The Provocateurs:

Stuart Crainer:

Hello and welcome to The Provocateurs podcast. I’m Stuart Crainer, co-founder of Thinkers50. In Provocateurs, we explore the experiences, insights, and perspectives of inspiring leaders. Our aim is to provoke you to think and act differently through conversations with some fantastic people.

This is our end of year summary episode in which we attempt to draw some red threads and distill wisdom and insights from the guests we have encountered on the podcast this year.

This is a collaboration between Thinkers50 and Deloitte. So we have a full team out today. Joining me from Deloitte are Kulleni Gebreyes, Steve Goldbach and Geoff Tuff.

Kulleni is the vice chair and US life sciences and healthcare industry leader at Deloitte. Steve leads Deloitte sustainability practice in the US. And Geoff leads Deloitte sustainability work globally in the energy and industrial sectors.

Geoff and Steve are the authors of two bestselling books, Detonate, which came out in 2018, and Provoke, which inspired this series.

And joining me from Thinkers50 is my fellow co-founder Des Dearlove.

So Kulleni, Steve, Geoff, and Des. We have quite a job on our hands. Our episodes in 2024 featured Amy Chang, Marcus Collins, Neri Karra Sillaman, Jeff Wetzler, Dane Jensen, Atif Rafiq, Andrew Winston, Paul Polman, and Lisa McKnight. Some brilliant discussions and insights.

So what have we learned? What are the highlights and how have you changed your own thinking and behavior as a result of our discussions?

So let’s begin with, what were the highlights for you, Kulleni? Perhaps I can start with you. What were the highlights?

Kulleni Gebreyes:

Stuart, I would say there are three things that really jumped out at me as I thought through what were the themes that came out of the conversations that we had. And one was the power of the collective. Right?

So whether it was Paul talking about collective leadership and how if we really want to be impactful, that we have to come together in a cooperative leadership. Or Andrew talking about collective courage. And then Marcus using a slightly different language with saying, “Cultural contagion,” and how that can drive behavior. That was a core theme that came out.

Second theme that jumped out at me was that adversity could actually be a fertile ground for new insights and strength. And so that was Dane talking about the Third Factor, which after nature-nurture, it’s our disintegration that allows us to become something bigger than we are.

Neri talking about her personal experiences as a refugee and seeing discrimination to build new businesses that ran differently. And Lisa, thinking about how you reframe a brand that maybe had lost its power, but it’s coming out as something new and better because of adversity.

And then last but not least, which I think is probably what this whole series is focused on, is how curiosity is an essential ingredient in everything that we do.

So whether it’s Jeff talking about how we tap into hidden wisdom, Atif talking about how we bring people along in this collective intelligence. And then Amy, sharing how predictability is actually a source of boredom, and it’s uncertainty and the unknown that makes you curious to learn more.

So it’s the power of the collective. It’s adversity is fertile ground and curiosity needing to be present in everything that we do.

Stuart Crainer:

Brilliant, Kulleni. Marcus Collins had a phrase which he stole from Durkheim, the sociologist, “Collective effervescence.”

Kulleni Gebreyes:

Yes.

Stuart Crainer:

That did stick in my mind really nice. I have no idea really what it means, but it feels nice.

Geoff Tuff:

It’s nice to say too.

Stuart Crainer:

Yeah. Geoff, what were your highlights?

Geoff Tuff:

When I went back through the episodes, I ultimately came back to the core theme that each one of them talked about the individual in some way. And it’s interesting, Kulleni, to hear you talk about the collective is one of your big themes. I really focused on the individual and maybe that suggests a couple of things.

Number one, that there are really multiple different ways to interpret the comments and the input of each one of our different guests.

And number two, I’m probably falling prey to selective listening because, we won’t get into it right now, Steve and I are working on our next project. And a lot of it actually has to do with influencing individual behavior and the power of influencing individual behavior.

But as I went through, for Marcus, I did hear the collective effervescence point, Stuart. And I interpreted that as a lot of individuals coming together and each bringing their own cultural expectations and cultural beliefs into that effervescence.

