Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen

I recently interviewed CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam: Our guest today is one of America's top public health leaders. Dr Mandy Cohen is the Director of the CDC, where she leads the federal agency responsible for protecting America's Health. Dr Cohen, thank you for joining us.

Dr. Mandy Cohen: So great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Adam: We're recording from the Milken conference.

Dr. Mandy Cohen: In LA. It's beautiful here today.

Adam: How are you enjoying LA so far?

Dr. Mandy Cohen: Well, I love the lack of humidity and the nice warm heat. I'd like to bring that to Atlanta and to DC. No, this is a great conference having an important conversation about where we go in the future. It's what I'm thinking about a lot. So it's great to connect with old friends and make some new ones. So it's been great.

Adam: Great to see you. And you grew up on the other side of the country, in Long Island. Your mom was a nurse practitioner, and she was an early influence on you as you were deciding what you wanted to do with your career. You went to medical school and you also got a degree in public health. Can you take listeners back to your early days? What early experiences and lessons shaped the trajectory of your success?

Dr. Mandy Cohen: Sure, I talk about my mom a lot. She's a nurse practitioner, but importantly, she's a nurse practitioner in an emergency room. Unfortunately for our emergency rooms, they're often where all the broken parts of our health care system, or frankly, our economic system as well, show up whether poverty shows up in the emergency room, as do overdoses, mental health issues, lack of access to primary care shows up in the emergency room. So I saw the best of it, which was her getting stopped in the grocery store by a neighbor saying, "Thank you so much. You helped me last night in the emergency room or a family member." But I also saw the other side, which was where the emergency room was, the place where some parts of the system were broken. And I became really interested in saying, well, how can we fix it? Why is it working that way or not working that way for everyone? And so it really started my brain thinking both about, how I can be an amazing clinician like my mom, but also, how do we make a system that works for everyone. My brain went to the system thinking really early on, and then I, luckily was able to meet a number of mentors early in my career. One of them ran the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Bruce Vladeck, who was the first one to validate for me when I was like, "Hey, I think I'm going to go to medical school. And I'm interested in how the parts of the system fit together from a policy perspective, a financial perspective," and he was the one who was like, "Yes, that is great. We actually need folks who can bridge those worlds." Now it's a lot more common, which is wonderful, and there are a lot of folks who bridge those worlds, but it was more uncommon than it was wonderful to have a mentor who said, yes, we need a bridger of worlds and run fast down that path.

Adam: Mentorship. A key element to helping you get to where you are today. You started off wanting to go into medicine, wanting to go into public health. Today, you're leading the CDC. How did you get to where you are, and what can anyone do to rise within their career?

Dr. Mandy Cohen: Well, one I would say, it's not a linear path. I sort of had a vision or a destination of leading larger organizations that would make an impact at scale, related to health, but that could have been a lot of different things. And what I would say to anyone who's thinking about their career early in their career, is to go work for great people, great bosses who are doing innovative and cutting edge things, just to open your mind to new experiences, but also do an amazing job at whatever is thrown at you. So don't get so focused on a linear path that you don't leave yourself open to other possibilities. Here's one for me. I was at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services when I was helping to implement pieces of the Affordable Care Act when healthcare.gov didn't work. It was October 1, 2013, and I didn't know anything about coding a website and the underlying architecture of that data system, but when that happened, I raised my hand and said, how can I help? It was an opportunity for me to jump in and lead my boss at the time, Marilyn Tavenner, to put me in charge of a call center and a navigator program, I didn't know anything about those, but it was an opportunity for me to build skills, learn in a crisis, lead teams, and I'm forever grateful for that first opportunity to really jump in at a time when CMS was going. A hard time, but it really allowed me to build some really new skills as a leader.

Adam: And leading in crisis is going to be a key theme in this conversation, but I want to go back to something that you shared, which I think is really interesting, the importance of identifying great people to work for. What are some of those qualities that we should look for when we're trying to find good leaders, good bosses, and good managers to align ourselves with?

