Today we’re speaking of all things sweet in life, with French trained pastry chef, and Group Head Pastry Chef at Black Star Pastry, Arnaud Vodounou. Arnaud describes how his six year long training in Paris, covering all the basics of pastry making, gave him the foundation to be confident, flexible and creative in his craft today. A kind of intensive training that is rarely seen today. Despite his extensive training, Arnaud hesitated when offered his first opportunity as head pastry chef,...

Data Scholar Michael Clark joins Looking Outside to discuss the value behind the data we collect and how the definition of data is changing. Michael is a futurist focused on data, a digital payment and open banking and Vice President of Global Digital Transformation at Mastercard. His interest in the interconnection of data to other aspects of our lives has led him to become a leading voice in this space and to write a book on the topic. To explore the topic, he starts quite simply by...

Today we welcome Elena Doms, climate tech leader and head of Earth Plus, on Looking Outside to discuss the progress and positive action taking place in the field of climate tech. Having spent 11 years at Mastercard on the corporate side, and now in the entrepreneur space in a start up, Elena brings with her a pragmatic and motivating perspective to driving impact in the climate space through partnership with companies big and small. Elena speaks to how she approaches climate change topics...

In this episode of Looking Outside, we’re exploring Culture and the role of brands leveraging or influencing it, with University of Michigan marketing professor and best selling author of For the Culture, Dr Marcus Collins. Marcus has one foot in Academia and the other in marketing practice, having led strategy Wieden+Kennedy New York, which allowed him to go deep on the theory and science of culture, while helping brands to understand those systems of cultural norms to activate their...

Today we’re talking about catapulting your career into unexpected places, driven by self-reflection, self-determinism, and a recognition of your own self-limitations, with change advocate, and Editor in Chief of Entrepreneur Magazine, Jason Feifer. Speaking to a range of successful entrepreneurs is a part of Jason's day job, but he's also a bit of a start-up thinker himself. Aside from his role as editor, Jason is a podcast host, newsletter writer, speaker, start up advisor, book author … and...

On this episode of Looking Outside we explore the reality and risk behind the hype of AI, with Executive Director of the Institute for Experiential AI at Northeastern University, Founder of Open Insights, Data Scientist and AI expert, Usama Fayyad. Usama has been in the field of AI for three decades and has lived through three AI hype peaks followed by three winters. In this conversation he contextualizes how the current infatuation with the ‘eloquence’ of data-driven AI stacks up. Usama...

Looking Outside comes to you LIVE from the Dubai Future Forum, the largest gathering of futurists in the world. In this conversation we talk about disruptive technology and transformative blue sky innovation with Airbus Senior Vice President and Head of Disruptive Research and Technology, Dr Grzegorz (Greg) Ombach. Greg describes the mindset shift he experienced in leading innovative transformation across various industries, each with their own lifecycle - from Telecommunications with 1 to 2...

Looking Outside comes to you LIVE from the Dubai Future Forum, the largest gathering of futurists in the world. In this conversation we talk about sustainable design with Arup's Director of Foresight, Josef Hargrave. Arup is focused on creating more sustainable built environments, and Josef speaks to how designing for the future needs to be anchored in decisions for the present, by understanding deeply the structural limitations and infrastructure of today. Josef details several projects...

Retail, shopping and lovers of physical activations, this one is for you. But perhaps it’s for all of us who look at bringing our brands to life in physical spaces. Today on Looking Outside we’re speaking with top voice in retail, Curator of Shop Drop Daily & Chief Thinker at iiiF, Tim Nash. Tim's passion for brands led to his career specialty in shop and retail design. He fell into the fashion industry, starting in visual merchandising, and then fell in love with inspiring brands to...

Today we’re talking about the big topic of Sustainability within big business. Former Chief Sustainability & Social Impact Officer at McDonalds, Bob Langert, joins the show and shares his three decade long journey in making environmental change happen at one of the biggest organizations in the world. An environmental activist at heart, Bob shares how he was able to take a topic he cared deeply about but was low on the company priority list, and over time use his passion to make people...

In this episode of Looking Outside we venture into dark futures with global futurist Nikolas Badminton, crossing over the line of realism into dystopia. Nikolas spent 30 years at the front line of emerging futures, aiding organizations and governments in the anticipating risks that lie ahead and shaking people out of unrealistic expectations. He says now he is hired to do the type of work he’d normally get fired for, as, often, Nik is tasked with telling people the future they are excited...

In this episode of Looking Outside, we speak with someone crazy enough to think one company can make a difference, social entrepreneur Moritz Everding. Moritz founded food start up SOCHILI to act on his vision of creating food with purpose. Combining his love of spice, his experience in business innovation and his passion for positive social change, Moritz created his business from Germany with far reaching impact into sub-Saharan Africa. On this episode, Moritz speaks to his conviction that...