He was very clear in some of the discussion that he had that ultimately, the point of marketing is to lead culture as opposed to follow culture. And I saw that as a way to use marketing to impact individual behavior as that individual relates with its culture.

Lisa talked a lot about gender confidence, especially of women, and again, that has to do with individuals. She also talked about individual health.

Dane talked about individual execution under the power of pressure, and I could go through each one of them and talk about how I saw the individual central to some of their comments.

And I apologize, I can’t remember our Reflections episode from a year ago. But I feel like one of my favorite parts of the discussions we had at that time was also about just the power of individuals, and what they can do to both change organizations and lead organizations if they’re enabled in the right way.

So I’m sure we’ll dig into each one of our different guests, but that was one of the core themes that stuck out to me, Stuart.

Stuart Crainer:

Yeah, I think Dane Jensen, the Third Factor was, so there’s nature-nurture, and the Third Factor is the role we play in our own moral and emotional growth. And that stuck with me. You were actually making decisions.

Geoff Tuff:

Absolutely.

Stuart Crainer:

Des?

Des Dearlove:

So many great episodes I thought, this particular year, this particular batch. Andrew Winston was brilliant, talking about what it means to be net positive from the latest trends in sustainability. A topic I know is close to Geoff and Steve’s hearts.

I thought Amy Chang was brilliant, talking about the challenge of moving from the comfort zone of a big company like Google to starting her own AI business. And I liked her philosophy based around transparency and the no-assholes policy. I thought that stuck in the memory.

Geoff Tuff:

I think we all like that one, Des. I think that’s a good rule for this podcast too.

Des Dearlove:

Lisa McKnight from Mattel talking about the transformation of Barbie, taking a big risk doing the movie. And on the other side of that, the Barbie Dream Gap social mission and making Barbie relevant to new generations.

I could go on, but if I had to pick one standout moment, and this may not surprise those of you who are in the room. It would have to be the podcast we recorded at Climate Week in New York City live on stage with Paul Polman.

There was a moment during that podcast, I had a goose-bump moment when he was asked about his biggest failure and his fears, and he talked about being able to look his grandchildren in the eye. And he said, “I can’t sit here and look at my seven grandchildren and say I’ve done a great job. Poverty’s going up, climate change is going up, inequality is going up, and we’re all sitting here saying to each other how great we are.”

And there was just a moment, it was actually quite emotionally charged. And I’m sure all of us have met lots of CEOs and C-suite people over the years, and listened to them both publicly and privately. There aren’t many times when you have a moment like that and I think people felt it in the room.

The only parallel I can think of is back in 2013 when we gave Clay Christensen the number one spot in the Thinkers50. And Clay gave an acceptance speech. And again, for a management meeting, there was just something in the room. The Financial Times reported that there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

Geoff Tuff:

And Des, I can tell you, and I was in the audience for your and Steve’s interview with Paul, and first of all, you could hear a pin drop probably. We had hundreds of people in the room listening. And I’m guessing there were not a lot of dry eyes at the time, including Paul’s, if I’m not mistaken.

Des Dearlove:

Yeah, no, it was a special moment. It was a special man, a special leader, but it was a special moment. So I have to say that was probably my standout moment. And sorry Steve, if I beat you to it there.

Steve Goldbach:

It’s totally fine. There is the benefit and the drawbacks of going last in these things. But certainly that was one of my personal highlights of 2024, this podcast and in general, we had a chance to speak to so many terrific leaders.

And I think if I’m building on that highlight, Des, the thing that all of these leaders I think brought to the table was a humility and an appreciation for what it is to be human. And they’re each in their own unique way.

So whether it’s Jeff’s book where he talks about the importance of just asking questions, being curious about other people around you. Not assuming that you understand the world as you see it, that is actually the power of the question.