Dr. Mandy Cohen: I think you can learn from good leaders, and I've also learned from not-as-good leaders. You can also learn about what not to do, but the best is always working for someone amazing, and sometimes as a young person, you don't know that. So what I would say is making sure you're putting yourself in a position where you're working with someone who has a big vision, and who is a really good communicator. I know this is a small thing, but manage their own time well, because a precious resource of any leader is time. So you can learn how they manage their time, help you to manage your time. And you also want to be around someone who wants your career to advance. So it's not just that you are there, of course, to do the job, but that you know, and you get from the onset that they care about your career trajectory overall. And that wasn't something I looked for or knew to look for when I was younger in my career, but now very much look for opportunities and make sure that when I am recruiting folks onto my team, I tell them I care about your career trajectory. What do you want to work on over the next year, three years, five years? Because I think going to work for someone who's not just going to care about the moment and getting through that day or that week but cares about you as a whole person, and what your career trajectory is going to be is really important.

Adam: You lead an agency where you have about 12,000 people working for you. In your last job, you had about 16,000 people working for you, and you didn't go to school to study leadership, studying management, you had to develop those skills along the way. How did your leadership style evolve? And how would you describe yourself as a leader?

Dr. Mandy Cohen: Well, I would say I need to be a different kind of leader, depending on the circumstance, but at the core of it, I continue to be a values-driven leader, and I articulate what values are important to me, and what I think is important to the entity that I'm leading, and I try to bring that into every piece of what we're doing. So for example, in North Carolina, we had these core values when I was secretary of Health and Human Services there, and I would bring them into each and every decision point that we would make, whether it was around teamwork and collaboration or stewardship or transparency or belonging. And I do that again at CDC, so I bring in the core values and try to help folks know, how do we want to treat each other? How am I going to make decisions here? How should we make decisions together, as much as what we're going to do? So at its core, because the situation changes. Sometimes you're in crisis, sometimes you're building for the long-term strategies. Sometimes you're trying to fight a fire. Your day-to-day leadership in the moment may change, particularly when you're working with different kinds of teams. But at the core of it, those values stay and when I send my monthly emails to my 12,000 folks across the CDC team, I'm always highlighting our values, living our values, so we have an entire section of that. It's like our values in action, and we highlight how a team is embracing something like collaboration or embracing transparency, or embracing belonging or service or so when we make sure that those continue to be our bedrock.

Adam: You bring up something really interesting, which is, when you're leading 12,000 people, you can't manage 12,000 people. You can't directly influence 12,000 people. But how do you indirectly influence 12,000 people by leading by example, by modeling the kind of behavior that you want the 12,000 people on your team to bring to the table every single day?

Dr. Mandy Cohen: Absolutely and this is where focus and prioritization as a leader is so important. One, you have your bedrock core values. So that's the how are we gonna treat each other each and every day, no matter what we're prioritizing or focusing on, and then you have the layer on of like, okay, so what are we trying to get done this year or these two years or three years? And for CDC, we have a tight set of things that we are focused on, which is hard, and I've always said, as a leader, it's not just about what you're articulating that you're focusing on, but it's also, what are you de-prioritizing? What do you stop doing in order to make room for those priorities? And that's actually the hardest part, I think, of leadership is asking folks to stop doing something they might already be working on in service of those priorities. And we're focusing on that at CDC because there are some. Core things that we really need to focus on coming out of the pandemic, and so that priority and focus. So if you ask any of my team members, one, I want them to be able to articulate our mission, protect health, and improve lives. Four words, protect health, and improve lives. And then I want them to be able to articulate our core priorities. One of them is being able to respond to any health threat, improving mental health, supporting young families, and being on the CDC team. So we reinforce that over and over with our senior leadership team and my communications, our all-staff meeting. Again, it allows us to have that common language, that common focus, and it all sits on a bedrock of, again, those values on how we treat each other.

Adam: I love it. Clarity of mission, clarity of focus, simple language, not trying to overcomplicate things, but making it very clear to everyone you're leading. This is what we have to do, day in and day out.

