“Great companies want to disrupt themselves before others disrupt them. The difference between Amazon, Netflix, Google, Facebook, and the legions of large but slowly dying companies is usually exactly that: product leadership.”  ~ Marty Cagan The year was 2011. Lea Hickman was leading product for Adobe’s Creative Suite. By then, Lea had already proved her mettle […]

“Empathy is not something we offer to our customers or our employees from nine to five. It is a second by second, minute by minute service that we owe to everyone if we want to call ourselves a leader.”  ~ Lieutenant Colonel Mike Drowley At the age of 30, Bob Chapman became the CEO of Barry-Wehmiller […]

“Corporate culture is the only sustainable competitive advantage that is completely within the control of the entrepreneur.” ~ David Cummings, Co-Founder, Pardot It was the 1960s in New York City. Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation, like all big businesses in the country, did business the East Coast way. The owner lived in a glass-and-marble Manhattan […]

“If you count all your assets you always show a profit.” ~ Wilson Mizner It was amid the global financial crisis in 2008. Like most businesses at the time, WD-40 Company—an American manufacturer of household and multi-use products—was feeling the heat. The CEO Garry Ridge, realised that they were coming down with a serious problem – […]

Two Jewish men, Mark Levine, 56, and Michael Dubin, 33, met at a party in 2010. They griped about the steep price of razor blades – thanks to the unnecessary features, expensive packaging, advertising expenses, and store overheads. That coupled with the inconvenient buying process, they realised that they had spotted a problem worth shaving off. Dubin […]

A top-of-the-class Naval Academy graduate and seasoned submariner, David Marquet, received the greatest honour any naval officer could receive – he was selected to command his very own submarine. What he hadn’t realised then, was that it wasn’t just a terrific recognition. It was an equally terrifying challenge. His submarine, the USS Santa Fe (SSN-763), carried […]