Whether it’s Amy and talking about the role of herself and the juxtaposition of flying back from a board meeting on a private jet to her startup. And then cleaning up leftover sushi for the team because someone had to do it, and there wasn’t anybody else to do it. So she did it, and just the selflessness of that leadership. And all of what Marcus taught us was about understanding the nature of humanity.

The other theme that I wrote down, I wrote down two other words, was communication and candor. And all of these leaders exhibited a willingness to be candid about the problem. So whether it’s Lisa in talking about the challenges that the Barbie brand was having and willing to lean into that as opposed to shy away from it. And having those difficult conversations about what we’re going to say.

Whether it’s Andrew Winston talking about his own challenges personally. And how that’s fed into his reflections about the climate and his courage to talk about that. There’s just so many stories across this group of just terrific, terrific humanity, clearly with Neri and her backstory as well.

But what I felt cut through every single one of our leaders was the ability to very simply communicate a core idea. And there’s something really powerful about the ability to just say something in very simple terms that galvanizes the people around you to take action.

None of these leaders said it was them. They all gave lots of credit to everybody else. But in my view, as experiencing the story, their ability to garner that support was a testament to their ability to communicate about the challenge they were facing and what it was going to take to solve that particular challenge.

Stuart Crainer:

Do you think perhaps it’s a self-selecting group? Do you think that … You talk about the state of our leaders, displaying humility and being candid, which are not things we’ve traditionally expected of our leaders, and certainly in my lifetime. Are the leaders really changing? Is there a sense that this is a genuine change in leadership do you think?

Steve Goldbach:

I have a view, and we wrote about it in Detonate, that we wish that leaders were much more agile with their ideas and willing to change their minds with new facts and data, and learning brought to the table. It’s, I think, a very outdated model of leadership where the leader has all the answers, the leader knows everything, and every original answer the leader’s ever had is correct.

I’d much rather personally run through fire for a leader who’s willing to acknowledge when they’ve made mistakes, when they’ve learned and how they’ve changed. I don’t know, Kulleni, it looked like you wanted to come in. What do you think?

Kulleni Gebreyes:

You know what’s interesting is what jumped out at me also, and this is primarily even in the conversation you all had with Paul, is that leaders do actually want the right things. But sometimes they get stuck in short-term thinking instead of thinking about a broader-term impact.

And so, when you think about the model that Milton Friedman brought in around really just focusing on the shareholder versus understanding the total impact on all the stakeholders. Then that takes the CEO, the leader who wants to do good, narrowing their aperture and their criteria for decision-making to actually drive to false choices.

So Steve, I agree with you on the humility, the humanity and the courage that they all had. But I think what distinguishes those that are really making change and having a net-positive impact are the ones that can maintain purpose at the center of what they do. Really focus on creating value and measuring that value through a stakeholder in a longer-term lens.

Geoff Tuff:

And personally convey it, Kulleni, because I couldn’t agree with everything you just said more.

But one thing that we heard from multiple of our guests, and Atif most explicitly I think, is that leadership today is about personal engagement with individuals in the organization. It’s not about setting strategy at a high level and expecting others to go and execute on it. Yes, there is some of that you need to hold people accountable for it. But the individual engagement and the willingness to work at the individual level, to help people get their jobs done, is something we heard time and time again.

And we heard stories from every single one of our guests. I think about the way that they’ve done that in their organization. And if you think about the caricature of a C-suite executive from even two, three decades ago, that’s not what they did.

In fact, a lot of the time, you didn’t see the CEO if you worked at a Fortune 500 company. You maybe have heard of them and maybe read something in one of their analyst days, but you certainly never caught sight of them.

And that I do think is changing. Back to your question, Stuart, “Are we seeing a different face of leadership today?” I think we are.

Des Dearlove:

No, I think that’s interesting.

The other thing that I thought that stood out for me when Paul was talking. When he talked about leadership… is about working, I think he said not in the forest, but on the forest. It’s about defining the boundaries. And when he pretty much abolished quarterly reporting on the first day he was in the job and people said that was really brave.