Dr. Mandy Cohen: Clarity and repetition are so important as a leader, and when I think folks struggle, and when there isn't role clarity and there, when there isn't vision clarity, when there isn't prioritization. And so I try to bring that into the things that I'm doing. And again, it helps ground me as a leader to be like, am I using my time in service of these priorities? You can look at your own calendar. Does it balance out against what you say is your articulated priorities in government, what's hard is it does take a long time to make your budget match those priorities, so like we're in that work right now, and that takes a number of years, but first you gotta articulate where we're headed, get everyone rowing in the same direction, and then slowly, make sure you can move those big rocks, whether it's budget or data systems or programmatic areas of focus to align with those priorities.

Adam: And a big priority for you, since you took over as head of the CDC, helping to build more public confidence in the CDC, in public health in general. How do you do that? How do you convince people, persuade people, build trust?

Dr. Mandy Cohen: Well, I think it's absolutely fundamental to what we need to do in public health in this next chapter coming out of the pandemic. And this is where I really think the lessons I learned in North Carolina, leading through the COVID crisis really help inform how you build trust. Because in North Carolina, look, we are a divided state. I worked for a Democratic governor, but a super-majority Republican in our legislature, and I'm really proud of what we were able to do and how we were able to stay unified as a state. We got 99% of our seniors vaccinated. The governor did not have any of his public health authority stripped. We had all leaders on both sides of the aisle doing vaccine commercials saying, get vaccinated. So the question is, how did we do it? And there was a very tactical plan for how we built and maintained trust throughout the pandemic. First and foremost, it was about transparency. You have to be transparent in what you're doing and why you are doing it, and you have to reiterate why I'm asking folks to do really hard things. Change is hard at its core, we are asking people to do majorly hard things during the pandemic. And so that transparency on the why we were doing it, what information we were looking at, was so critical. So I think transparency really builds trust. And so as I bring that into the CDC, for me, that is being simple, repetitive, and clear in our communication, but it's also being human. So next part of what I learned in North Carolina is about building relationships. We're all people at the end of the day, and we may look at the world differently, but there's common ground there, and making sure that we are finding that common ground, looking each other in the eye, building those relationships, is so critical. And so I approach a lot of the work at CDC, not just as a physician or an executive, but as a mom. I have a 9 and a 12-year-old, and I talk a lot about my kids and what I would do for my own personal family, I think that is a way you build trust, as well as to just be human and build relationships. And then the last one related to trust, for me, is about good operational execution. It's about operational excellence. And what I mean by that, is it's super clear in your own personal life about trust, it's doing what you say you're going to do. It's just the basic concept of, did you do what you said you were going to do? And that's operational excellence, right? Did you execute what you said you were going to do? And I think oftentimes we focus so much on having the right idea, that we forget that all of the trust is in the execution, right? Did you actually deliver for folks? And so I spend a lot of my time, and this is where I found my niche in leadership is in operations, making sure that you can execute well on the things that you say you're going to do. And I really prioritize that. I hold us accountable to metrics measure what's important and hold ourselves accountable. So I think all of those things build trust, transparency, relationship building, and then operational excellence.

Adam: It's a great list, transparency, operational excellence. Do what you say you're gonna do you use the words being human. Another way of putting it is to be authentic. Be yourself. Authenticity is essential to effective leadership. Something else you shared, which I love. Don't focus on the what, but focus on the why. Focus less on telling people to do this, and focus more on telling people here's why you should do this. This isn't an order. This is an explanation. This is why we think this is in your best interest. And if you don't agree with us, well, let's have a conversation about it.

Dr. Mandy Cohen: That's right. And opening up that space for conversation, I think, is really important. And if you start with the why, you leave space for that conversation, if you start with the do this, write the what, there isn't space for that conversation, and I think that's where we have work to do to make sure that we can hold space, but also move forward and make progress. Because we are learning things. We learn them fast. We want folks to be safe, and healthy, and we need to make sure that that trust is being built and maintained over time so that folks can make sure that they're making simple, common-sense choices for themselves and their families. But this is also where operational excellence comes in. We should not make it hard to do healthy things for ourselves and our family, and sometimes it's so hard to do healthy things. And so that's where operational excellence, I think, comes in, right? Are we thinking about breaking down every single barrier, from travel time to cost to stigma, whatever it is? Are we breaking down all of those operational barriers to make, making the healthy choice, the easy choice, I think often not. I think we can do a lot better there, and that's what I'm focused on as well.

