ChairWaves

Lunch between meetings and drinks afterward are part of what bonds a peer group. So what happens when the whole group meets on Zoom? For Los Angeles, CA Vistage Chair Jed Daly, it comes down to psychological safety. Build that well, and a virtual group can be as close as one that meets in person.

A lifelong musician who has played in roughly 20 rock bands, Jed built his career in the media business before spending decades as a consu...

Starting a Vistage group is hard enough, but try doing it in a city where you don't know a single person. That was the challenge facing Cathy “Fitz” Fitzhenry, now a Vistage Chair Emeritus, when she returned from Costa Rica and settled in Omaha, Nebraska. Eager to join Vistage as a member but finding no local groups, she decided to start one herself and ended up forming five, opening a market that has since grown well b...

What do crossing the border to Tijuana and a semiconductor company in Edinburgh have in common? For Silicon Valley area Vistage Chair Steve Lanza, both were formative stops on a career that eventually led him to becoming a Chair. In this episode of Chairwaves, Steve reflects on how years spent living and working internationally reinforced a simple truth that still drives him: people everywhere work hard to provide for their familie...

A.J. Mirabedini has been a CEO eleven times. After a long career building companies as well as turning them around for others, he unexpectedly found his way into leading Vistage groups in New Mexico. Now, instead of managing transactions, he's part of something that feels less like business and more like family. 

For AJ, chairing is a way to give back and invest in an amazing business ecosystem in one of the poorest states in t...

Charlotte Wagner spent 30 years in the corporate world as an engineer and a leader before she ever thought about leading a Vistage group. She's now a year in as a Vistage Chair and she's learned that careful planning isn't the only thing that makes a meeting great, it's the trust the members build in each other and the range of perspectives they bring to the table. 

On this episode of Chairwaves, Charlotte talks about how being...

Stephanie Geisler didn't know what Vistage was until weeks before starting Chair Academy. No prior peer group experience, no long research phase, just a moment of clarity she trusted enough to act on. On this episode of Chairwaves, the Salt Lake City Chair talks about why she leans on intuition even though she has no shortage of data to guide her.

Stephanie has continued to trust that instinct throughout her time as a Chair. She now...

AI and automation may be reshaping office jobs, but Sacramento, CA Vistage Chair Jason Harbinson believes demand is swinging back toward the skilled trades. As AI changes the nature of knowledge work, manufacturers and repair shops are still searching for talented people to fill roles that can't easily be replaced. 

This episode of the Chairwaves podcast explores Jason's uncommon perspective as a Vistage Chair. While many Chair...

Ask Mary Edwards how she rose from an entry-level job in health insurance to executive leadership roles at some of the biggest names in consulting, and she'll point to one thing: doing what you say you're going to do. The North Dallas, TX Vistage Chair believes reputation isn't only built by what you accomplish, it's broken by what you promise and fail to deliver, a philosophy that guided her throughout her career before she became...

Adam Harris spent eight years as the youngest Vistage Chair in the world, taking on the role at just 31 after his time as a CEO had ended. He built his group in the UK, then made the leap to relocate his family to New Zealand in 2019, stepping away from chairing when remote leadership wasn't yet an option for Vistage. Just months later, COVID hit, and virtual became the only option.

Now based in New Zealand with time split in Austra...

Most people spend their careers trying to avoid hearing no's. Columbus, Ohio Vistage Chair Shannon Lee actually went looking for them. When building her first group became the hardest stretch of her career, she gave herself a goal of ten no's a week and made a game out of getting them.

Shannon spent years in education and the nonprofit world before realizing her real passion was helping leaders of leaders show up as their best selve...

Leadership books have a funny way of circling back to the same uncomfortable truth: you can't lead other leaders until you've done the hard work of leading yourself. This is something Denver, CO Vistage Chair Melissa Edison Barnes is navigating in real time as she builds her first Vistage CE group. 

Melissa brings a resume that spans General Mills and Harley-Davidson to early-stage startups and a successful business exit. But i...

Sometimes the biggest challenge for a CEO isn’t knowing what to do. It’s actually doing it.

In this episode of the Chairwaves podcast, Craig James, a Vistage Chair from Westwood, Massachusetts, shares one of the lessons that surprised him most about working with business leaders: even successful CEOs need accountability.

Craig also shares his journey from finance and sales to entrepreneurship, teaching at NYU, and eventua...

There’s something rare about a leader who still takes the time to send handwritten birthday cards.

Quebec City TEC Chair Louis-Samuel Jacques has spent the last eight years building peer groups and intentionally investing in the leaders within them. In this episode of Chairwaves, Louis-Samuel talks about the shift from being a consultant focused on solving problems to becoming a Chair focused on helping leaders think better, c...

Great coaching isn’t always about direction. Sometimes it’s about attention.

That idea comes through clearly in the latest episode of Chairwaves featuring New York City Vistage Chair Allan Fried. In this episode, Allan shares how his background in the music industry eventually led him into coaching, meditation, and Vistage, though he admits it took hearing about the organization three separate times before he finally saw...

What kind of space do you create when you walk into a room?

When Erik asked Ken Mandelbaum what he’s learned in 13 years as a Vistage Chair, Ken’s answer had little to do with tactics or process. Instead, the Northern New Jersey Chair focused on the idea of “space”: the environment leaders create through the way they listen, speak, and show up for others. In this episode of the Chairwaves podcast, Ken shares ...

Most people think they need to reinvent themselves to stay relevant. Mikki Williams took the opposite approach—and it worked for decades.

This Chairwaves podcast episode features Chicago, IL-based Chair Emeritus Mikki Williams, a serial entrepreneur whose career spans professional speaking, leading Vistage CEO peer groups, and now building a social media following in her 80s . When asked how to build a brand that lasts, she po...

What actually drives performance inside a company? It comes down to how well people show up for each other.

In this episode of the Chairwaves podcast, Philadelphia, PA Vistage Chair Chris Donnelly breaks down the kind of leadership that doesn’t show up in the numbers. Drawing from his military background, Chris explains why real camaraderie, relying on the people around you to step up and deliver, has become the lens he uses t...

Fenella Kim had no network, no resources, and no roadmap when she arrived in the United States—but she figured it out anyway.

Fenella is a Long Island, NY-based Vistage Chair who went from high-voltage electrical engineer to serial entrepreneur, building and exiting multiple companies after arriving in the U.S. In this episode of the Chairwaves podcast, Fenella shares how a single mentor changed her trajectory and how that exp...

There’s a difference between having the answers and knowing how to help someone find their own.

On this episode of Chairwaves, I talk with Machen MacDonald, a Vistage Chair based in Grass Valley, California. Machen is a former financial advisor turned certified coach who works with private clients in addition to leading his Vistage group. In his work, Machen has seen a consistent pattern—leaders either don’t know h...