As I recall, he said, “All I was doing was moving the boundaries so that people could behave properly.” What he was doing in other words, he was reframing the situation. And I think that’s a key part of what leaders do.

He also said that leadership’s very simple, “The more you invest in other people, the more they will invest in you.” And that’s not rocket science. I think we sometimes lose our way and get carried away with leadership theories. It really is a human connection thing.

Geoff Tuff:

Yeah. One interesting thing, and Stuart, you may have wanted to take us in a different direction. But there was definitely a theme this year and in the previous year, as well about, or not about, but the theme of people who have been very successful in their individual endeavors or in their startups having come from big corporations. And either learned things they liked or learned things they didn’t like and applying them differently.

And I jotted down some of the companies that we had represented in this year’s guest list. There are some really big, really impressive companies that are represented amongst our guests. We’ve got Viacom, we’ve got Nike, we’ve got Apple, we’ve got AMD, we’ve got eBay, Google, Yahoo, McDonald’s, Nestle, Unilever, obviously.

These are big-scaled companies who have established ways of working and established management systems that people passed through them, and came to understand what amongst those worked well and which ones didn’t. And when they started up their own companies, and when they went off into the world to do their own things, they did it their way.

Stuart Crainer:

I think we should salute Kulleni because she quoted Bob Marley. She was the first person to quote Bob Marley in this podcast.

Kulleni Gebreyes:

Was that a highlight for you?

Stuart Crainer:

Yeah, that was a real highlight. But your point-

Geoff Tuff:

You don’t know how many Grateful Dead quotes I’ve thrown in here and they’ve all just gone over heads.

Stuart Crainer:

… “You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice,” Bob Marley said. And that was in the episode with Neri Karra Sillaman.

And I think it was a really, really, really good quote. And it was absolutely to the point. But it’s that strength and resilience, isn’t it? Which Neri was talking about, Kulleni.

Kulleni Gebreyes:

Absolutely. And I think that resilience actually ties, Geoff, what I was saying, from the collective and the power of the collective. But then the power of the individual. So as you’ve mentioned, each of our speakers did make a set of intentional choices about how they wanted to show up.

And when I was listening and reflecting on their comments, there are two things that popped up for me in my role as we work on serving clients who are focused in life sciences and healthcare. Which you could argue, whether it’s lifespan, health’s plan, it’s one of the most critical issues that we all need to address.

And so as leaders within the space, as we guide clients, my takeaway was there’s a huge cost to inaction. So as leaders, not only do we have a commitment and a duty to listen and to serve and to have the humility, Steve, as you’ve mentioned. But we’ve got to make choices and take action, and delaying action because of fear or uncertainty actually creates more cost. And I think Paul described the magnitude of that in terms of the economic impact as well.

And the other thing that really jumped at me, and as somebody who came from the clinical world and now joined business where I thought, “Does business have a soul?” And so what’s the value that’s created? A number of our guests also said, “The way you measure your success is how is the world better because your business existed? And what’s the problem that you’re solving?”

So in my mind that courage and resilience can actually really be fostered and cultivated by the belief in the purpose and the impact and value you’re creating.

Des Dearlove:

I think Andrew made the point, particularly in terms of climate change and sustainability, that the cost of inaction now, financially, is going to be greater than the cost of doing what we know we should do.

And there’s a very strong economic case. Maybe it’s not being made even yet as strongly as it should be. But I think we’ve reached that point where it’s not even about courage, it’s just economic common sense.

Steve Goldbach:

Geoff, I think that’s where some of the leaders that we’ve had on actually have used the power of their position to frame the conversation where that inaction becomes evident. Right? I think that what we’ve observed across all our guests is that they inherit a landscape where the cost of inaction to some extent, or the risk of not acting, is hidden.

And what they do is they change the management systems, they change the landscape in a way where there is incentive to behave to solve that longer-term problem in the short term.

And I think, as we start to look at leadership in the future, we’ll naturally see the leaders who have been the most impactful, be the ones that have been able, like Paul with guidance to the street or with other factors, tweaked what they’ve done inside their organization to change the way people view their success.

