About International Business Today

Bill George, Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School and former Chairman and CEO of Medtronic, joins Paula Caligiuri for a conversation on what authentic leadership really demands in today's world. Bill shares why courage is the most critical leadership quality — and why it cannot be taught in a classroom. He draws on his own crucibles, including personal losses and a decade leading one of the most mission-driven companies in global business, to illustrate how values-based leadership works under pressure. The conversation covers how to build a personal support team, how Satya Nadella transformed Microsoft's culture from know-it-alls to learn-it-alls, and why the human skills being sidelined right now will be the defining competitive advantage as AI reshapes work.

About the guest: Bill George is Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School and former Chairman and CEO of Medtronic, where he grew the company's market capitalization from $1.1 billion to $60 billion. He is the bestselling author of True North: Leading Authentically in Today's Workplace and has served on the boards of Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil, Novartis, and the Mayo Clinic. He has taught leadership at Harvard Business School since 2004.

What happens when AI starts automating the knowledge worker, not the factory floor? Doug Atkinson, President and Founder of Solutions Review, argues that 52 million U.S. jobs rated highest for automation risk belong to degree-holders, and that most organizations are not being honest about what that means. In this conversation, Doug and Paula explore why curiosity, resilience, and perspective-taking are the durable skills that will define human value in an AI-driven economy, why entry-level jobs are disappearing faster than anyone acknowledges, and why AI agents, not chatbots, represent the real transformation still ahead.

About the guest: Doug Atkinson is the President and Founder of Solutions Review, a digital media organization covering enterprise technology and business innovation with over a million subscribers across its platforms. He is also the host of The Human Conversation podcast, which examines the human impact of artificial intelligence on work, education, and society.

The anti-ESG backlash has dominated headlines, but Trillium Asset Management CEO Matt Patsky argues the long-term trend in responsible investing is unchanged. In this episode, Patsky traces the backlash to its roots in the fossil fuel industry's response to rising capital costs, explains why the shift from greenwashing to “green hushing” is now the bigger challenge for accountable investors, and shares how coalition-based shareholder advocacy helped drive real corporate change, including the recognition of the Starbucks employees union across more than 500 US stores. He also addresses how the AI boom's energy demands are creating new dilemmas for sustainable investors who pushed tech companies toward low-carbon electricity commitments.

About the guest: Matt Patsky is CEO and Lead Portfolio Manager of the Trillium ESG Global Equity strategy at Trillium Asset Management, founded in 1982 as one of the first investment firms devoted exclusively to sustainable and responsible investing. With over four decades of experience, Patsky became the first sell-side analyst in the United States to publish on socially responsible investing in 1994 and has led Trillium as CEO since 2009.

Whether you're a supply chain executive navigating tariff uncertainty, a business leader evaluating AI investments, or a student preparing for careers in operations management, this episode reveals why the future belongs to humans who can partner with AI—not be replaced by it.

About the guest: Dr. Nada Sanders is Distinguished Professor of Supply Chain Management at the D'Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University. Ranked in the top 2% of world scientists by Stanford University, she is an internationally recognized expert in forecasting, global supply chains, and human-technology integration. She has served as President of the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS), sits on the Board of Economic Advisers of the Association of Industries of Massachusetts (AIM), and has consulted with Fortune 100 companies including Amazon, Dell, and Lego. She is the author of eight books, including the award-winning “The Humachine: Humankind, Machines, and the Future of Enterprise” (Routledge, 2nd ed. 2024). Find her most recent book, SCM with AI for Managers, here: https://www.prospectpressvt.com/textbooks/sanders-scm-with-ai

Learn more about Nada Sanders: https://damore-mckim.northeastern.edu/people/nada-sanders/ Nada Sanders website: https://nadasanders.com/ The Humachine on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Humachine-Nada-R-Sanders/dp/1032345683 New book coming soon: “Supply Chain Management With AI” (Prospect Press)

The job market's rules changed. A degree, a high GPA, and a long list of applications used to be enough. Julia Ivy says they no longer are, and she has a framework to replace them. In this episode, Ivy introduces boutique employability: a competitive career strategy built on a multidimensional skill profile and a four-step process for building trust with target employers before ever asking for a job. She walks through the BE-EDGE method with a real student example, explains how three simultaneous global shifts are reshaping the workforce, and argues that universities are excelling at exactly one of the four capitals graduates actually need.

