Inspiring Leadership with Jonathan Bowman-Perks MBE

Duncan O’Rourke holds a degree from César Ritz Colleges in Switzerland and a MBA from Reims Management School. With more than 30 years’ experience within the industry, he held several executive positions in Europe, the US and the Middle East. From 2004, he served as General Manager for Kempinski in various destinations before being promoted to the position of Regional Director overseeing the Operations of the properties in the Middle East. In 2008, he was appointed Chief Operating Officer of Kempinski Hotels and became part of the Management Board at the same time.Duncan joined Accor in 2016 as COO Europe for the Luxury and Premium segment before taking over his most recent role as COO Central Europe. In his capacity, he has been responsible for more than 470 hotels and 13 brands within Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Duncan became a member of the Group’s Executive Committee upon his appointment to CEO Northern Europe in October 2020.Duncan believes “Inspiring Leadership” is something you cannot train or learn, it is something you grow into. It is a person having a mission, a guiding principle, and a very specific way to approach things. It is about building a team, to look at the big picture and embark everyone on your journey. An inspiring leader enables the experts in their team to grow and to blossom and to exceed their own expectations. A firm believer in values, Duncan also believes that inspiring leadership also means staying true to what you believe in and celebrating diverse opinions.Duncan embraces the challenges of success. “When you are promoted, when you step up, it is normal to be afraid and I have always kept this fear throughout my career. It is a fundamental part of respecting the challenge ahead of you.”Duncan’s best advice was built from a conversation with his VP many years ago. “I was asked about my plans for the Grand Opening of the hotel. When asked how the launch was looking I said “pretty good” – the response from my VP has stayed with me always: “pretty good is not good enough”. That has served me well – you want to deliver as best as you can and that drives me.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Saema Somalya is EVP for Legal and Risk, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for Remitly Global, Inc., where she leads the Legal, Compliance Risk and Privacy teams. Prior to joining Remitly, she was senior vice president, deputy general counsel (corporate) and assistant secretary at Fifth Third Bancorp and Fifth Third Bank, N.A. and senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary at Warren Resources, Inc.Previously, she served as senior legal director and corporate counsel to PepsiCo, Inc. Ms. Somelya began her career as an associate in Davis Polk’s Capital Markets group. Ms. Somalya is also active in industry, community and civil rights forums and serves as the Board Chairman for Muslim Advocates, a national civil rights advocacy organization. She earned a B.A. in international relations and affairs from Yale University and a J.D. from Yale Law School. She is British born, American raised and lives in the Seattle area with her husband and daughter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Grant Says:In 2015, I started The Speaker Lab to give other speakers the resources that I wished I had when I started speaking. We help aspiring speakers get consistently booked and paid to speak through our SPEAK Framework™, or the “business” side of speaking."Since starting The Speaker Lab, I’ve seen over and over how regular people in every industry imaginable have changed their lives and careers through getting booked and paid to speak — even during a pandemic and a recession! Our mission at The Speaker Lab is to give speakers clarity, confidence and a clear path to make an impact. Our courses and coaching have helped thousands of speakers just like you start and grow their businesses, and we’d love to see how we can come alongside you and help you in your speaking journey. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mike Amato has spent over 35 years as a leader in financial services in global executive and non-executive board roles. With a non-wavering focus on employee engagement and customer advocacy, Mike understands the power of building a trusting relationship with customers through highly engaged colleagues, creating a high performance, values-based culture. Mike is extremely experienced transforming businesses from under-performance to best-in-class growth in both physical and digital channels at scale.Following his executive career, Mike served on the board of directors for both Santander UK and for Tandem Bank UK, a digital start-up. Mike is also the Chairman of the advisory board of the UK start-up, Brands With Values.Today Mike is an executive coach, keynote speaker and advisor, as well as the author of The Better Way To Win, which illustrates how organizations can succeed while leading through crisis. In addition, Mike is an owner of Ambassador Wines of Washington, named ‘Winery of the Year’ by the Washington Wine Awards and a member of the ‘Top Wineries In The World’, by Wine and Spirits magazine.Meet Mike through an excerpt from his book, The Better Way To Win: “One Friday evening, as I was