And I think that we’ll have to do that with climate change. We’re going to make compelling arguments that it’s just better because the alternative is weaker. And we have to do it against a case where people’s natural tendency is just to extend what they’re doing into the future as opposed to imagining the possibilities that could be.

Geoff Tuff:

And I think we heard pretty clearly from Andrew that that’s not necessarily going to happen automatically. We’re not just going to be able to accomplish these hard things because the economic argument becomes clearer, because the entire organization gets on board.

It does require someone to put forward some personal courage and to say the hard things about the realities of our company that may not be what conventional wisdom would suggest they are. And therefore, lead to collective courage and collective action.

But someone ultimately has to be the catalyst for that movement. And I think we heard from a lot of our guests that that’s a role that they themselves played.

Des Dearlove:

And the importance of narrative. That was one of Andrew’s big messages I think. The collective narrative that we accepted and that we managed to weave is very powerful in this situation. We have to change the narrative. And I think to Steve’s point, I think that’s what these people are doing is they are reframing, changing the boundaries around things and changing the narrative.

Stuart Crainer:

I think Neri Karra Sillaman talked about making sustainability desirable. That’s what her company was aiming toward, which is good.

Des Dearlove:

Actionable, yeah.

Stuart Crainer:

Did we talk enough about AI? Because looking through and listening to the episodes, there’s not much talk of AI, is there? I think Atif Rafiq was the first chief digital officer of McDonald’s and AI was mentioned along the way.

Geoff Tuff:

Well, it’s an interesting point, Stuart, because I think you are right about that. 

In our conversations and the things that we ultimately took away from each of our different guests, it was much more about human interaction and changing behavior and human engagement. And Jeff Wetzler in particular, I think really dove deep on what it means to have a true human interaction, not withhold information from others, understand where others are coming from in order to enable change.

Kulleni Gebreyes:

Yeah, Geoff, I would agree with you. While Atif talked about AI, his actual secret sauce, secret ingredient, was that he did the upstream work.

And so it’s thinking about, “How do you actually define the issue that you are really problem solving for and bring people along?” And being curious enough to ask the questions to get that collective intelligence to then make the decisions that you need to.

One of the things that really struck me in his interview was he said, “Start where people already are.” And I find that as leaders at Deloitte, where we’re working with organizations all the time to help reframe thinking or to help advise and guide. It’s a great reminder to say, “Start with the language, start with the purpose, the objectives of where people are.”

And whether it’s AI or any other new technology that comes out, how does that solve, let’s say for convenience, what McDonald’s wants to deliver on as opposed to AI for AI’s sake?

Steve Goldbach:

Amy did talk about AI. Naturally, she started a company that was built on the back of machine learning and AI-related technology. And she ran Google Analytics before that. And so she’s in the possibilities here.

But what was interesting was that, while her product was AI-enabled, she was doing it to solve a human challenge, which was, I was sitting in a meeting. And I was trying to make an enterprise sale, and I stuck my foot in my mouth because I didn’t realize the latest in intelligence about that company that just happened last Friday. And because of it, I missed the sale.

So I think that there’s no escaping this unfortunate reality that we have in business, which is we all need to work with human beings irrespective of more and more work being done by AI. There’s still going to need to be people to create that AI, to put the protocols in place, to drive the change.

Des Dearlove:

It was interesting how often, even the people who were connected with AI, talked about things like purpose, North Star, I think Lisa McKnight talked about due north. Paul Polman talked about how often that word purpose came up. And even as I remember when Atif was trying to explain how you move McDonald’s from being very much a restaurant company, a food company, to adopting the technology.

As Kulleni said, you talk about the core values and one of the core values being convenience. So as he said, “I can’t teach you how to make a better burger, but actually I can make McDonald’s more relevant and more convenient to our consumers.”

So it’s technology with a purpose, I think is the important thing. I think it’s what we’re all saying really. It’s not just technology for the sake of technology.

