200 investments resulting in over 20 IPOs and 40 M&A events.

Jonathan has been the CEO of a neuroscience company, been the chairman of the board of numerous organizations, and been a director of many public and private companies. He has participated in the creation of numerous startups and has worked with seven different Nobel laureates to create and build companies based upon their work.

Jonathan has been a senior lecturer at the Sloan School since 2002 where I met him in an incredible class on strategic decisions in Life Science.

The Key is People – Zen Chu

SpreadLove In Organizations

The Key is People - Zen Chu

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Zen Chu built and invested in several successful medical and healthcare companies, his key to success: People first. When reflecting on the investor side, this doesn’t change either, it starts with people. For Zen, the best leaders and investors are those focused on impact, and when love is in their life, it allows them to be laser-focused on the impact they bring. In this episode, hear Zen’s incredible personal story and journey, his insightful advice, and lessons learned from leading turnarounds to building extremely successful ventures!

“Love in your life allows you to focus purely on impact.”

MEET OUR GUEST Zen Chu, Health Tech Serial Entrepreneur, and Investor.

Faculty Director for the Healthcare Ventures graduate courses and Hacking Medicine student teams at MIT, Harvard Medical School and UCLA.

As founder of four medical companies and Hacking Medicine Venture Capital fund, Zen has 25 years of experience building early-stage medical technology and healthcare service companies, usually serving among the first investors in companies like PillPack.com, Abridge.com, FeelMore Labs, Nurx.com, Aptible, Luminopia, Molecule.to, MycoMedica, DirectDerm and a few others still in stealth mode.

Zen cofounded and served as CEO for 3D-Matrix Medical Inc. a venture-backed MIT regenerative medicine company with a successful IPO in 2011. 3D-Matrix has wound-healing and drug-delivery products on the market outside of the US and multiple human clinical trials in process.

I met Zen through the MIT Healthcare Ventures, a course that teaches entrepreneurship, business models, and venture creation around technology that can transform healthcare. Zen actively consults companies in pharma, health tech, and healthcare systems struggling to adapt to global digital healthcare transformation and emerging markets.

Referent Leadership – Jim Dougherty

SpreadLove In Organizations

Referent Leadership - Jim Dougherty

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You rarely chat with a leader with such extensive successful experience, from building companies to being on boards of large institutions, whose purpose is to make people happy. Through his humility and focus on mutual respect, transparency, and honesty, Jim Dougherty believes that one of the most important keys to success is the culture you create in a company. For him, culture should be created strategically in every company including startups, and not only be words on a wall or a slide. You’ll hear incredible advice on how to lead turnarounds while engaging teams to thrive and be at their best. In the end, people will remember how they felt with you, and this is the legacy that will remain…

“People want to work with you because they want to learn how to behave like you.”

MEET OUR GUEST Jim Dougherty Executive Chairman and Co-Founder at Madaket Health.

Jim is an entrepreneur, senior executive, and also Senior Lecturer in Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Strategic Management at MIT. He has extensive experience working directly with investors to execute highly successful turnarounds of troubled companies. He has stabilized and recapitalized such companies as Gartner, IntraLinks, Prodigy, and Small Business ISP. At Lotus Development Corporation, Jim was the founder of eApps (Internet Division), and he created the NOTES: NEWSSTAND business publishing service which was later sold successfully. He is also an Adjunct Senior Fellow for Business and Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He sits on the board of different institutions too.

Jim is on the Board of Trustees for Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he Chairs the Research Oversight Committee, Bright Spirit Children’s Foundation, and the Foreign Policy Association in New York City.

Jim holds a BA in government from Framingham State University, an MA in international economics from Columbia University, and a Graduate Certificate of Special Studies in finance and administration from Harvard University.

Here are the great articles from Jim Dougherty we mentioned in the episode published in Harvard Business Review – HBR.

Change Needs Courage & Data – Dimitris Bertsimas

SpreadLove In Organizations

Change Needs Courage & Data - Dimitris Bertsimas

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AI is simply the future, more explicitly Dimitris Bertsimas likes to talk about analytics which is for him the science of using data to build models that lead to decisions that impact the world positively. Personalized medicine is the aspiring future that we will get to soon. As leaders, we will have to drive those changes. This needs courage and openness to what data tells us. Hear from a leader who changed medical practices through data, models and decisions and impacted positively thousands of lives. “The beauty of computers is they don’t get tired”, but they can’t replace humans, hear more about it in this episode.