About the guest: Julia Ivy is an Executive Professor of International Business and Strategy at Northeastern University's D'Amore-McKim School of Business and founder of BE-EDGE.com. She holds two doctoral degrees, in Psychology and Management, and is the author of Crafting Your Edge for Today's Job Market: Using the BE-EDGE Method for Consulting Cases and Capstone Projects (Emerald, 2019). Her framework has been applied by students working with employers across 22 countries.

What happens when AI can do what crowds of people used to do? In this episode, Professor Paula Caligiuri sits down with colleague Kevin Boudreau to explore how digital twins and AI are reshaping the way platforms organize innovation. Kevin shares an ongoing experiment using digital twins of scientists to simulate collaboration on campus, testing whether AI can unlock the cross-disciplinary partnerships that humans consistently avoid. He also discusses new field experiment findings showing that AI-driven hiring systems drive away the most capable candidates, and explains why the traditional platform-complement model faces structural pressure as software development costs approach zero.

About the guest: Kevin Boudreau is a Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Northeastern University's D'Amore-McKim School of Business and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research uses large-scale field experiments to study platform design, digital twins, AI-enabled organizations, and the economics of scientific discovery. He holds a PhD from MIT and has previously held positions at Harvard Business School, London Business School, and HEC-Paris.

The US dollar is at its weakest in four years, and the forces behind that shift carry real consequences for consumers, investors, and companies operating globally. In this episode, finance professor and department chair Niki Boyson cuts through the noise on exchange rates, tariff uncertainty, and market volatility, explaining what a weak dollar actually means and who it helps or hurts. She also unpacks how hedge fund activists drive governance improvements, how to think about ESG risk as a financial variable rather than a political stance, and where AI fits, and doesn't fit, in financial advisory.

About the guest: Niki Boyson is a Professor and Group Chair of Finance at Northeastern University's D'Amore-McKim School of Business. Her research focuses on institutional investors, hedge funds, financial crises, and conflicts of interest in financial advisory and investment management. She is a frequent keynote speaker on capital markets and financial advisory regulation.

Associate Professor Edward Wertheim explores why modern professionals need advanced negotiation skills in today's flatter organizations. He discusses win-win versus competitive approaches, power dynamics, cultural considerations in international negotiations, and practical strategies for preparation and execution.

About the guest: Edward Wertheim is Associate Professor of Management and Organizational Development at Northeastern University's D'Amore-McKim School of Business. A professional mediator with over 12 years of experience, he teaches negotiation, mediation, and organizational behavior.

In this episode, the Chief Medical Officer of ModeX Therapeutics reveals how he secretly developed a shelved molecule over breakfast meetings at his home, why “drugs don't develop drugs—people do,” and what the US risks losing in its biotech race with China.

Dr. Giovanni Abbadessa is Chief Medical Officer at ModeX Therapeutics, where he leads development of next-generation multi-specific antibodies for cancer and immune disorders. A board-certified oncologist trained in Naples, Italy, he previously spent 7 years at Sanofi and 10 years at small biotechs including ArQule, where his persistence turned a $1 stock into a $20-per-share Merck acquisition.

John Fallon led Pearson through one of the most dramatic digital transformations in publishing history. From 20 million textbooks a year to less than a million, he saw the entire business model collapse and rebuild in real time. He discusses how to know when to move on transformation, why the human side is harder than the technology, making difficult portfolio decisions like selling the Financial Times and Penguin, and why AI doesn't have to be a death sentence for established companies.

About the guest: John Fallon served as CEO of Pearson PLC from 2013 to 2020, leading the 190-year-old education company's shift from print to digital. He is now Professor of Practice at Northeastern University, Chair of GEMS Education, an executive fellow at London Business School, and co-author of Resurgent: How Established Organizations Can Fight Back and Thrive in an Age of Digital Transformation.