How to Develop a Global Leader With Helen Nghiem

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On today’s podcast episode, we are meeting with Helen Nghiem of Epsilon to learn what makes a good leader and how she trains leaders from all over the world. How important is communication as leaders take on more teams, and how does the pressure shift as leaders are no longer able to manage projects on their own? Are leaders the same across the globe, and is the modern economy changing what is expected of leaders? Helen Nghiem discusses how to use leadership skills to tell stories in order to communicate effectively, to instil a sense of loyalty and excitement for a company, and how these stories make memories stick. 

Helen Nghiem is a seasoned consultant and corporate learning and development leader with a passion for galvanizing leaders and employees for change.  Throughout a 20-year career, Helen’s industry experience is wide, spanning management consulting, energy, travel and hospitality, technology, and digital marketing.  She drives business results by drawing from deep expertise and insight to build unique talent and organizational development solutions. In her current role, Helen helped Epsilon grow from a $500M company to a Fortune 100 global enterprise.  She cites the company’s steadfast investments in leadership and employee development as the agent of growth.

Show Highlights

  • 1:00 Leadership development and creativity. Skills needed in communication, influence, and engagement in order to develop leaders
  • 2:00 What is Epsilon? What do they do regarding leadership interaction and management? What technology do they use and how does data play a role?
  • 5:00 Did Helen focus on people who were becoming new leaders who were taking on responsibilities they’d never had? Or did she focus on seasoned leaders? What was the business need Epsilon chose to approach and why?
  • 7:00 How does Helen define a leader? How does vision play a role? What about the shared experience of change and ambiguity? And communication skills?
  • 10:00 How does pressure shift to communication as the number of teams reporting to a leader grow in number? What makes leaders not able to take over a task if the team falls through? 
  • 12:00 Did Helen have a master plan for what would make a leader successful when starting her program? What sorts of topics did this entail?
  • 17:00 What did Helen learn from leaders in the program over 9 years? What did the leaders get out of it? Have leadership needs changed in that timeframe? How does leadership change across cultures?
  • 23:00 What are the most impactful stories Helen has heard from leaders? How do leaders fare with managing the requirement to tell an impactful story in front of other leaders? Does she remember the stories told by leaders over the years? What makes them stick? What benefits does this have?
  •  30:00 How are senior leaders impacted by Helen’s program? Open, honest, and vulnerable are expectations of leaders. How do stories promote these sensations?
  • 36:00 Where has Helen seen the impression of a leader strengthened or expanded based on their experience in the program? What part did storytelling have in this? Plus, Helen shares her own story.

Guest Information

Helen Nghiem is an accomplished and widely regarded professional with vast cross-industry experience spanning more than fifteen years. She is an effective, dynamic, and seasoned leader in key organizational development and business consulting roles who never settles for the status quo. A meticulous strategic planner with a proven track record of success at galvanizing leadership, management, and employees for change. A skilled communicator with a history of upward mobility in fast-paced global domains.

You can find more information about Helen on Linkedin:

www.linkedin.com/in/helennghiem

Like what you hear? Hear more episodes like this on the What’s Your Story podcast page!

Telling Shareable Stories to Sports Fans with Barry Blyn of ESPN

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Barry Blyn is Vice President, Audience and Content Insights at ESPN, a post he has held since late 2018. In this position, Blyn’s team provides best-in-class, fan-centric content evaluation for key clients across ESPN and even The Walt Disney Company.

A graduate of the NYU Stern School of Business, Barry has worked with insights, data, and people throughout a variety of industries including politics, comedy, and sports. Currently in sports, Barry offers insight into the mind of the fan from ancient history until now and the nuances that lie therein. Do sports have meaning? And, if they don’t, why do fans engage in such deep loyalty practices, wearing their team’s colors and painting their faces? Can you convert a sports fan to a new favorite team?

He tells us of ESPN’s consumer image, sponsorship opportunities and how fans react to them, the virality of sports stories, and the ever-accelerating sports news cycles. Because of his time in other industries, Barry is able to home in on what really sets the sports industry apart, and what changes content creators and storytellers should make to target this audience.

Most importantly, Barry talks to us about stories themselves, often while using stories himself that demonstrate the concepts he discusses. How do you know when a story works? What if you hear your story repeated back—and what if you hear it repeated wrong? Find out in today’s episode!

Show Highlights

  • 1:00 Sports stories fit almost all types of business situations. But what about if you’re in sports? What type story do you use then to explain the business situations?
  • 2:00 What does Barry Blyn’s team do at ESPN? What tools do they use?
  • 4:00 How has the business of giving insights changed? What impact has Big Data had, and what’s important now when so much information is available?
  • 6:00 What insights does Barry try to collect in regards to sports? How does history and brain wiring play a role in sports insights? Are all sports fans the same?
  • 8:00 How have things changed over the years as it pertains to sports and events? Is that a particularly interesting or complex area of sports insights? How has the sports news cycle changed?
  • 12:00 Stories are how information gets remembered and repeated. Are sports fans one of the audiences who repeat content the most? Are sports stories the original viral content?
  • 14:00 How is sponsorship in sports different from advertising in other niches?
  • 20:00 What were the early risks of Game Day?
  • 25:00 Are the sports fans Barry profiles constantly changing or easy to profile? What changes can occur?
  • 34:00 Are there times Barry’s stories get repeated back to him? Barry describes some important moments in his career that assure him his storytelling works.

Guest Information

Barry Blyn is a strategic researcher who obtains data in innovative ways and transforms key points into actionable consumer insights across all media platforms. Uniquely able to understand and compellingly communicate consumer behavior to shape a company’s agenda. Regarded in industry as expert in storytelling and in pushing ideas beyond expected and conventional.

You can find more information about Barry on Linkedin:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/barryblyn/

Like what you hear? Hear more episodes like this on the What’s Your Story podcast page!