Thinkers50 Podcast

• The Provocateurs Episode 36: Selassie Atadika

  Award-winning chef, chocolatier, and founder of Midunu, Selassie Atadika is a Time 2025 Earth Award honoree and Yale’s inaugural Global Table Fellow. In this compelling episode of Provocateurs, Selassie demonstrates how intentional food choices can reshape entire systems. Food is more than just sustenance, she contends, it’s a powerful tool for transformation, touching every aspect of our lives from economics to environmental policy, health, and culture. Drawing from her experiences across 44 African countries, Selassie’s philosophy of "new African cuisine" – where culture, community, and cuisine intersect with environment, sustainability, and economy – offers profound lessons for addressing global food system challenges, while celebrating local traditions and creating economic opportunities for smallholder farmers. Discover more about the innovative business model of Midunu – a nomadic dining concept that combines research, education, and culinary experiences – and how Selassie is “leading through deliciousness” to create new possibilities for sustainable agriculture, preserve cultural heritage, and protect the environment around us. --- The executive’s participation in this podcast is solely for educational purposes based on their knowledge of the subject and the views expressed by them are solely their own. This podcast should not be deemed or construed to be for the purpose of soliciting business for any of the companies mentioned, nor does Deloitte advocate or endorse the services or products provided by these companies.

  --------  

  33:37

  --------

  33:37
• The Provocateurs Episode 35: Eileen Collins

  Trailblazer Eileen Collins is a retired NASA astronaut and former Air Force Colonel. In 1995, she became the first woman to pilot a space shuttle and in 1999, she became the first woman to command a space shuttle mission. Eileen's final mission in 2005 was commanding the critical return to flight mission, the first since the space shuttle Columbia disaster. Her memoir Through The Glass Ceiling to the Stars, was published in 2021. Provocateurs hosts Des Dearlove and Steve Goldbach talk to Eileen about her remarkable journey from a young girl in small town Elmira, New York, who dreamed of flying, to breaking the glass ceiling at NASA. Addressing the challenges of spaceflight, she reveals the importance of relentless preparation, the power of mentorship, and her evolution from an autocratic to collaborative leader. She also shares her three fundamental elements of leadership: 1. Know your job 2. Get the right people in place 3. Integrity: honesty and trust In a candid conversation, Eileen also reveals surprising moments of vulnerability, including a panic attack at a press event that contrasted sharply with her calm under life-threatening space emergencies. --- The executive’s participation in this podcast is solely for educational purposes based on their knowledge of the subject and the views expressed by them are solely their own. This podcast should not be deemed or construed to be for the purpose of soliciting business for any of the companies mentioned, nor does Deloitte advocate or endorse the services or products provided by these companies.

  --------  

  43:54

  --------

  43:54
• The Provocateurs Episode 34: Karthik Ramanna

  Karthik Ramanna is a professor of business and public policy at the University of Oxford's Blavatnik School of Government and author of The Age of Outrage: How to Lead in a Polarized World – recently named one of Thinkers50's Best Management Books of 2025. In this episode of The Provocateurs, Karthik identifies three distinctive forces shaping our current moment: profound uncertainty about the future driven by AI, climate change, and demographic shifts; deep distrust in institutions of governance that people feel have delivered a "raw deal"; and a shift away from global humanism toward economic and cultural nationalism. Discover the tools and techniques leaders can adopt not only to manage outrage but to manage in the age of outrage, including: - How to build an active listening network - A 5-step framework for maintaining calm - Lessons from “temperate leadership” Ideas, says Karthik, are everywhere, but implementation is everything. --- The executive’s participation in this podcast is solely for educational purposes based on their knowledge of the subject and the views expressed by them are solely their own. This podcast should not be deemed or construed to be for the purpose of soliciting business for any of the companies mentioned, nor does Deloitte advocate or endorse the services or products provided by these companies.

  --------  

  39:53

  --------

  39:53
• The Provocateurs Episode 33: Rajendra Pratap Gupta

  Rajendra Pratap Gupta is a policymaker and author, a former advisor to the Health Minister of India, and a leading provocateur in digital health initiatives across the world. He is the founder of the Global Digital Health Summit, which aims to create the future of healthcare; global think-tank The Health Parliament, which collaborates with the world’s leading organizations to make health and well-being accessible to all; and the International Patients Union, which is dedicated to empowering patients in policymaking. Rajendra also works to advance education in digital health at the Academy of Digital Health Sciences, which is now the largest provider of digital health courses globally. In this episode, Rajendra draws on his extensive experience in private and public sectors to map out the future of healthcare. Discover: • How prioritising healthcare can win elections • The critical role of preemptive care over preventive care • How genetics and individual data is shifting healthcare “from bedside to website” With the democratization of technology, Rajendra contends, patients will turn from being passive recipients of care to active participants. Technology will be more than a platform for the solution – it will be the solution itself. The executive’s participation in this podcast is solely for educational purposes based on their knowledge of the subject and the views expressed by them are solely their own. This podcast should not be deemed or construed to be for the purpose of soliciting business for any of the companies mentioned, nor does Deloitte advocate or endorse the services or products provided by these companies.

  --------  

  40:33

  --------

  40:33
• The Provocateurs Episode 32: Katie McGinty

  Katie McGinty is the vice president and chief sustainability and external relations officer at Johnson Controls. In this episode she shares insights from her remarkable career spanning both public service – including as the first woman to chair the White House Council on Environmental Quality under President Clinton – and private sector leadership. Challenging the persistent myth that environmental initiatives harm the bottom line, Katie explains how sustainability and economic success are not opposing forces but complementary strategies, demonstrating through real-world examples how Johnson Controls achieves significant carbon reductions while generating substantial cost savings for clients. Key themes include: The importance of systems thinking in environmental solutions. How buildings can be transformed from climate problems to climate solutions. The power of technological innovation through efficiency, electrification, and digitalization. Drawing from her unique background in chemistry, policy, and business leadership, Katie illustrates how bringing diverse perspectives together catalyzes creativity and transforms environmental challenges into competitive advantages and economic opportunities. Sustainability, she contends, is becoming “strategy essential” for businesses. ---------- This podcast is part of an ongoing series of interviews with executives. The executives’ participation in these articles are solely for educational purposes based on their knowledge of the subject and the views expressed by them are solely their own. This podcast should not be deemed or construed to be for the purpose of soliciting business for any of the companies mentioned, nor does Deloitte advocate or endorse the services or products provided by these companies.

  --------  

  39:30

  --------

  39:30

More Business podcasts

Trending Business podcasts

About Thinkers50 Podcast

Thinkers50 Podcast: Podcasts in Family