“Love is the most significant aspect of human happiness”

MEET OUR GUEST Dimitris Bartsimas Associate Dean of Business Analytics, Boeing Professor of Operations Research, and faculty director of the Master of Business Analytics at MIT.

Dimitris is Global Operations Professor of Management, a Professor of Operations Research, and the Associate Dean for the Master of Business Analytics at MIT.

A faculty member since 1988, his research interests include optimization, stochastic systems, machine learning, and their application. In recent years, he has worked in robust optimization, statistics, healthcare, transportation, and finance. Dimitris is also a serial entrepreneur and was a co-founder of Dynamic Ideas, sold to American Express. He is also the founder of Dynamic Ideas Press, a publisher of scientific books, the cofounder of Benefits Science, a company that designs health care plans for companies, Dynamic Ideas Financial, a company that provides financial advice to customers, of Alpha Dynamics, an asset management company, P2 Analytics, an analytics consulting company, and of MyA health, a personalized health care advice company.

Dimitris has coauthored more than 200 scientific papers and several books. He is the former department editor of Optimization for Management Science and of Operations Research in Financial Engineering. A member of the National Academy of Engineering and an INFORMS fellow, he has received numerous research awards, including the Harold Larnder Prize (2016), the Philip Morse Lectureship prize (2013), the William Pierskalla best paper award in health care (2013), best paper award in Trapsoration (2013), the Farkas Prize (2008), the Erlang Prize (1996), the SIAM Prize in Optimization (1996), the Bodossaki Prize (1998), and the Presidential Young Investigator Award (1991–1996). He has also received recognition for his educational contributions: The Jamieson prize (2013) and the Samuel M. Seegal prize (1999).

Dimitris holds a BS in electrical engineering and computer science from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, as well as an MS in operations research and a PhD in applied mathematics and operations research from MIT.

Transcripts

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: Dimitris Bertsimas

Naji Gehchan: Hello, leaders of the world. Welcome to spread love in organizations, the podcast for purpose-driven healthcare leaders, striving to make life better around the world by leading their teams with genuine care, servant leadership, and love. I am Naji, your host for this episode joined today by Dimitris Bertsimas Professor of Management, Operations Research, and Associate Dean for the Master of Business Analytics at MIT. A faculty member since 1988, Dimitris’ research include optimization, stochastic systems, machine learning, and their application in different sectors including healthcare. Dimitris is also a serial entrepreneur, he cofounded several companies like Dynamic…

Compassionate Leader – Marissa Afton

SpreadLove In Organizations

Compassionate Leader - Marissa Afton

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We’ve been hearing a lot lately about empathy and its importance in leadership (finally!), have you heard about compassionate leadership? Marissa Afton will take us through her work and research on what compassionate leaders do to build and engage high-performing teams and deliver success. You’ll also hear about self-care and the importance of “kindness to self” with great practical tips for us to fit in our daily schedules, like performance breaks and self space.

“Do Hard Things in a Human Way”

MEET OUR GUEST Marissa Afton International Partner & Head of Global Accounts at Potential Project

Marissa is a Partner and Head of Global Accounts at Potential Project. She is a driving force behind leadership development and change initiatives at multinational companies, helping leaders and organizations unlock their potential to create cultural excellence and superior performance, resilience, and innovation.

A mindfulness practitioner for over 25 years, Marissa is recognized for her breadth of knowledge and deep experience in transforming organizations by transforming the mind.

She is a sought-after speaker at leadership conferences about the impact of mind training on high-performing cultures, as well as the mental qualities of excellent leaders. She works with many Fortune 500 companies including Bloomberg, Cisco, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, and White & Case, among others.

Here’s the link to her latest book on compassionate leadership https://www.potentialproject.com/resources#01-books

The Two Should Coexist – Richard Kivel

SpreadLove In Organizations

The Two Should Coexist - Richard Kivel

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VC and Love? Can those two words coexist? For Richard Kivel, a renowned VC in healthcare, the most valuable VCs in the end, are those who are empathetic and direct at the same time. They are with you when there are problems, and point them out recognizing that things don’t usually go as planned. For him, it is the love versus fear concept. When investing in companies, he looks for devoted CEO, truthful and focused, with a vision and passion for the company, a CEO who is loved rather than feared! “If people feel valued, they feel loved, if they feel loved they are going to be committed, If they are committed, the organization will have a higher probability of success.” So, it really comes down to LOVE.

