Academic Leadership

The 1970s were known for free love and experimentation. Few cared if you were gay, straight, bisexual or transgender. It was the era of "sex, drugs & rock 'n' roll". In the midst of all this appeared a woman who had turned the head of Al Capone, married into the famous Maybelline company, and possessed more than enough beauty, magnetism and allure to make men do most anything.

We’ve all had moments of feeling like we didn’t belong, but imagine being born into a world where fitting in was never an option. Michele Sullivan, who has a rare form of dwarfism, shares how her physical posture taught her the most effective relational posture with others, which helped her become one of the most powerful women in philanthropy.

At its best, business is both purposeful and profitable, dynamic and gainful, commercial and rewarding. Far from being opposites, good business and good behavior go hand-in-hand, and biblical principles can align with best practices. In Wisdom-Based Business, marketing and supply-chain professor Hannah J. Stolze draws principles from the Bible's wisdom literature and from evidence-based research to create a framework for business that is oriented toward excellence and sustainability.

Richard A. Stone MD is the former Deputy Surgeon General of the United States Army. He returned to government service to lead the Veterans Health Administration at the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2018. Brought on as a proven changemaker and experienced leader in an inflection point for the agency. He had no idea his tenure would be defined by the public health challenge of our lifetime.

Delane Parnell is not your typical tech entrepreneur. He was raised in a gang-riddled neighborhood on Detroit’s west side, bouncing between homes as his mother tried to make ends meet. Many of his closest friends and family members ended up in jail or dead. This makes it even more incredible that Delane became the 25-year-old founder and CEO of PlayVS, a Los Angeles company that is forever changing the gaming landscape in America.

Garrett Thompson’s life took a twist when he left the medical field to become an entrepreneur, and started Nexus, Inc. Making health products had turned into his passion, and with the help of his management team, Nexus Inc. has developed a secret product that could change the world! Through this captivating story listeners will be exposed to the leadership traits that positively influence people. Learn what it means to truly care and sacrifice for your employees, family, and community when facing the toughest of tests.

Dan Rooney was one of the most influential sports executives of his generation—the man who transformed the Pittsburgh Steelers into one of the National Football League's greatest dynasties and premiere franchises. Some of Dan Rooney’s most important achievements, however, took place off the playing field as he sought to bring about equity in the league's hiring practices and peace in his ancestral homeland of Ireland. In A Different Way to Win, Jim Rooney takes listeners behind the scenes and share stories of Dan Rooney’s life and achievements.

Fiorina shares the lessons she's learned from both her difficulties and triumphs. Drawing on her experience as a pioneering business and nonprofit leader, a politically active citizen, and a parent, she diagnoses the largest problem facing our country today: untapped potential. Too often American men and women are held back by systems that prevent them from working and flourishing. Too many people lose hope for themselves.

Dr. Catherine "Cathy" DeAngelis has shattered numerous glass ceilings in medicine for herself and generations of women she's mentored. Raised in 1940s hardscrabble Pennsylvania coal mining country, Cathy's unyielding determination and indomitable self-belief steamrolled medicine's entrenched sexism. In a life filled with "firsts," she was named the first woman editor-in-chief of JAMA - the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Growing up in the sleepy towns of Bhilai and Bokaro, Arundhati Bhattacharya never imagined that one day she would go on to chair India's largest bank. It was sheer chance that she came to know of the bank probationary officers' entrance examination through a friend. She applied, was selected and went on to have a glorious banking career spanning four decades.

In a compilation of fascinating stories, Dr. Jim Webb shares a view of visionary leaders who defied the odds to create extraordinary, lasting results in diverse environments. While guiding listeners on a journey through some of the world’s finest institutions and the influencers who produced and directed radical improvements, he shines a light on a variety of these exceptional leaders. Innovators Who Changed the World profiles the history of those who created, built, and guided organizations and people through transformation and changed the world in the process.

This biography of educational activist and Black studies forerunner Bertha Maxwell-Roddey examines a life of remarkable achievements and leadership in the desegregated South. Sonya Ramsey modernizes the nineteenth-century term "race woman" to describe how Maxwell-Roddey and her peers turned hard-won civil rights and feminist milestones into tangible accomplishments in North Carolina and nationwide from the late 1960s to the 1990s.

Fulfilling the Dream: My Path to Leadership and Finding Purpose in Serving Others is an honest, eye-opening, and inspiring book about setting aside personal ego and ignoring racial and political bias to bless and benefit others. Wayman Britt's story is a tale of believing one's dreams, realizing them, and then dedicating his life to helping others imagine and achieve better lives.

Leadership and motivational strategies from Pat Fortenberry, a small-town girl from humble beginnings who built one of the top direct-sales organizations in the country and made more than $16 million in the process. In More than Makeup, Pat teaches skills for managing, motivating, leading, and inspiring a sales organization as well as self-improvement tools that can help anyone become a stronger leader and a better sales person.

As educators, we have learned the research on brain science, we have seen that addressing only the academic needs of students isn't enough, and we have attended all the [virtual] conferences on why we need to consider more than simply a child's IQ or test scores when supporting them. But what do we do now? The Whole Child School answers that question. Providing practical strategies for younger and older students, Job Iles takes us from ambiguity to application.

Sara Potecha was one of the first women to graduate from West Point. The lessons she learned at the Academy and in the Army - about life and leadership, courage and character, resolve and resilience - have served her well in both military and civilian roles. Those skills have inspired this powerful book for leaders who aim to, like Sara, come out ahead even in the face of adversity and care for their own teams thoughtfully and with heart.