preparing to head home after a long day in my new job as an executive at Barclays in London, the phone rang. It was a producer at the BBC who told us that we would be on national TV on Sunday. They had embedded three reporters on our staff in branches and call centers and had video recorded training, meetings, and interviews with their fellow “colleagues” revealing a toxic culture where customer well-being had taken a back seat to hitting financial targets. The show was called Whistleblower, and it gave a clear message that our new management team was not facing just poor management behaviors, but we had a toxic culture that had to be addressed holistically and in record time. What resulted was a cultural overhaul for 30,000 employees that became one of the most dramatic turnarounds in UK banking history. Come on the journey with me and see:How the myopic focus on profitability ironically damages profitability How to spot the early signs of cultural degradation before crisis strikesHow the P&L of People and Leadership are the twin keys to unlocking stellar financial performance How to structure the creation of an intentional culture serving a common purposeYou will learn how to sustain an intentional culture by streamlining communications to end virtue signaling and connect with your organization on an entirely new, and deeper level. More relevant today than ever before, read along and see that there is, indeed, "A Better Way To Win!” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Inspiring Leadership Podcast Partners:Graham Brown & Jonathan Bowman-Perks Mental and physical health and well-being - Sleep, breath-work, mindfulness and yogaThis episode will motivate you to raise your game, develop your leadership talents, stimulated by insightful wisdom and playful “banter” between two passionate Broadcasters. Allow us to help you make positive impact on your businesses, your own work and your lives. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marjet Andriesse is a seasoned leader, with more than 25 years’ experience in driving customer satisfaction, sales and revenue growth, leading companies through transition as well as organizational management across Europe and Asia.With experience in technology and professional services (tech, telco, recruitment, and logistics), working in start-up, challenger and market-leader environments, Marjet has a successful track-record of delivering growth, turnaround, and leading teams through change effectively, Marjet is a Dutch national who brings a unique perspective to businesses, combining corporate knowledge, international experience, strong interpersonal skills and operational/strategic acumen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ankur Sinha is the Chief Technology Officer at Remitly overseeing all engineering and technology functions at the company since Feb 2022. He is driving the future technical direction of Remitly as the company progresses towards its vision of transforming the lives of immigrants and their families by providing the most trusted financial services on the planet.  Prior to Remitly, Ankur was an Engineering Director at Google from 2019 to 2022, driving commerce capabilities for Google Cloud. He was key in scaling google cloud towards enterprise adoption and recognized for cloud-wide technical impact. He also mentored CapitalG funded startups, and sponsored growth/inclusion and customer empathy programs.  Ankur also led multiple organizations at Microsoft from 2007 to 2019, with broad stints in Xbox and Commerce/Dynamics. He last held a Senior Director role building Dynamics 365 for Commerce, and spent many years building commerce platform components for all of Microsoft products/services. Prior to commerce, he spent 8 years in Xbox, serving consumer gaming and entertainment via Xbox Live.  Ankur’s a first generation immigrant himself, born in India, and immigrated to the USA in 2008 as part of his Microsoft stint.  He’s also been a co-founder and CTO of India startup, RA Systems. Ankur holds a B.S. in Information Technology from Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University. Ankur Sinha’s top leadership tip is to remind leaders to explore, evolve and enjoy the journey (both for themselves and their people), and to celebrate the small, consistent wins as you chase your dreams! Don’t go at it alone, take your teams with you and lead with contagious compassion. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Professor Craig Mahoney BEd, MA, PhD, TTC, CPsychol, AFBPsS, FBASES, FRSA, FIoDProfessor Craig Mahoney is an academic with over 30 years’ experience in UK higher education. A chartered psychologist and an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, Professor Mahoney has been an internationally recognised performance psychologist for over three decades. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Fellow of the British Association of Sport & Exercise Sciences, an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society and a Fellow of the Institute of Directors. He has been a CEO in three roles over the past 15 years including nearly nine years as Principal and Vice-Chancellor at the University of the West of Scotland, which was named Scottish University of the Year in 2022. He was previously CEO at the Higher Education Academy, a UK national agency overseeing the enhancement of learning and teaching in universities.A dynamic public advocate of higher education, Craig is a research active academic with a strong interest in performance enhancement, differentiated student-centred pedagogy, research informed teaching, e-learning; technology to support teaching, widespread use of open educational resources, teaching excellence and global engagement. He is a passionate supporter of equality, diversity and inclusion and has developed and supported many programmes, initiatives and change plans to eradicate discrimination and enable fairness for all.Professor Mahoney has a wide range of experience at Board level with previous Board positions including Deputy Chair of North Tyne NHS Trust, Board member of Tyne Met FE Corporation Board, UK Quality Assurance Agency, Glasgow City of Sciences, Leadership Foundation for Higher Education, Converge Challenge, a Trustee on the Carnegie Trust for Universities of Scotland, Convener of Universities Scotland Efficiency & Climate Emergency Committee and still active as a Board member of SportScotland and Chair of the Board for British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS). When not working in higher education or advocating for EDI, Professor Mahoney divides his time between his family, his passion for sport and for supporting the development of others. Professor Mahoney’s top leadership tip is to never forget where you came from and ensure you remain grounded. No one is irreplaceable so don’t take yourself too seriously and think that your impact will last forever. Build sustainable influence not short-term change. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Join Graham and Jonathan as they discuss how you can enhance your high performance through aspects of health, well-being and brain health. These are topics that both feel so passionate about and are early adopters so have experimented with. You can hear about the macro view on: eat move sleep breathe focus and prosper. This month's session is on what you eat and your exercise regime. You can hear about longevity and the importance of the 'blue zones' where Graham has lived in a number of them around the world (Okinawa) with the importance of a sense of purpose exercise and social interaction. You may be interested in extreme endurance events like the double mountain marathons and ironman competition, which both hosts have completed, and what they learnt about managing inflammation. You will receive details about diet, illness, sickness, the 'stoic philosophy' and the importance that, between stimulus and response, you always have a choice. Happiness is about exercising CHOICE. You will receive recommendations about some of the hosts' favourite books on health and well-being and you can look forward to the next month where in part two they look into sleeping breathing mindfulness and yoga. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lameen Abdul-Malik, Nobel Peace Prize (2005), Futurist Thinker, Coffeepreneur“Service to others is the rent you pay for your life here on earth” anonLameen has set himself a goal to impact one million people’s lives positively over the next 5 years and is subsequently spearheading efforts to support that ethos. One of which, is to launch 100 IDEAs cafe (a platform to source ideas to impact our world positively focusing on health, sustainability, technology and the youth). Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with his colleagues during his tenure at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 2005 for which he worked for over 14 years, he focused on transferring the peaceful use of nuclear science and technology to meet its development goals in Africa. He considers his greatest achievements at the IAEA in using US$200,000 of the prize money from the peace prize, to help establish Zambia’s first cancer hospital, which opened in 2007 and treats about 1,500 cancer patients annually. In 2018, he developed a regional strategy to help Africa focus on three priorities in human health, food and agriculture and radiation safety in using nuclear science and technology to address its development challenges. More recently, from January to October 2021, he was headhunted to be Director of Think at the Future Investment Initiative (FII) Institute, where he oversaw the launch of a unique global infectious diseases index that tracks up to 60 pathogens daily, initiated a research agenda in line with the SDGs to highlight topical issues and launched the healthcare, sustainability and AI/Robotics roadmap, as well as guided the selection and curation of ideas aimed at alleviating global societal challenges.He is also very passionate about coffee, for which he has been writing for over 14 years under his personal blog www.fromcoffeewithlove.com and has been featured on CNNs website for Drinking Coffee in October 2020. In June 2019 he was invited by the International Coffee Organisation to participate in a EU Coffee Symposium on the UN Sustainable Development Goals, where he interacted with industry giants like Starbucks, Illy and Nestle to discuss the coffee value chain and he documented his experience in an article on how Africa can benefit from the coffee value chain. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.