Adam: And these are core, universally applicable leadership principles. Absolutely, who do you respect as a leader? Someone who's competent, someone who walks the walk, someone who doesn't tell you you need to do this, someone who persuades you, someone who motivates you, someone who inspires you.

Dr. Mandy Cohen: I think also in any endeavor where you're trying to really go about change, a core value for me is joy also, and joy isn't having parties all the time, but you want to celebrate successes, but it's also about connecting to a mission and finding joy sometimes in the hard moments. When I look back on the COVID pandemic, there were so many challenging, hard times I hope I don't have to go through my professional career again. But there were so many moments there where I felt so grateful to be in those positions that I got to know people in such a transformative way, I got to see the best of what North Carolina could bring to the table, even though things were hard. So there's joy even in the hard moments if you connect to the mission. And that's why, first and foremost, as a leader, to connect folks to why are we all here. Back to that why. For the CDC to protect health and improve lives? So just remember those four words, and that's why we're here. That's why we get up every day to what we're going to focus on. And if your work doesn't feel in service of that, maybe we need to stop doing that and reprioritize. So I think those are all really helpful and clarifying things that help us all move in the same direction.

Adam: Can you take listeners back to that moment when you were the top public health official in North Carolina? Covid breaks out. Talk about leading in times of crisis. This is the crisis of our lifetimes. What were the best lessons that you learned on how to lead in times of crisis, uncertainty, and change?

Dr. Mandy Cohen: So I want to say that I got so lucky to work with the best governor in the country. I worked for Roy Cooper in North Carolina, and he said two really important things. One, he articulated right at the beginning, he said our ability to navigate this crisis will be won or lost on our ability to maintain trust with North Carolinians. And we turned that directive into a tactical plan for how we were going to do it. And it started with being as transparent as we could. So what tactically, transparency looked like for us was the governor and me every day, at 2 pm doing a press conference. Again, going back to the why? What are we doing? Why are we doing it and answering hard questions every single day, not once a week, not once every two weeks? Every single day, because that's how quickly things were changing. So the importance of clear, constant communication that focused on the why, that brought data and information to what we were doing was really important. I also think that it was important to recognize that trust is really hard to build in a crisis. Trust is something you have to be building all along. You also have to be building that infrastructure all along when you go into a crisis with the team you have, with the infrastructure you've got. And so the time to prepare is now, and it's what I take to my work at the CDC, it's often hard for us. We get quick amnesia after we're through a crisis. We're like, that's done. I hope that never happens again. Well, hope's not a plan. We have a plan. We have to be prepared. Because when you get into a crisis, you have the team you have, you have the infrastructure you have, and it really is hard to build those in the middle of a crisis. So I take that all of how you are able to react in a crisis is about preparation. In North Carolina, we actually, I think, did better because we prepared for crises because we had a number of hurricanes in the years leading up to COVID, where we had practice coming together as a team, as a state, to really think about what is the infrastructure that we need. And I think it put us in a better place. So practicing being prepared is also really important.

Adam: Dr. Cohen, you shared so much there that I love that I want to dive into. You spoke about the importance of preparing before the crisis hits. I did an interview with General Frank McKenzie. General McKenzie retired four-star general, one of the great military leaders of our day, and he was a leader during so many major crises, including a recent crisis, which was the withdrawal of the truth from Afghanistan. And I asked General McKenzie, what can anyone learn from your experience leading through times of crisis, uncertainty, and change? And he shared exactly what you just shared, which is that the best thing you can do to lead during times of crisis, uncertainty, and change is to lead before the crisis ends. Most things that take place in times of crisis are preventable and can be prevented through effective preparation.

Dr. Mandy Cohen: I very much have lived that, and agree with that, and I think there is a lot of alignment between the kind of safety and protection we get from our military and the safety and protection we need to continue to invest in in public health. If public health is meant to protect health, then we have to invest in that protection, just like we would invest in the military. We have to invest in the preparation for us to protect our health, and we're doing some of that, but I think we need to do more. And that's the conversation that I'm having with stakeholders. It's one of the reasons I'm here at Milken, is to have this conversation about making sure we do not have amnesia and forget the lessons of COVID-19 that we are investing now in the systems that are going to keep us safe just in time. Funding does not help you prepare. Similarly, we would never just fund the military only when we're in a conflict. We have to prepare and invest and so that is what we want to make sure folks know, and things we know so much more about how to focus and prioritize, about what to invest in now, now that we've been through that crisis, we know we need data capacity. We know we need laboratory capacity. We know we need a talented workforce, and we need a response capability. Four core things. Sounds easy, but it's really, really important that we make the investment and have the authorities there so we are ready, no matter what the health threat is.

