Publication Type: <span>Interview</span>

Companies Do Not Have Machine Learning Problems

Daniel Hulme on the font in a browser cache that predicted loan defaults, the airline that collected everything except its competitors’ prices, and why he says AI ethics does not exist.

I Didn’t Run to Role Model Quitting

Halla Tómasdóttir on the compass she first wrote at thirty and has rewritten sixteen times, what a presidential campaign at one percent taught her about principles, and why she calls leading thirty famous chief executives herding lions.

What You Do in the Dark, and the Authority You Have to Wait For

Paul Polman on the third kind of authority, the trade association memberships that quietly undo a climate pledge, and why the boundaries a leader sets are the reason middle management will not move.

The Numbers Say Pay Attention. The Words Say to What.

Letty Cherry runs employee and culture communications for 190,000 people at Microsoft. Her account of the listening system, the manager layer where culture change stalls, and why an improving culture gets louder before it gets quieter.

The Invisible Law, and a Pile of Trash in the Parking Lot

John Replogle on the unwritten law he says Friedman ignored, the two weeks Burt’s Bees spent sorting its own garbage on a tarp, and the three things he now checks before he invests.

They Would Never Give Me the Money If It Didn’t Work

Philip Thomas on the five global marketers who quietly walked away from creativity and came back when sales slipped, the dip in the agency relationship that gets agencies fired just before the work gets good, and the two percent of a budget he thinks a client should hand over with no conditions attached.

The Hungry Monster: Investing in Data Two Years Before It Pays

Oxford’s professor of marketing on the questions a leader should ask a vendor, why a chat bot cannot be switched on, and the advertising algorithm that would quietly remove diversity from the page.

One in Seven: A CFO on Rewriting the Contract With Your Shareholder

The Adecco Group’s chief financial officer on taking finance away from its desk, why a budget is a guardrail and not a bible, and the recruitment statistic he turned into 150 million in savings.

Poets and Plumbers: The Search Consultant Who Named the Da Vinci CMO

Greg Welch has run more than six hundred senior searches. He describes what actually happens inside one, why the top five things on a CMO’s list often do not drive growth, and where the Da Vinci idea came from.

Fewer Ten-Packs, More Ten-Million-Dollar Deals: How CVS Paid for Leaving Tobacco

Norman de Greve on the arithmetic behind the decision everyone quotes, why none of the innovations that followed came from marketing, and the difference between a mission and a purpose.