In this episode of Looking Outside, we're exploring the influence and influencers of Food Culture, and the sociological, traditional and modern values that are redefining how we innovative in food. We're joined for this conversation by Jing Gao, Founder & CEO of modern Chinese food brand Fly by Jing. Armed with a desire to help people discover new facets of Asian cuisine, driven by re-discovering her own heritage, Jing shares her organic journey to helping people re-perceive how food culture is shaped, in the process opening up minds to new ways to enjoy familiar flavors.

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More:

• Looking Outside podcast www.looking-outside.com
• Watch the interview on YouTube @lookingoutside
• Fly by Jing flybyjing.com
• Jing Gao on LinkedIn & Insta
• Jing's cookbook The Book of Sichuan Chili Crisp
• Connect with host, Jo Lepore

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⭐ Follow, like and rate the show - it makes a difference!

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Looking Outside is a podcast exploring fresh perspectives of familiar topics. Hosted by its creator, futurist and marketer, Jo Lepore. New episodes every 2 weeks. Never the same topic.

All views are that of the host and guests and don’t necessarily reflect those of their employers. Copyright 2024. Theme song by Azteca X.

We’ve covered climate change and environmental causes on Looking Outside, focused on the innovation that’s helping to create new solves for existing problems. On this episode, we’re exploring the topic of environmental action from a human perspective, looking at what sociology and the study of historical patterns of collective human behavior can tell us about how we’re reacting to, and in some cases rebelling against, the issue of climate change today. To do this, we’re joined by social scientist Dr Dana R. Fisher, Director of the Center for Environment, Community, & Equity (CECE) and a Professor in the School of International Service at American University. Dana has studied and written about the combined relationship of social and environmental change for over two decades.

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More:

• Looking Outside podcast www.looking-outside.com
• More on this episode
• Watch the interview on YouTube @lookingoutside
• Dana R. Fisher https://danarfisher.com
• Get 20% off Dana's book Saving Ourselves | Buy direct from the publisher and use code "CUP20"
• Connect with host, Jo Lepore

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⭐ Follow, like and rate the show - it makes a difference!

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Looking Outside is a podcast exploring fresh perspectives of familiar topics. Hosted by its creator, futurist and marketer, Jo Lepore. New episodes every 2 weeks. Never the same topic.

All views are that of the host and guests and don’t necessarily reflect those of their employers. Copyright 2024. Theme song by Azteca X.

Investigating for the hidden truth, putting the puzzle pieces together, building a strong case, leading with objectivity … you might be thinking of the responsibility of business leaders. But today, we’re exploring these same familiar elements from the perspective of a field where this holds greater weight. We’re speaking about investigations & interrogations with private investigator and retired LAPD detective, Greg Kading.

After 25 years working homicide in Los Angeles, Greg hasn’t taken off his detective hat, even after retiring. Instead turning to the PI world and storytelling, speaking about and writing of the cases he’s worked (and solved). Today, Greg is well known for writing Murder Rap, a recount of the cold case he and his task force took on to solve the Biggie Smalls case. A three year investigation that ultimately led to the discovery of Biggie and Tupac’s murders. It’s a case that’s thrust Greg into the spotlight, a shift from private case work that he’s taken easily, led by the resolution that the truth should be shared, wherever possible.

It's also given Greg an opportunity to shine a light on the real life challenges of a detective, past the glamourous portrayal in books, movies and TV. Greg underpins the patience required of a detective: not getting evidence analyzed instantaneously, answers not revealing themselves easily, sometimes needing to start at the beginning and retracing your steps to see what you missed. Police work is naturally full of departmental procedures and red tape, which makes it even more imperative not to rush into short cuts or false conclusions.