Another Aussie joins us on Looking Outside to explore the power of laughter and positivity through comedy, with stand-up comedian, actor and TV personality, Monty Franklin. Having lived in the US and toured 42 states over the last ten years, Monty has performed to more than a million Americans, and whether it’s on stage or at the bank, he speaks to the privilege of making people forget their troubles, even for a little while. He says laughter is one of the greatest things people can...

In this episode of Looking Outside we explore living your life and career curiously through an openness to learning with trained pharmacist and director of the Novartis Pavillon exhibiting the wonders of medicine, Marcel Braun. Marcel studied pharmacy but throughout his career has remained open to entering new fields and living in new places, something he calls both accidental in drifting from one opportunity to another, and intentional as he ticked off ‘dream roles’ from his bucket list....

In this special LIVE episode of Looking Outside, recorded at the Insights and Innovation Exchange event in Texas, we look more closely at the symbols and signs that surround us, the study of Semiotics, with semiotician, author and marketer, Dr Rachel Lawes. Rachel blends her 20 years in Market Research and her academic training as a Social Psychologist, with a focus on how people communicate through the study of semiotics. Rachel describes this as looking more deeply and critically at what is...

Are some people simply more cut out to take on big responsibilities, where lives are at stake, or is it actually just good training? In this episode of Looking Outside, we explore the mindset and skills of preparedness in Flying with commercial airline pilot, Ricardo Nunes. Being responsible for hundreds of people on the plane is not something Ricardo takes for granted. While many of us would find that extreme level of responsibility crippling, Ricardo says the confidence comes from...

Lars Behrendt joins us for this episode of Looking Outside, discussing the bureaucracy, ego and over-perfection that gets in the way of great innovating … in other words, Innovation B******t. Now a voice of influence in the innovation space, particularly in his home country of Germany where he gets 10 million content views weekly, Lars shares how he ‘engineered’ a voice of authority in order to break through the clutter of innovation nonsense; with a few cuss words, a ton of humor and big...

In this episode we discuss the future of snacking with daydreamer, sunshine chaser and optimist, Matt Weiss. Matt founded his own upcycled snacking company, RIND Snacks, and lives by the mantra of making weird and wonderful things happen, even if it feels impossible. In this chat, Jo and Matt discuss what health means in the context of personal happiness and fulfilment, from what you eat, to the lens through which you see the world, to self awareness of what gives you sustenance (food or...

Inspired by a conversation at the 2023 CES Food Tech Expo, today we discuss how one of the most traditional industries is being transformed through Culinary Creativity, with CEO and Founder of Hungry House, a platform for creative chefs, Kristen Barnett. In creating Hungry House, Kristen shares how she puts the values of both the chef and the customer first, by focusing on food quality. Her platform allows the customer to add more meaning to the choices they make in how they explore and...

In these volatile and uncertain times, it can feel harder than ever to achieve things for ourselves and our teams, so today we take a cue from the performance experts, speaking about Motivation with mental performance coach, Lauren Johnson. The stakes are high for professional athletes, but they cope with the same challenges as all of us; building mental toughness to persevere physically, and creating positive habits to practice towards exceptional results. Lauren learnt this first hand...

Marketing is often thought of as a creative field, in part because it leans into the art of negotiation to sell a product, but it must be done with rigor. In this episode, we explore that rigorous side of marketing, and the research that should shape its decisions, with Marketing Science research professor and Director of the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, Byron Sharp. Naturally curious and a lover of history, Byron sprinkles nuggets of real world truths, as he explains how marketing research is...

Does conflict and incompatible perspectives always have to be a negative? In this episode of Looking Outside we speak with Raj B. Shroff, Founder & Principal at PINE, a strategy and design agency to hear how he and his company leverages conflict to get to a better outcome. Raj shares how his workplace thrives on openness, when ideas are great or when things aren’t working, and how he creates the space for everyone part of the company to feel comfortable with that. It’s empathetic to be...

We kick off Season 4 bravely with the visionary Amy Webb, Quantitative Futurist, CEO of the Future Today Institute, professor at NYU and author. In this episode, as in Amy’s book The Genesis Machine, we discuss the paths towards synthetic futures and the methods in creating more credible focus on the long term future. Amy speaks to her journey coming into the "esoteric" field of futures, from a fact-based background in economics and journalism. Fortuitously, she meandered on the rocky path to...

The final episode of Season 3 takes us to the precipice of change, looking at the topic of Fear. We discuss this with Mark Minukas, co-author of Unfear, a book on the very topic.   As someone who had to face into fear a few times, transitioning from a career as a civil engineer in the US Navy, to navigating the corporate world of management consulting, Mark shares how the discomfort of this change gave him perspective and forced him to see himself in ways he was previously blind to. Mark...