“Look for a CEO who is loved, not feared.”

MEET OUR GUEST Richard Kivel Investor & Board Director in Technology and Healthcare.

Richard serves as the Managing Director of GrayBella Capital LLC, a Pan-European venture capital firm based in London, investing in growth-stage technology and healthcare companies.

Since 2021 he has served as a Board member of Lottery.com, a publicly-traded (Nasdaq: LTRY) leading technology company that is transforming how, where and when lottery is played. Since 2018, Richard has served as Chairman of the Board of BC Platforms, a Zurich, Switzerland-based bio-computing leader.

Before this, Richard was Executive Chairman of the Board of ViS Research Inc., leading to a successful acquisition by IMS Health. In addition, he was a Board Director and Chairman of the nominating committee of Rexahn Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE: RNN) from 2010 until 2013.

Richard’s executive management experience also includes a Senior Management position at Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, and two Chief Executive Officer positions: TheraGenetics, Ltd. from 2006 until 2009, and MolecularWare, Inc. from 2001 until 2004. Both companies were successfully acquired.

He has served various roles at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, including as the Chairman and President of the MIT Enterprise Forum, a Board member of the MIT Alumni Association, and is a regular Lecturer at MIT and other schools. He is also a Trustee of Bankinter Innovation Foundation, a technology think-tank based in Madrid.

Genuine Love – Bob Jones

SpreadLove In Organizations

Genuine Love - Bob Jones

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When Bob heard the word love, he was really not sure… Hear his thoughts on the true meaning of spreading love in organizations from helping others realize their dreams to giving space for your people to thrive. Leadership is courage, entrepreneurship is loneliness, and if you go that route make sure the need is unmet, customers really think what you are providing is better, and ensure the sustainability of your venture.

“Help them connect the dots to the purpose, inspire them, and get out of the way!”

MEET OUR GUEST Bob Jones Entrepreneur, CEO, Speaker, Author of “The Start-Up Starter Kit”.

Bob is CEO of Scientific Nutrition Products, Inc. The company addresses medical conditions by creating and selling nutrition-based products. Bob was previously a Principal at Scientia Advisors, a strategy consulting firm, where Bob led the Nutrition and Wellness practice. Prior to Scientia, Bob was President and CEO of Vitasoy USA, Inc., the nation’s largest marketer and manufacturer of tofu and the pioneer of soymilk in America. This was a management turn-around.

Before joining Vitasoy, Bob launched three start-ups in the medical nutrition field. Each company addressed chronic medical disorders such as diabetes via specifically targeted nutrition products (rather than drugs). All three start-ups were with staff and faculty at Harvard Medical School. Each company turned leading-edge science into consumer products that were sold through retail pharmacies.

Bob has held executive positions at several other companies, including Abbott Laboratories and Baxter International. He has two awarded patents in the field of nutrition. He is an active mentor with MIT’s Venture Mentoring Service and has served as a judge in MIT’s 100K Business Plan Competition. He has an A.B. in biology from Princeton University and an MSM from MIT Sloan.

After hours, Bob plays in a blues band in the Boston area and is a springboard diver, and an enthusiastic motorcyclist.

Transcripts

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: Bob Jones

Naji: Hello, leaders of the world. Welcome to spread love in organizations, the podcast for purpose-driven healthcare leaders, striving to make life better around the world by leading their teams with genuine care, servant leadership, and love. I’m Naji, your host for this episode joined today by Bob Jones, serial healthcare industry, entrepreneur. Bob is founder and currently CEO of scientific nutrition products, a company addressing medical conditions by creating and selling nutrition based products. Bob was previously a principal at CIA advisors, a strategy consulting firm, where Bob led the nutrition and wellness practice. Prior to that, Bob was…

Effective Leadership – Ben Shields

SpreadLove In Organizations

Effective Leadership - Ben Shields

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We hear a lot about transferable managerial skills from sports to corporate and entrepreneurial world, Ben Shields summarized those to two key components: common goal for teams and measurable performance. Along those comes a crucial leadership skill of creating and maintaining a winning culture, which is a collective set of actions and behaviors that defines it, and best teams are obsessive about ensuring the culture is sustainable daily. This starts by building a learning culture based on mutual understanding. On a more individual level, success for Ben is driven by passion, hard work and luck. What about data and decision making? “Data can help you be less wrong in your decisions.”