Maintaining objectivity and removing ego are two critical aspects of doing great police work. Greg stresses that sometimes we become entranced with an idea of what the truth is and lose sight of what the facts are actually telling us. The process for a detective is therefore quite scientific, in forming a hypothesis and working to disprove it. Instead of what most may imagine - working to prove a hunch. “Within reason, all things are possible” - Greg’s says this theory of openness is critical driving out bias in the investigative process.

But this all takes time. You don’t become a detective once you get the badge; you get there through experience, learning, and building your natural instincts. While that feels very familiar for those of us in the business world, who are often placed in role without learned experience, it’s also in Greg’s world rife with deception, after all, suspects have motive to lie and misdirect. It requires careful study of human psychology to spot the red flags that may point to that deception, and perhaps surprisingly, it also demands empathy.

While technology has advanced and will continue to progress the fields of forensics, profiling and surveillance, in his decades-long experience investigating crimes, Greg has been led by human psychology. He says it's important to marry various human insights and technological resources at your disposal in gathering evidence to form a hypothesis. And of course, then working to disprove it, in the search for the one truth.

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To look outside, Greg goes back into nature and spends time with the people close to him – without a phone or work on the mind.

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Greg Kading is an American author and former Los Angeles Police Department detective best known for working on a multi law-enforcement task force that investigated the murders of rappers Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls in the mid-2000s.

• Read Murder Rap: the untold story of the Biggie Smalls & Tupac Shakur Murder Investigations.
• Listen to

Today we’re looking outside a very familiar topic, exploring brand building that strengthens a brand’s equity today and sets it up for the future. We’re joined for this all-marketing chat with marketing rockstar, fellow podcaster, Founder of unmtchd.brands and former Puma exec, Oana Leonte.

Oana recently pivoted from a marketing career working to build some of the world’s biggest brands, including WB, Paramount and Disney, to building her own brand. Armed with a big ambition to make marketing a better place for marketers and in bringing the magic back into marketing, and with the goal of helping marketers focus on the most required skills for the future.

With marketers todays over-fixed on chasing hype and virality, the focus has become more on performance than on brand building, and away from what Oana says is the real job of marketers. While marketing fundamentals shift with the changing times, when it comes to younger marketers, they’re often completely disregarded but, “They exist for a reason.” Oana encourages young marketers to understand those basics, and leverage the earned and learned knowledge of older leaders in the room, who have a seat at that table for a reason.

The point is considering a diverse array of perspectives, including less experienced ones. Oana stresses she is an advocate for bringing young people into important forums with senior leaders. More and more, businesses and brands are spending time creating youth boards that allow young marketers a voice in the boardroom. Oana says this is particularly important to better compete with emerging disruptive small brands who are often run by smart, young marketers savvy with modern marketing tactics.

Equally, Oana believes senior business leaders and CMOs need to hear more from the every day humans they are creating and marketing for. After all, if we still believe that the consumer is the ultimate boss, then they should be not just represented in data but heard with their own voice. Oana highlights how important this is not just to understand behaviors being exhibited today but in foreseeing how those behaviors are likely to evolve.

In guiding brands towards futures that they can play a relevant role in, Jo and Oana also explore how culture shapes brands often without them realizing it, or indeed leveraging it. In the quest to protect the status quo, and keep up with past success, brands run the risk of making safe, predictable decisions that paralyze them in time. This is a particular risk for big brands that have more to lose.

Whether it’s a big brand or a personal brand Oana’s unwavering push for future growth is led by a learner mindset and a choice to act bravely. She describes her own superpower as just that – unique to her. She encourages anyone who lacks confidence because they feel like they don’t fit in, to stop thinking of this as a liability but as an advantage that no one else has.

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To look outside, Oana connects with people who hold different experience from across varied industries, categories and backgrounds. Oana approaches this with curiosity, with what she calls an open heart and ear. She brings this curiosity to her learner’s mindset, like to technology which she sees as the biggest disruption in our lives.

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Oana Leonte is a seasoned brand marketer and the host of the popular marketing podcast, Unmtchd.