Adam: How are you able to remove the pressure that comes with this job? We all have pressure in our lives and our jobs, but you have enormous pressure in what you do. You're literally responsible for the agency in charge of protecting America's public health. Can you walk listeners through your daily routine? What does a day look like? How are you able to remove that pressure from your job, and do your best thinking, be your best self at home, at work, day in, day out?

Dr. Mandy Cohen: Well, first, I have to say, none of this is possible without an amazing team around you. And I do have a great team at the CDC, and that's a lot of what my day looks like. Early in the morning, it means touching base with some of the folks who work most closely with me, because most of my day often is articulating our vision, talking outside to stakeholders, whether it's members of Congress or to folks all around the country and, frankly, around the world. So a lot of what I do in a day is travel because I do think it's really important to show up. It's one of the reasons why I'm here at the Milken conference today in LA. But I just came from a local high school. I just went to Hamilton High School to see one of their student well-being centers, again, which is funded by Public Health here in LA, and it's focused on improving mental health for kids. So I always want to show up here directly from how things are working on the ground. What can I bring back to Atlanta, to our team in CDC to do better? So I'm doing a lot of that, making sure I'm hearing from folks that they're hearing from me again, articulating our priorities, helping folks invest alongside us. And so that's a lot of what I do. So my team, often I'm touching base with them in the morning so that we know what's on our plate for the day. And they're often the ones that are executing during the day. And then we'll sort of touch base back at the end of the day after I've been out doing things, but in different moments, as I said, the day will change. So the last number of weeks, I've been focused on avian flu. We've seen avian flu for the first time in cattle, and so that's definitely taken a lot of my attention. And now, when you get into moments like that, then I have to be a lot more engaged to make sure that we are moving in the right direction. Again, back to what you were saying before about role modeling. Role modeling, what I want to see from the team, the pace that I want to see, the direction that we want to see. And then the team's kind of gotten the play, they run the play, and then I can go back to doing the externally facing work that I think is necessary to build bridges, build partnerships, build understanding about where the CDC is going. So that's generally my work schedule. And in terms of how do I think about turning it off? Well, what I don't think about is stress, I know that sounds weird, but on a day-to-day basis, like I said, I have teams around me that are helping make sure that we are doing what we need to do, and that we're staying focused. But I think the way that I make sure that I stay grounded is to, like, spend time with my family. So I tend on the weekends to be more of a hermit, because all I want to do is spend time with my husband and my kids. So it does mean that maybe I don't see my girlfriends as much as I would want to see them, or do those kinds of things because the way that I unplug from the world is to really spend time with my family and spend a bit of time outside. Walking is my exercise, but also my mental health. So that's what I'm doing on the weekends.

Adam: That's great. And for everyone, it's going to be different. But for you, walking, seeing your family, seeing your husband, your kids, for anyone listening, whatever it is for you, however you get to that place, it's critical to get there, to attain that kind of balance well.

Dr. Mandy Cohen: And I say balance is not a day-to-day thing. If you measure balance did I have balance on Monday? Maybe not, but it's do you have a balance over a period of time? Because there are going to be periods of time that are not in balance, and that's okay, but then can you compensate later on and how do you do that? And then I have to give a shout-out because I have the best life partner, my husband, you can't do this alone. Absolutely, it's a team sport in so many aspects, but in your personal life, you cannot do this alone. And certainly, because I'm doing so much travel, having my husband on the home front with our girls, who are 9 and 12, is so important. So choosing that life partner who is not just your support system, but is also your cheerleader and can believe in you. Sometimes when you don't even believe in yourself, those are the people you want in your corner, and it might be a spouse, it might be a parent, a sibling, or a friend, but having those people in your corner is the only way that you can really get to do these big jobs and to lead at this kind of scale, because it can't be done alone.

