Stanford GSB Excellence in Leadership 2024 [Full Video]

Honoring Dave Hodson and Lori Hodson

• Peter Dearo, a finance professor at the GSB, has been serving as the interim Dean while the search committee looks for John Levon's successor, led by Jenny Martinez, the provost, with representatives from alumni, MBA, and faculty members, and the process is expected to be thorough and secretive until an announcement is made, probably in the winter or spring (43s).
• The Excellence in Leadership award dinner is being held to honor Dave Hodson, an MBA 1982 graduate, and his wife Lori, with a warm welcome extended to the sponsors, friends, colleagues, and classmates in attendance (1m48s).
• Past Excellence in Leadership Award winners in attendance include Carlos Brito, Sandra Horbach, Carter McClenn, Michelle Clayman, and Steve Denning, who are being recognized for their achievements (2m17s).
• Current and former members of the GSB Advisory Council are also being recognized for their advice and contributions to the school (3m0s).
• The formal program will begin after dinner, and the highlight of the program will be the recognition of Dave Hodson (3m30s).
• The Excellence in Leadership award was established in 2003 to recognize GSB alumni who have made significant contributions to the corporate world and broader society, aligning with the GSB's mission to develop purposeful and principled leaders (4m2s).
• The GSB's mission is to develop leaders who go beyond mastering business strategy and embody leadership that drives positive change within their organizations and in society at large (4m15s).

Dave Hodson's Leadership and Contributions

• Dave Hodson exemplifies responsible leadership as Vice Chairman of General Atlantic, helping growth companies reach their full potential and becoming one of the world's leading growth equity firms under his stewardship (5m2s).
• Dave Hodson is being honored not only for his remarkable business achievements but also for his example of principled leadership, including starting General Atlantic's own in-house nonprofit in 1987 (5m16s).
• Dave Hodson is a founding board member of Echoing Green, a social innovation fund that invests in the next generation of social entrepreneurs by providing seed capital to early-stage enterprises working to solve the world's most pressing problems (5m29s).
• He served as the chairman of Echoing Green for 23 years and helped grow the organization from a few fellows to a global community of over 1,000 social innovators (5m52s).
• Echoing Green receives 3,000 applications each year for just 30 fellowships, making it harder to get a fellowship than to get into Stanford (6m17s).
• Dave's long-standing commitment and leadership in Echoing Green reflect his deep commitment to using business as a force for good, guiding social entrepreneurs to tackle critical challenges and create lasting impact (6m31s).
• He also served on the GSB Trust in the late 1990s, helping the school allocate its dedicated endowment, and served two separate tours of duty on the GSB Advisory Council over the past two decades (6m45s).

Bill Ford's Leadership at General Atlantic

• Bill Ford, an MBA Alum and Dave's colleague, is the chairman and CEO of General Atlantic, where he spent over three decades investing in and helping build some of the world's leading growth companies (7m23s).
• Under Bill's leadership, General Atlantic expanded its global presence, increased its capital base, and deepened its capabilities to identify and partner with high-potential growth companies across industries and the world (7m33s).
• Bill is a board chair of Rockefeller University, co-chair of the Partnership for New York City, and a member of the board of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Singapore School of Management (8m0s).

Dave Hodson's Career at General Atlantic

• Dave joined General Atlantic as its third investment professional in 1982, right after graduating from Stanford Business School, and identified software as an area of opportunity when most investors were focused on computer hardware (9m16s).
• Dave co-led General Atlantic's first two significant and highly successful investments, which would evolve to become the cornerstone of the firm's investment strategy (9m45s).
• He later identified an important shift from mainframe to client-server computing, leading to a highly successful investment in a Dutch software company, which was the largest gain in the firm's history at the time (9m49s).
• Dave has been a highly successful investor, but his wisdom, judgment, and integrity are valued the most, making him the ultimate culture carrier and resident wise man at General Atlantic (GA) (10m13s).
• As Vice Chair of GA, Dave has been directly involved in every significant initiative of the firm and has served on every important committee, shaping the board of directors and preparing the firm for a bright future (10m31s).

Dave Hodson's Philanthropy and Support

• Dave has a deep commitment to philanthropy, serving as a trustee and chairman of various organizations, including John Hopkins Medicine, Merus, and Dartmouth College, and has been a role model for many GA professionals (10m47s).
• Dave's philanthropy has been in partnership with his wife Lori, and they have had a transformative impact on autism research, resulting from many years of hard work and collaboration (11m13s).
• Dave founded the Echoing Green Foundation, a not-for-profit that GA has long supported, and has served as board chair for over 30 years, supporting over 1,000 social entrepreneurs (11m37s).
• Dave chairs and oversees the General Atlantic Foundation, which partners with extraordinary organizations to improve the human condition, and has guided the foundation to focus on strategic partnerships with Echoing Green and Endeavor (11m47s).
• Dave has been an important supporter of the Stanford Business School, including the GA Professorship, held by Professor Jennifer Acre since its inception in 2005, and has been a generous donor to the school with a focus on supporting faculty recruitment, retention, and research (12m20s).

Recognition and Imposter Syndrome

• Dave is being honored by the Stanford New York Community, his family and friends, and GA colleagues for his leadership and contributions to the Stanford Business School (12m46s).
• The recipient of a leadership award is experiencing intense impostor syndrome, having never run anything, and acknowledges the contributions of their alma mater, Stanford GSB, and its culture of teamwork and mutual support (14m27s).

