What does it look like to move from a life of intense athletic competition into the realm of business? What aspects of being an athlete translated well into entrepreneurship, and what strong career motivation can be derived from understanding a simple bell curve?

Ryan Heckman is a two-time Olympian, Leeds Business School Alumnus, and a longtime entrepreneur.  Ryan co-founded Rallyday Partners, an investment firm dedicated to providing holistic support to company founders and their employees, where he serves as CEO and managing partner.

In this episode, Ryan discusses his unique career path to the world of private equity. Ryan shares personal anecdotes about his college journey, career challenges, and his midlife crisis-turned-awakening that led to the founding of Rallyday. He emphasizes the importance of integrating left brain, right brain, heart, and soul in business, and how Rallyday Partners is shifting the paradigm within the private equity industry through its focus on humanizing the journey and fostering aggressive humility among its leaders. Check out this fascinating conversation.

Leeds Business Insights Podcast is a production of Leeds School of Business and is produced by University FM.

EPISODE QUOTES:

The higher the goals the greater the humility

[12:11] The higher we set our goals, the more humility we generally have because the chances of you reaching those goals are very slim. And so, I think I've shown up, particularly the last 10 years, with a great deal more humility because of the audacity of the goals that I had established for myself seems so farfetched most of the time.

What differs Rallyday from traditional private equity firms?

[14:48] “We lead people. We don't manage assets.” And what I mean by that is the objective is obviously professional. We want to create a lot of value, but the journey is very personal, you know. Whether it be for the CEOs that we partner with or their executive teams, the middle managers, the employees, they're showing up at our workplace. And we treat that like the privilege that it is. And our obligation is to not manage them. No one likes to feel managed. We want to earn their followership, and we want to be their leaders and take them personally to places they didn't think they could before meeting us and take their companies even further because they're growing so much as individuals. And so, when we talk about what we do for a living, it's all about humanizing that journey very personally.

What does it mean to be aggressively humble at the same time

[15:51] I think that everybody at Rallyday strives to be two things at the same time. We strive to be aggressively humble. And what that means, there's a lot of people that I know who are super aggressive and super not humble. I also know people that are really humble, but typically not very aggressive. And so, we look for this duality of character. And, you know, as it turns out, it works because there's nothing more special than someone that is both of these things at the same time.

SHOW LINKS:

• Ryan Heckman | RallyDay Profile
• Ryan Heckman | LinkedIn

Recent events have put more of a spotlight on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and its role in all organizations. What can research tell us about how these initiatives affect institutions, and what could change were they not in place?

Dr. Rebecca (Becca) Mitchell an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Leeds School of Business at University of Colorado Boulder.  Her research seeks to understand how organizations can improve the effectiveness of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion practices, and how time influences team hierarchy and team affective processes.

Becca breaks down key concepts in DEI, explaining visible “surface level” and invisible “deep level” diversity characteristics. She provides insights into each facet of DEI, including the historical and theoretical background, and how the elements work together. The conversation explores Becca’s research motivations, inspired by her personal experiences and desire to create better organizational environments. Maria and Becca talk about cross-training, mentoring, and social accountability, and Becca presents some of her research findings on affective diversity—the mix of emotional states in teams—and employee resource groups, emphasizing the need for strategic alignment and community building.

Leeds Business Insights Podcast is a production of Leeds School of Business and is produced by University FM.

EPISODE QUOTES:

How diversity, equity, and inclusion intersect today

[04:53] Diversity is really beneficial, but we get the most out of diversity when we also have equity and inclusion. If we don't have those pieces in place, then we really can't realize the full value of the diverse perspectives that we have in the room.

Navigating the gap between DEI intentions and impact

[06:54] One trend that I've noticed recently is more research is happening on what we call performative diversity management. I'd like to think that a lot of it isn't that folks are not committed to DEI, but maybe just don't have the resources or the confidence to do it well. So, I think there's a lot of work on initiatives that maybe sound really good but, in practice, don't actually do a lot.

Why a diverse team needs both positive Paulas and negative Nancys

[24:17] What we found is that teams really benefit from having both—like what I call the positive Paulas and the negative Nancys on the team, right? We want both of them on our teams because the people with positive emotions, we found, really help us to seize opportunities. So, we're seeing those opportunities and going after them. We're taking those risks. And then, our negative Nancys are helping us be a little bit more cautious. They're helping us bring things back in and recognize where there might be some threats or pitfalls in our environment. And so, that combination really helps teams navigate complex tasks that require a bit of both, right? We want to be taking risks, but we also don't want to be too risky in our decision-making.

SHOW LINKS:

• Rebecca Mitchell | Leeds Faculty Profile
• Rebecca Mitchell | Google Scholar Page
• Rebecca Mitchell | LinkedIn
• Why Diversity Programs Fail | HBR
• We Just Can’t Handle Diversity | HBR
• Fighting Backlash to Racial Equity Efforts | HBR

It’s never too early to start building your personal brand and to be aware of the social footprint you are creating. Why does it pay to get specific when it comes to your own branding, and what ways can you maximize your brand for your professional growth?

Olivia Omega is a personal branding specialist, author, and the Senior Director of Marketing and Communications at the Denver Scholarship Foundation. er upcoming book shares a title with her new podcast, Through Her Eyes.

Olivia shares how to be intentional about building your brand, sharing her journey from CU Boulder to her career in marketing, and how developing her personal brand was integral. Olivia clarifies common misconceptions about branding, defines what a personal brand is, and explains why a personal brand is relevant in both entrepreneurial and corporate settings. Olivia also provides practical advice on how to start building a personal brand. Additionally, Olivia and Maria discuss Olivia’s advocacy for diversity and inclusion and her collaboration on a generational memoir with her daughter.

Leeds Business Insights Podcast is a production of Leeds School of Business and is produced by University FM.

EPISODE QUOTES:

What truly is branding?

[02:08] Brand goes so far beyond visuals, logo, colors, photos; I think that's a lot of the fun stuff that people like about what a brand is, but a brand is sort of this gathering of emotions, promises—we call them value propositions—qualities, tangible versus more emotive, are perceptions. It could come in the area of sounds even that all come together to make up how much we're willing to pay for, champion, support one thing, one brand, over another.

Lessons Olivia is learning from today's youth

[18:20] I have learned that young people, this current generation, are so incredibly inclusive and empathetic—way more than I think my generation was at that age or is now. And so, it's a breath of fresh air to see that. I also think that this current generation and young people are extremely ambitious in their dreams and imaginative in what they want to do and where they think they can go. Because we have this world of social media and influencers, we've seen people go from no one to someone over what appears to be overnight. We've seen people make their dreams happen. And so, I think they have that—the example in the visual of what that could look like. And so, their dreams are real. Sky's the limit, which I definitely, truly admire.

Examining who you are through the lens of other people helps build your personal brand

[09:52] Find the person—there's probably usually one or two people—that you truly feel like you could be yourself around and that know you really well, and ask them to describe who you are; ask them to write down words that describe you. Because a lot of times, we can't see our differences because it's us, and we live with us every single day. And so, stepping outside of our body can be hard, and you'll learn a lot when you start asking these questions about just really the impact you have on people's lives and how you make them feel.

SHOW LINKS:

• OliviaOmega.com
• Olivia Omega | Denver Scholarship Foundation
• Olivia Omega | LinkedIn
• Olivia Omega | Instagram
• Olivia Omega | X
• Beautifully Branded - The Girl's Guide to Understanding the Anatomy of Brand You
• Through Her Eyes | Podcast