Chris Riback Podcasts

Today – a special edition of our sister podcast "Call In," which explores Inclusive Leaderships – when to call in, and when to call out. Our guest was Julian Francis, President and CEO of Beacon Building Products – the largest publicly traded distributor of roofing materials and complementary building products in the U.S. and Canada. A key componen…

For anyone fortunate to come home to a familiar space, we can forget the compounding difficulty of homelessness. A home represents stability, and in the wake of the COVID 19 pandemic, homelessness was made even worse. Mary Kay Orr, the Executive Director of Nazareth Housing, wanted to address the problem of homelessness in New York in a meaningful …

As global and domestic businesses enter a new and potentially-fraught economic environment, the relationship between the U.S. government and American business – always evolving – will face new challenges: Inflation, fair trade vs. free trade, China, protectionism, labor, supply chains, taxes, and of course, the massive humanitarian devastation and …

We know the headlines: Inflation is the highest in 40 years, climbing 7 percent last year. Stock prices and corporate debt have been running incredibly high. Unemployment, meanwhile, is incredibly low, while the U.S. economy grew 5.7 percent in 2021, its fastest full-year clip since 1984. The wealth gap, meanwhile, continues to spread. To fight the…

Of all human tools and inventions, few are as essential, complicated and stigmatized as money. In particular, financial technologies and concepts have often spurred growth, investment and powerful advancements around the globe.Maja Lapcevic brings a masterful understanding to the fintech space and these concepts. She is Senior Vice President, Maste…

Throughout nearly the entirety of human history, we have accepted a simple truth: A person’s genetic makeup is beyond one’s choice. Until now. In 2020, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna for the development of CRISPR, a method for genome editing. CRISPR may change everything -- and land us in a wo…

By now we know what went wrong in the response to the most devastating pandemic in a century. Mistakes were legion and many of the world’s biggest drug and vaccine makers were slow to react or couldn’t muster effective responses. “A Shot to Save the World: The Inside Story of the Life-or-Death Race for a Covid-19 Vaccine” by award winning Wall Stre…

CD&R Co-President Dave Novak hosts Professor Nien-hê Hsieh, the Joseph L. Rice, III Faculty Fellow at Harvard Business School, for a discussion about the cultural shifts around business and purpose. As Founder, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and Partner over his three-decade career at CD&R, Joseph L. Rice, III shaped an institution grounded in …

Today we explore entrepreneurialism – the spirit that drives it, and what it takes to turn that spiritual drive into tangible action. The journey takes us to hallowed halls at Harvard and Stanford, but it starts in – perhaps – a less likely location: The Philippines. The U.S. health care challenge is likely well known to listeners of this podcast. …

It seems obvious: We are not exactly living in the golden age of trust. Everywhere one turns, trust seems to be crumbling – institutions, politicians, media, even science. The causes, of course, are everywhere, starting – but not ending – with social media and that old line: a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting…

Great business leaders are often seen as innovators, inspirational storytellers and brilliant leaders. They are keen and decisive observers. But would we envision any mathematical principles in their toolkit? Just as business finds solutions to various problems and hurdles, mathematical formulas and practices make sense of our chaotic world. What c…

In the time of an unprecedented global pandemic, boards – private and public – have been forced to re-examine priorities. And it’s not just trying to manage through Covid. ESG, diversity & inclusion, an evolving remote-work dynamic, a growing expectation that corporations will engage with social issues around race, gender and more. As companies fac…

Has there been a time when science has played a more significant, more direct role in the quality, if not quantity, of our lives? The most obvious example, of course, is Covid-19 – from understanding the pandemic to developing a cure in record time. And yet simultaneously – just as science brings us together, allowing individuals and societies to c…

For eight years, Ben Rhodes served as Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama, engaged in issues ranging from reestablishing relations with Cuba to Benghazi to helping negotiate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the Iran nuclear deal. Now, more than four years after leaving that role – but still engaged in business…

For eight years, Ben Rhodes served as Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama. Now Rhodes has written a book — After the Fall: Being American in the World We've Made — about his personal post-Obama journey that sought to answer a simple question: What happened to the world, America, and himself as the undertow of history pulled us into …

