Long Life Learning

For the final episode of Season 2, Kavitha is joined via Zoom by two extraordinary guests from the 7th YGELP cohort. Woon Shiu Lee, Managing Director and Group Head of the Wealth Planning Family Office and Insurance Solutions at DBS Private Bank, calls in from Singapore, along with Mondo Mazwai, Chairperson of the Competition Tribunal of South Africa. Together, Mondo and Woon Shiu walk Kavitha through their decision to engage in YGELP as a catalyst to further their commitment to social purpose as leaders in their respective fields.

This week, Kavitha brings in Yale Ventures Managing Director Josh Geballe shortly after another successful annual gathering of Yale Innovation Summit leaders and entrepreneurs. Josh describes a career which has successfully navigated leadership in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. As former COO to Governor Ned Lamont of Connecticut, CEO to Core Informatics while overseeing a successful acquisition by Thermo Fisher Scientific, and sitting board member on nonprofits grounded in tech and climate solutions, Josh brings a wealth of change management skills and experience in championing innovative solutions to some of today’s biggest challenges. 

This week, Kavitha is joined by Dr. Saad Omer, a globally recognized leading voice in cutting-edge research on immunization and vaccination. Today he is the Founding Dean of the School of Public Health at UT–Southwestern, and formerly served as inaugural director of the Yale Institute for Global Health. In this prior role, he oversaw not only the university’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, but also managed some of the innovative research which enabled experts to better predict impending outbreaks. His life’s work has involved collaboration in studies everywhere from the US, Guatemala, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, and South Africa, to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Australia. 

For the first time on Long Life Learning, Kavitha is joined by two guests. Jeff Addison and Erin Gianopoulos are distinguished, now-retired U.S. military service members whose friendship began as peers in last year’s YGELP cohort. Erin and Jeff join Kavitha in the studio during their Yale SOM reunion weekend to discuss how military leadership prepared them for executive roles in law and entrepreneurship. They explain what it looks like to continually learn and evolve at high levels of leadership, and how the military saying, “If you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready” continues to apply to their personal and professional lives. 

When CEO of Nuveen Green Capital and repeat YGELP instructor Jessica Bailey first got into business, it was because of a fascination with the energy sector's ability to drive foreign trade and policy. She quickly identified a market gap in scaling private capital for smart financial energy solutions, and partnered with Ali Cooley to carve a unique entrepreneurial role which allowed her to bridge philanthropic and public sector leadership informed by her years at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Connecticut Green Bank. Today, the team Jessica has built at Nuveen has expanded its scope across the U.S. and into international regions in an effort to provide sustainable commercial real estate finance solutions which support building decarbonization. 

This week, Kavitha sits down with Senior Vice Chairman and former CEO of AlixPartners Fred Crawford to discuss his early rise to a C-suite position, and what advice he has for other aspiring executives on the same path. Fred speaks to the importance of not letting the job “run you,” managing time to prioritize the most important “pizza pie” slices of your life, and knowing when to engage in smart, graceful, and smooth succession planning.  

In our second episode of the season, Kavitha is joined by Asha Rangappa, former Special Agent and current Assistant Dean and Senior Lecturer at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs. Her work today is informed by years spent with the FBI specializing in counterintelligence, national security, and U.S. drug policy in Latin America. Together, Asha and Kavitha unpack what it means to lead with moral conscience in an increasingly divided world, and to embrace impact in the realms of academia, business, and public service. 

To kick off Season 2, Kavitha sits down with Yale SOM Professor and Senior Associate Dean Jeffrey Sonnenfeld to discuss the evergreen question, “How do leaders learn?” Drawing on Jeff’s decades of research expertise, high-profile media engagement, and longtime partnership with Executive Education, they attempt to answer this question for senior level leaders and C-Suite executives in particular.  

Long Life Learning is back! Join us every Monday this May and June to hear Kavitha Bindra, Executive Director of the Yale School of Management Executive Education, speak with accomplished executives and thought leaders to discuss living with inspiration and vitality. Season 2 centers around leveraging dynamic leadership for global impact, inspired by the voices that come out of the Yale Global Executive Leadership Program (YGELP).

The final episode of season 1 features Jo Ann Jenkins, visionary CEO of AARP for the past 10 years. Jo Ann has revolutionized the mission of this “nonprofit, nonpartisan, social change organization” to help Americans embrace life after 50 as a vibrant time of transformation and connection. Jo Ann joins Kavitha to talk career pivots, lifelong mentorship, and legacy-making whose benefits extend to people of all ages. She invites us to consider the needs of an ever-evolving present day: one in which the fastest-growing age group in the U.S. is Americans 85 and up, and in which today’s 10-year-olds have a 50% chance of living to see their 100th birthday.