Stuart Crainer:

I suppose the mark of all these conversations is … Well, I suppose the final test is, how does it change our own behavior? And has it changed our own behavior? Steve?

Steve Goldbach:

I will say, I feel like as I try to show up as a leader in different settings, what I took away from this set of guests, and how I use it in my own practice, is to try and remind myself in the moment that it’s not about me. It’s about whoever I’m talking to and how they’re feeling, how they’re reacting, what are they up against? And the more that I can be of help in some way, the more I’m going to be able to solve …

If I can solve, as a leader, a problem that they’re experiencing in their work life, whether it’s someone on my team, a client, or someone else. If I’m solving a problem that they frame as important, then I’m going to be viewed as being helpful and desirable to work with.

If I frame it about what I need, then there’s a much lower chance that I’ll actually get what I need. And I think that that’s a model of leadership that the leaders that we’ve heard from this year have certainly espoused. And I’ve tried to take bits of it into my own practice.

Geoff Tuff:

It is a very interesting question, Stuart. And again, I know you all have heard Steve and I talk about this in the past. But you’ll know that one of our central tenets and everything that we write about is that ultimately, the only way things change is human behavioral change. And so you’re asking the right question, “Are we doing something differently now that we’ve had all these really interesting conversations and met these amazing people?”

And I’m not sure that I can say as of yet that I am. But what I can say is that, and this may be the selective listening again, as I hear from these leaders, beliefs that align with my beliefs, and takeaways from their leadership journeys that are similar to what I believe should be true in the world’s best organizations, it gives me more confidence to keep on going down that path.

At some point, it would feel all too convenient to just say, “You know what? No one else believes this. We might as well just pack up and go do something else.” But that’s not the case. We have some amazing leaders out there who do believe that hard things can get done if you engage at the individual level.

Stuart Crainer:

Kulleni, you’re a different person since you joined The Provocateurs team?

Kulleni Gebreyes:

I am. And it’s interesting because I’ll tell you, I’m a different person since I was a practicing physician. And I heard Jeff say that 60-80% of patients don’t tell their doctors the truth. I knew that, but I did not think that was necessarily true in the business world because the consequences, it’s seen less. Right?

But if you listen to his thoughts and perspectives, based on his book on how you tap into hidden wisdom, he said, “People either are afraid of negative impact if they speak and tell their truth, they don’t have the energy to do it, or they don’t have the words to express themselves.”

And so for me, I’ve actually had the realization that I need to have that same level of empathy, humility, and raising the quality questions to get the insights I need in order to not just be a good host on this set of podcasts, but just the day-to-day work and working with teams and clients.

Stuart Crainer:

Yeah, we’re referring to Jeff Wetzler’s book, Ask, which is really good. But one of the things Jeff talked about was that when kids are young, they ask 400 questions a day, and this falls off a cliff very, very, very quickly. And by the time they’re at work, they’re not asking many questions at all. So creating that environment to ask questions and listening, as Steve said as well.

Des, you’re a different man?

Des Dearlove:

Well, yeah, I think the thing I would say is getting to Jeff’s point about being a listener. I think trying to be a better listener, trying to hear what’s actually being said because I think we all have come with our own agendas. And I think it’s really important to push the pause button, more important than I probably realized before, to push the pause button and actually listen to people, to actually turn up the listening skills.

The other muscles that I think I’m trying to work on are that these leaders talk about relevance and resilience. And I think you need to work those muscles so that they’re strong when the time comes that you actually need them. But if you’re not using them the whole time and you’re not trying to develop them, then they’re not going to be there when you do need them.

The reframing thing, I was quite taken with that. The changing boundaries, working on the forest rather than in the forest. So that’s another thing I’m trying to get my head around.

And then the final thing, and both Andrew Winston and Paul Polman made this point, is that a lot of the technologies we need to change the world are there. These are leadership challenges now. 80% of what we need to do, we have the technology, we have the know-how, so therefore it comes down … It just accentuates, makes you realize how important the leadership element is. And we all have to be leaders.