“Great leaders make those around them better.”

MEET OUR GUEST Ben Shields Senior Lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management.

Ben Shields is a Senior Lecturer in Managerial Communication at the MIT. He studies the multibillion-dollar sports industry to identify broadly transferable management lessons in areas such as leadership communication, data-driven decision making, and innovation.

Ben authored three books, Social Media Management: Persuasion in Networked Culture (Oxford University Press, 2016), The Sports Strategist: Developing Leaders for a High Performance Industry (Oxford University Press, 2015), and The Elusive Fan: Reinventing Sports in a Crowded Marketplace (McGraw-Hill, 2006), teaches and directs a number of courses and programs.

Prior to MIT, Ben served as the Director of Social Media and Marketing at ESPN. He oversaw social media strategy for the ESPN brand and collaborated across the enterprise to develop and implement company-wide social strategy. He also worked on marketing strategy for several ESPN brands and sub-brands, including the SportsCenter “DaDaDa” campaign and the Emmy Award-winning “It’s Not Crazy, It’s Sports” brand campaign.

Ben holds a BS and MA in communication studies and a PhD in media, technology, and society, all from Northwestern University.

Transcripts

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: Ben Shields

Naji: Hello, leaders of the world. Welcome to spread love in organizations, the podcast for purpose-driven healthcare leaders, striving to make life better around the world by leading their teams with genuine care, servant leadership, and love. I’m Naji your host for this episode, joined today by Ben Shields, senior lecturer in managerial communication at the MIT. Ben studies the multibillion dollar sports industry to identify broadly transferable management lessons in areas such as leadership, communication, data driven, decision making and innovation. Ben teaches a number of courses. And I had the privilege to be in one of those where…

From Data To Impact – Georgia Perakis

SpreadLove In Organizations

From Data To Impact - Georgia Perakis

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From the island of Crete in Greece to the US, Georgia Perakis fulfilled her father’s dream. We wouldn’t have imagined that analytics could actually change the world and make a real difference. Georgia took it even further and talks about an analogy with data to understand the power of diversity and inclusion. Her pragmatic vision of using data is invaluable and makes us see things through a different lens. Start by filtering out the noise around big data and asking the big question: what is the problem I am trying to solve? Before big data, let’s start talking about “little data” and missing data to put things in order and see the big picture. Georgia definitely won her students’ hearts but also the analogy of the year by comparing MIT to a great candy store to choose from! Thank you for being who you are and for your exceptional leadership!

“The Love Large Numbers: Look at the long term goal, focus on the end outcome rather than looking at the present failure, persist… it will work out eventually.”

MEET OUR GUEST Georgia Perakis, Professor of Management, Operations Research, Statistics, and Operations Management.

Prof Georgia Perakis teaches at MIT Sloan courses and performs research in analytics, optimization, machine learning with applications in pricing, revenue management, supply chains, transportation, energy, and healthcare among others.

In her research, Georgia investigates the theory and practice of analytics and its role in operations problems. She has received numerous awards and has several prestigious publications.

Currently, Georgia serves as the co-director of the Operations Research Center, on the council for the College of Computing, and faculty director of the Executive MBA (EMBA) program at MIT Sloan. She is also the editor-in-chief of the M&SOM journal. Prior to that role, she had also served as America’s editor in chief of the Journal of Pricing and Revenue Management, as a department editor for the journal Service Science in the area of Analytics and as an associate editor for the flagship journals: Management Science, Operations Research, M&SOM, INFORMS Journal on Optimization, and as a senior editor for POM. She has served as the chair of the RMP Section of INFORMS and as the VP of Meetings of the MSOM Society of INFORMS.

Georgia holds a BS in mathematics from the University of Athens as well as an MS in applied mathematics and a PhD in applied mathematics from Brown University.

Transcripts

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: Georgia Perakis

Naji Gehchan: Hello, leaders of the world. Welcome to spread love in organizations, the podcast for purpose-driven healthcare leaders, striving to make life better around the world by leading their teams with genuine care, servant leadership, and love. I am Naji, your host for this episode from our new series focused on us as leaders. I’m thrilled to be joined by an exceptional MIT professor of Management, Operations Research, Statistics and Operations Management: Georgia Perakis. Georgia teaches courses and performs research in analytics, optimization, machine learning with applications in pricing, revenue management, supply chains, transportation, energy, and healthcare among others.…