Stanford GSB's Influence and Innovation

• Stanford GSB has had a century of innovation, including the public Management program, joint degrees with law, medicine, and Engineering, entrepreneurship classes, and a management simulation (15m29s).
• The recipient recognizes the exemplary leadership of Stanford GSB Deans, especially President Lan, and other great leaders who have been amazing stewards of the school (16m11s).
• The recipient's classmates at Stanford were amazing, supportive, and collegial teammates, and some have become role models for giving back, such as Joe and Renee (16m29s).

The Recipient's Journey at General Atlantic

• The recipient's origin story involves Steve Denning, who was recruiting summer Associates at Stanford, and Mary Jane Elmore, who introduced the recipient to Steve, leading to a 43-year career at General Atlantic (16m51s).
• The recipient credits Mary Jane Elmore with changing their life and acknowledges the incredible investors and forces in the Venture industry that Stanford GSB has produced (17m24s).
• The recipient's experience at Stanford was shaped by amazing classmates, including MJ Elmore, who found them in the computer room and introduced them to Steve Denning (17m50s).

Learning from Stanford GSB Professors

• The recipient recognizes the education they received at Stanford and the amazing professors they learned from, including Charles Horren, who taught a course with a title that could put anyone to sleep, "Managerial Economics" (18m45s).
• The accounting course allowed for the identification of essential elements of good business models, key assumptions in investments, and assessment of compensation systems, which are crucial skills in business management (18m57s).
• Jack McDonald's Advanced Finance course covered topics like black-scholes and efficient portfolio theory, and he was notable for his kindness, which showed that investing can be done with great values (19m22s).
• Alen Enthoven's healthcare economics course demonstrated that business can solve important societal problems, and it introduced the concept of impact investing, which has been a significant aspect of work at General Atlantic and John's Hopkins (19m56s).
• Jim Latane, an undergraduate classmate, was recognized for his work in data science, and his career has been parallel to the speaker's, with a focus on evidence-based problem-solving (20m27s).
• Professors Jim March and Jeff Pfeffer were thanked for their teaching, particularly in organizational behavior, which provided a skeptical examination of organizational dynamics (21m19s).
• Jim March's teaching highlighted the importance of critically evaluating organizational behavior, including the tendency for companies to gather data to justify decisions after they have been made (21m45s).
• Jeff Pfeffer's power in politics class provided a new lens for viewing organizations as places with struggles for resources, alliances, and enemies, where successful careers depend on clever navigation (22m36s).

Personal Experiences and Leadership Approach

• A personal experience led to becoming a keener-eyed observer and more circumspect in giving advice and assessing the probability of implementing change in organizations (23m2s).
• This experience also gave access to combining a love of business with a fascination for psychology, which was influenced by having a mother who was a counseling psychologist (23m16s).
• A leadership approach is grounded in trying to understand people, assessing what influences them, and being respectful of how important their jobs are to them (23m38s).

Leadership vs. Management

• A great leader, Lori, was met while at Stanford, and following her lead has always paid off (24m5s).
• Great leadership cannot succeed without great management, which is why an award for leadership shouldn't go to someone who doesn't really manage anything (24m42s).
• Great management brings to mind someone sitting behind a big desk, while great leadership brings to mind a general sitting astride a white charger with a saber in their hand (25m8s).
• The traditional model of relying on positional power to move the troops is breaking down because the troops are smart, well-informed, and used to self-determination (25m39s).
• CEOs are now tasked with being influencers, not just bosses, and are competing with hundreds of other influencers, including employees' friends, industry gurus, and social media pundits (26m5s).
• In some organizations, CEOs are also competing with culture, such as in the healthcare system, where management initiatives can come into conflict with the culture of caring (26m33s).

The Evolving Role of CEOs and Effective Leadership

• Employees work for various reasons, including a paycheck and the desire to make a difference, which is often what attracted them to their organizations in the first place (27m15s).
• Leaders should explain how unpopular initiatives align with the organization's shared mission, rather than blaming external forces, as employees can easily detect hypocrisy (27m26s).
• A quote from Albert Schweitzer, "Example is not the main thing in influencing others, it is the only thing," highlights the importance of leaders being influencers and setting a good example (27m56s).
• Employees can quickly identify hypocrisy in their managers' words and actions, making it essential for leaders to be genuine and transparent (28m10s).
• CEOs should avoid making speeches about their commitment to pay equity when they earn significantly more than some employees, and instead focus on being honest and authentic (28m15s).
• Companies should resist the urge to spin bad news and instead be transparent about their mistakes and plans for improvement (28m31s).
• Better leaders set the right examples, think harder, and work smarter to make tough decisions and communicate effectively with their employees (29m5s).
• Managed care companies have successfully developed new revenue and care delivery models that balance economic outcomes with their commitment to patients, resulting in high employee engagement and discretionary effort (29m15s).
• Knowing and understanding employees is crucial for leaders, as it helps them make decisions that work for their team and avoid demotivating them (29m39s).
• Leaders should assemble a team and empower others to lead on specific issues, rather than trying to do everything themselves (30m7s).
• CEOs can rely on their team members who have expertise in areas like AI to make informed decisions and communicate effectively (30m22s).
• Being part of a great team and relying on others makes leaders more effective, as learned from experiences at General Atlantic (30m33s).