Lead with Purpose

Lead with Purpose

Lead with Purpose is a long-form series featuring leaders who are building something that matters. Founders, CEOs, board members, and thinkers sit down with Ron Boire, former CEO of Barnes & Noble, Sears Canada, and Brookstone, for unscripted, unedited conversations about how leaders define their purpose, navigate crisis, and make the hard calls that shape their companies, their teams, and their lives: from strategic transformation and the future of work to the human side of leading through technological change. No soundbites. No scripts. Just real dialogue between people who have sat in the chair.

Episodes

October 20, 2026 • 80 mins

Episode description

Warren Kornblum ( Brand & Business Advisor, Author & Founder, Share Of Heart™ Advisory | Former Global CMO, Toys“R”Us) was global CMO of Toys R Us starting in 1999, when the Big Toy Book still landed in tens of millions of homes. He is now the author of Notes from the Brand Stand and the creator of Share of Heart, his answer to share of mind and share of wallet: the emotional connection that ...

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Episode summary

Jen MacLean started as a teenage playtester at Microsoft, rose through AOL, Comcast, Amazon, and Microsoft's Xbox, and is now co-founder and CEO of Dragon Snack Games. Ron has known her for more than 25 years, since they met at Columbia Business School. He is also a friends and family investor and angel advisor to Dragon Snack. Jen walks through the state of the games industry: North American layoffs after the COVID ...

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Guest bio

Rahim Hirji is the author of SuperSkills: The Seven Human Skills for the Age of AI. He spent years in education technology, including building a business in China teaching soft skills to teenagers, and now speaks and advises on how leaders and organizations navigate the shift AI is driving. His framework covers seven skills, among them curiosity, global adaptability, principled innovation, and the augmented mindset.

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Episode description

JoAnn Garbin is the first returning guest on Lead with Purpose. She led innovation work on the data center of the future at Microsoft, co-authored the bestselling The Insider's Guide to Innovation at Microsoft, and now runs Regenerous Labs, where her team designs data centers meant to be positive for the company, the community, and nature.

Ron and JoAnn work through the fight happening in towns across the country....

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Episode description

Caroline Webb spent her first career as an economist, forecasting the US economy for the British government at the Bank of England. She left because the work kept pulling her away from the human center. What followed was twelve years at McKinsey, where she stepped off the partner track to build a leadership practice from scratch, and then made partner anyway.

Ron and Caroline discuss the distinction at the heart o...

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Guest bio

Dina Consolini Dommett is Director of Partnerships at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs, where she designs and runs executive programs including the Ukrainian Veterans Leadership Program with the Victor Pinchuk Foundation. She has spent more than twenty-five years in international executive education at Columbia Business School, NYU Stern, London Business School, the London School of Economics, and Oxford'...

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About Stefan Pagels Christensen

Stefan Pagels Christensen is the founder of IMPROV Communication, an international leadership and team development consultancy based in Helsingør, Denmark, specializing in psychological safety and emotional intelligence delivered through applied improvisation. A Danish child actor from the age of twelve, he performed in more than eight feature films and appeared at the Royal Danish Theatre at sixteen....

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About Paul Spitale

Paul Spitale spent twenty-five years at Sony Electronics, rising through the ranks from regional sales associate to senior vice president. After Sony, he led a successful turnaround of a struggling paperboard company in New Jersey before joining Colt's Manufacturing in 2015, one of the oldest and most iconic firearms companies in America. At Colt, Paul served as Chief Commercial Officer and was instrumental in reb...

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Guest: Troy Rice, President and CEO of PGA Tour Superstore
About Troy Rice

Troy Rice is the President and CEO of PGA Tour Superstore, the largest specialty golf retailer in the United States, owned by Arthur Blank, co-founder of Home Depot and owner of the Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United. Troy brings nearly four decades of retail leadership experience across some of America's most iconic brands, including Home Depot, Toys R Us...

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Lead with Purpose | Episode Show Notes

Guest: Bill Klepper, Leadership Scholar, Author, and Senior Faculty at Columbia Business School

About Bill Klepper

Bill Klepper is one of the most respected leadership scholars in the world and a defining presence at Columbia Business School for nearly four decades. He began his relationship with Columbia in 1986 when he was sent to Beijing to help launch the first MBA program in China. After a d...

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About Carl Tischler

Carl Tishler is the founder of the HPNA Academy, a performance academy built around the concept of high performing, non-arrogant leaders. After nine years on Wall Street as a banker and seven years as a private equity investor, Carl experienced the 2008 global financial crisis firsthand when his firm collapsed under the weight of rapid growth and cultural breakdown. That dislocation became the catalyst for buildi...

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About Bryce Hoffman

Bryce Hoffman is a former journalist turned business strategist and author. After 20 years covering Silicon Valley, California politics, and the American automobile industry for the Detroit News, he wrote American Icon, the definitive account of Alan Mulally's turnaround of Ford Motor Company. The book became a best seller and launched his second career as an advisor and trainer to corporations, governments, and ...

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About Usman Humayun

Usman Humayun is a data scientist and marketing executive whose career spans nearly two decades at the intersection of analytics and consumer marketing. He began his career at Sears Holdings in data analytics, later served as chief of staff to the president of Kenmore, Craftsman, and DieHard brands, and most recently spent six years at Albertsons leading all digital marketing functions including CRM, paid media, ...

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Lead with Purpose: Ron Boire and Brendan Dowling

In this episode, Ron sits down with Brendan Dowling, serial entrepreneur, executive coach, and visionary for the future of Ireland. Brendan leads Celtic Leadership, a coaching and training company dedicated to accelerating the growth of companies through programs designed for CEOs and their senior management teams. Celtic Leadership He also serves as lead business advisor coach on...

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Lead with Purpose Podcast: Ron Boire and JoAnn Garbin

Ron sits down with JoAnn Garbin, author, innovator, and co-founder of Regenerous Labs, a venture studio dedicated to regenerative innovation at the intersection of sustainability and technology. JoAnn spent 25 years building at that intersection before joining Microsoft, where she led efforts to reimagine what a data center could be.

Ron and JoAnn explore the rapid pace of...

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Ron sits down with Aidan McCullen, transformation consultant, keynote speaker, author, college professor, and former professional rugby player. Recorded after the two connected at the Reinvention Summit in Dublin, this conversation covers personal reinvention, organizational transformation, resilience, the future of work, AI, and what it really takes to rebuild your identity after losing everything you were known for.

The In...

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Ron sits down with longtime friend and collaborator Rita McGrath, widely regarded as one of the world's leading business strategists and a Thinkers50 top-ranked thinker. Recorded at Columbia Business School, this wide-ranging conversation covers AI and organizational transformation, the future of work, education, universal basic income, and what it means to lead with purpose in an era of accelerating change.

Takeaways

  • Long-standi...
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