We’re back for a new season! I also launched my new daily email, Chris Riback’s Newsletter. 6 days a week, I compile and publish the meaningful ideas, trends and events into a daily briefing of what you need to know, and not a word more. I add engaging videos, tweets, graphs, and more. My goal is to help readers save time and stay smarter. Sign up …

It goes without saying – nearly every sector globally has been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. But for few sectors are those effects more evident than universities. From admissions to in-person classes to college sports, there’s hardly an element of the experience that hasn’t had to pivot quickly. So what about endowment investing? As universiti…

While the terms diversity, equity and inclusion are not new, the movement – across society, institutions, and businesses – gained extraordinary momentum this year. Obviously, this push for increased understanding, awareness, and action was greatly inspired by George Floyd’s death. It has grown from there. But what, exactly, does diversity, equity, …

A straightforward question: as we consider the future of diversity and inclusion in private equity, can the industry meet the challenge? To seek answers, the Private Capital Project at the Harvard Business School and the Private Capital Research Institute recently hosted a webinar with a group of limited and general partners. What did they find? I …

Businesses, of course, face risk every day, whether from supply chain disruption, calamity, or as we’ve seen from a series of hurricanes of the last years, Mother Nature. But most of these risks have a foreseeable ending – after all, at some point the hurricane passes. But among the many business risks during this Covid age are the unknown risks – …

This is a special live Zoom edition of Chris Riback’s Conversations, the first in our new series of political book conversations sponsored by Cornell’s Institute of Politics & Global Affairs. What does it mean for democracy when the President attacks the free press as fake news? How should journalists balance the need to avoid becoming the “opposit…

Chances are, you may not have heard of New Rochelle, NY before about a month ago. It’s New York’s 7th largest city, located just 30 minutes north of Manhattan. It was founded by refugee Huguenots – French Protestants – who were fleeing religious persecution in France in 1688. During the 1930s, New Rochelle was the wealthiest city per capita in New …

When I first scheduled an election analysis discussion with former U.S. Representative Steve Israel, it’s fair to say that my initial set of questions had nothing to do with how to run for President in a time of Coronavirus. That’s where this conversation begins, but not where it ends. Because while we all navigate this new reality, we’re also stil…

It’s the age old question nearly every business brand would like to know: What do young people care about? Do they apply their beliefs and goals to their commercial choices? Do brands matter to them? Put differently, from a brand’s perspective, do youth care about who you are — or what you do and how you do it? What are the forces influencing their…

Today we continue with our check on the state of American democracy. We began with Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt to get an update on “How Democracies Die” and the question: How much more can our institutions take? Today we’ll look at the cornerstone of our democracy and a question that’s as shocking to ask as it sounds: Can …

Once again this year, thousands of the world’s leading economic and business players met in the little Swiss ski town of Davos. And once again, the key topics and discussions had little to do with winter sports. The reasons are obvious. There’s a lot going on in the world today and plenty of questions: As global political economies continue to evol…

It’s time for a democracy check. With the Trump Impeachment Trial over and the 2020 presidential primaries in full bloom, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I imagine many other people are wondering, too: How’s our democracy doing? Are America’s democratic norms still valid? How much more can our institutions take? And this was even before the Rog…

The first time he said it – or rather tweeted it – was in January 2018. In describing his business, television, and political accomplishments, President Trump typed: “I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius… and a very stable genius at that!” He said it again at a NATO meeting that July. Again the following July 2019. And again in Septe…

Rick Wilson – the sharp-witted, wise-cracking Republican political strategist, ad-maker, analyst, columnist, and crazy-good tweeter – joined me in Westchester County, NY for a live conversation about the 2020 election, impeachment, and his new book, “Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump – and Democrats from Themselves.” It w…

(Note: This is a DocuPod – audio reads of important public documents. No conversation; no interview. Just the document itself.) You may have noticed: Especially with the impeachment, there’s been a lot of news, coverage and discussion – tweets, speeches, rallies, angry letters, hearings, cable panels – around two branches of government: The Executi…