Adam: That's a key theme. You are now talking about the importance of having the right personal support system, but you just mentioned the importance of having the right professional support system. What do you look for in the people who you surround yourself with?

Dr. Mandy Cohen: Well, when I hire I like to hire folks, particularly who are good communicators, written, oral, and others, because it helps me to make sure that they continue to articulate the vision, the prioritization. I also want to find folks who are very aware of their own strengths and weaknesses. Everyone has weaknesses. I'm not looking for perfection, but I'm looking for self-awareness because we can compensate when we know things that we aren't as strong in. And I'm looking for folks that have a lot of self-awareness and that can. Then connect the dots. I'm also looking for folks who, particularly when we're thinking about leading complex, large organizations, the teams that I directly manage are ones that need to connect dots across silos. And so I'm looking for skill sets of folks who know how to bring teams together in a way that doesn't feel territorial, that can really help folks focus and prioritize and again, communicating well, but knowing themselves is absolutely key. That is what I listen for in interviews. People who know themselves, know their strengths, know their weaknesses, and know how to compensate for their weaknesses and play up their strengths.

Adam: Going back to the importance of self-awareness, know thyself. You mentioned the importance of communication, so much of what you do is focused on communication. It's central to your role, central to your success as a leader. What can anyone do to become a successful communicator?

Dr. Mandy Cohen: Practice, practice, practice. There are courses you can take, but it's honestly making sure that you are getting the opportunity that could be are you presenting to your small team. Are you getting to present up to your boss's boss's boss, just those professional opportunities? Are you presenting at conferences? Are you getting your thoughts out there? Make sure you're thinking about your written communication as well as your verbal communication, and it's not just the words you say, but it's your physical posture and how you're presenting yourselves to the world. I think that's particularly important for women who are trying to make an impact, to really think about their communication skills. Sometimes women are servant leaders, which I love. I also look for servant leaders, but sometimes we need to make sure that they are articulating and communicating and making sure that they are at the table, but also have that presence at the table as well.

Adam: Dr. Cohen, what can anyone listening to this conversation do to become more successful, personally, professionally?

Dr. Mandy Cohen: Oh, that's a big question. So the thing that I wish I had done more early in my career was to ask more questions. I was often so focused on wanting folks to think I already knew it, that if I asked a question, it would show my weakness, or it would show that I didn't know things. And as I've gone along in my career, actually, it's asking questions that help me be a better leader. And so now it doesn't mean interrupting a meeting and it's all about you all the time. It doesn't mean you get to ask the questions and dominate a room, but asking those questions so you're filling in gaps. Being curious is, I think, really, really important as you are at any point in your career. I want to go back to communication. Obviously, it's something I've prioritized for myself, but I think particularly if you are someone who wants to advance, who wants to lead other people, communication is absolutely essential, and making sure that you are also honing your skill for knowing how to understand if a team is moving in the right direction, and if you need to dive deeper in with them, or if you can let them run, I think also honing that skill as a leader and an operator to be like, do they got it? Are they running in the right direction? Have you role-modeled what you needed and now they can run? Or do you need to be engaged on a day-to-day basis? And like tracking along with folks, like getting that gut sense is also really important. So asking questions, communicating, and getting that gut sense of teams on whether or not they're performing or not, and then what you need to do differently as a leader. Because for me, there's no one way to be a leader. You have to be constantly adapting. And so that means you have to be constantly assessing the teams and what they need from you. And so building up that ability to assess a team and then adjust your own posture towards that team is really important.

Adam: Dr. Cohen, thank you for all the great advice, and thank you for being a part of Thirty Minute Mentors.

Dr. Mandy Cohen: Terrific to be here. Thanks, everyone. And again, make sure that you are staying healthy for yourself, and I hope you're seeing a difference out of the CDC that we're working on. Same mission, to protect health, and improve lives, and it's been great to be here to share what I've learned from some great mentors, and hopefully, I can be of help to others coming behind me.


Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally-recognized authority on leadership. Adam is the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal-winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities, and non-profit organizations. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.

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