Stuart Crainer:

When Dane Jensen talked, he quoted a Polish psychologist and the concept of positive disintegration. That you have to disintegrate and then put things together and recreate yourself to learn.

Des Dearlove:

That’s like the hero’s journey, isn’t it? That’s the classical, go back to the ancient Greeks, that in order to be transformed, you have to be reborn.

Geoff Tuff:

I think he was just using a fancy term for detonate, Stuart.

Stuart Crainer:

We’re all seeking fancy terms to describe the work you and Steve have already done. We appreciate that.

Kulleni Gebreyes:

Stuart, I would actually just in the moment of courage also, and at the risk of perpetuating a stereotype, I would say Neri also made me think as a person who identifies as going from refugee to fashion, really thinking about overconsumption.

And just taking what already exists and making sure we’re not, as consumers, advancing and propagating the over borrowing and overproduction that is a result of overconsumption. So I will say I’ve spent fewer dollars on my credit card on fashion that I don’t need over the last calendar year since talking with her.

Stuart Crainer:

To be honest, I’ve been doing that for years.

We’re out of time. A final word, Steve?

I’ve got a list of some of the people we’ve featured in this podcast series. Shelley Zalis, Dambisa Moyo, Julie Carrier, Valerie Rainford, Bob Lefkowitz, who’s a Nobel Prize winner. Charlie Camarda, astronaut. Annie Duke, poker champion. Kim Scott, Morra Aarons-Mele. Is there a link? Is there one word that sums up this amazing group?

Steve Goldbach:

Dare I say, “Provocateurs,” but that would be far too simple because it would say that we’ve had appropriate.

It’s funny, Stuart, I’m not going to directly answer that as usual, but I’ll answer it with something that I’ve been thinking about.

Sometimes they’re just good stories. Right? Sometimes there doesn’t have to be a perfect thread that runs through it. The people that we have on this show are just super interesting people who have contributed something of substance to the world and that our listeners will find interesting and will pull nuggets out of it.

So go back and listen to the back issues of The Provocateurs, and you’ll find something there, and subscribe to see what’s next.

I know that we will have someone, I won’t reveal who, but we will have someone in the very early 2025 who will be at the intersection of sustainability and AI. And so I think that that will be, certainly very topical, in the moment.

Geoff Tuff:

And Steve, what I would say is … So I agree with that point, they’re all interesting stories. But they’re stories with some common threads and not necessarily the same themes. But all of the stories have some theory of the case or clear central tenet that each of the storytellers brings to the table.

And I think, if I’m not mistaken, every single story involves an active decision at some point. And this was a really important point that Neri made in talking about her experience as a refugee as well. These stories, they don’t have a motivating force unless the actors within this story made an active decision, which I think all of our guests have.

Stuart Crainer:

Final thought, Des?

Des Dearlove:

My only thought was Neri talked about necessity entrepreneurs and why immigrant entrepreneurs tend to succeed. They succeed because they have to succeed. And I think there’s something about that, about these people that we have on The Provocateurs show is that they are necessity leaders. They really have a purpose and they know it’s important, and they rise to the challenge and the world’s a better place for them.

Stuart Crainer:

Final thought, Kulleni? Is there a Bob Marley quote?

Kulleni Gebreyes:

I’m going to save it for the next podcast. But I will give you an Angela Davis quote, which is, she said, “I used to accept the things I cannot change and now I change the things I cannot accept.” And so I think there’s a call to action that each of our Provocateurs are taking that I think follows the theme in that quote.

Stuart Crainer:

Brilliant. We’re out of time. Thanks Des, Steve, Kulleni, and Geoff. Thank you to everyone who has joined us in 2024. We had some great guests. All the previous episodes are available.

Thank you to all of our guests and everyone who’s listened to the podcast. We really appreciate your support and feedback.

We are making plans for a lineup over the next year and beyond, so stay tuned for some fantastic guests and brilliantly provocative conversations during the year. Thank you from us all.