With an impressive background, she brings a wealth of experience from her previous roles in marketing and consumer products for Fortune500 brands such as Disney, Warner Bros., and Viacom. She recently left her position as Marketing Director at PUMA, to devote herself to her mission of driving brand evolution toward a future of limitless creativity and impact through her brand transformation consultancy work, her podcast and her upcoming...

Today we’re taking a no BS look at the world of customer insights, leadership and business visioning with the President of software company Zappi, the ever-passionate and transparent leader, Ryan Barry.

Having led Zappi for over four years, Ryan shares his no holds barred take on company leadership and people leadership, and it’s all anchored on authenticity. Years ago, Ryan says, he was called out by his wife on having a ‘work voice’ and realized he shouldn’t be wearing 50 different masks depending on who he’s speaking with. He says this new transparent approach to dealing with people and stakeholders alike makes his life easier, and ensures his leadership style is more human.

Ryan is also committed to communication, or even over-communication, dropping casual and informal voice messages and videos as news evolves in his company regularly, to ensure no one has to second guess what is happening, and that business updates are intentional and impactful.

To negate a possible consequence of this – dominance and over-assertion - Ryan says he leans into curiosity, asking questions openly on things he is not knowledgeable about and deferring to the experts. “Your job sometimes is just to listen,” he says.

Jo and Ryan also discuss the future of the workplace, particularly as more remote, flexible and virtual working styles are implemented, and spontaneous moments to ‘break bread with people’ in a physical office become fewer. Nearly 70% of Ryan’s staff are on the other side of the planet to him. He’s cognizant of the necessity to build and nurture relationships and believes that cannot be replaced by physically being in the same place together. Trust, collaboration and understanding are best built in real life, Ryan says, as are new ideas generated from sporadic and unplanned moments ‘bumping into’ people. Whatever new technological automation and outsourcing the future holds for the workplace, this ability to connect, human to human, won’t be replaced.

Holding a personal brand of his own, supported by his podcast Inside Insights and newsletter Ryan’s Rants, Ryan regularly shares reflections on the industry he operates in and where customer strategies go wrong. More and more companies are driven by two polarized objectives: short term earnings vs long term goals, awards and accolades vs ads that actually drive sales, political stances vs internal policies. Ryan highlights the importance of being frank with yourself on why business decisions are made, of taking input from your staff (whether you like what they say or not), of building principles that create consistency for future scenarios, and of ensuring your business actions match what you say. “People’s bullshit meter is way up”, and Ryan says that’s a good thing.

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To look outside, Ryan goes outside to get lost in nature and mountains, usually with his dog. Getting out from the physical reality he's surrounded by allows him to tap into another level of ideas in his subconscious.

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Ryan Barry oversees Zappi's global business operation leading the companies growth and impact internally and externally and serves as a member of the firm's executive leadership team. Prior to Zappi, Ryan worked for GMI, an online survey solution provider which was eventually acquired by Kantar and also started a dog care company which was sold in 2015 and a non profit aimed at raising money for less fortunate children.

In addition to his work at Zappi, Ryan serves on Michigan State’s advisory board for their MR program. Ryan lives outside of Boston with his wife, two sons, daughter and his two hound dogs and loves the great outdoors and Boston sports.

• Follow Ryan on LinkedIn
• Subscribe to

In this episode, we’re taking a look outside the very familiar food industry and a closer look at the emerging sector of plant-based food, with food activist, entrepreneur, and CEO and Co-Founder of Heura, Marc Coloma.

Marc’s mission to transform the food industry starts with his own company, which acts as a symbol for what is possible; investing in food innovation to solve not just taste and nutrition challenges, but also ones related to social issues.

Social activism is something Marc has been passionate about since he was a ‘rebellious’ child. His life and career were shaped by a drive to ask 'why?' and a desire to transform anger at what is imperfect in the world into a vehicle for positive change. As a ‘good rebel’, Marc is determined to shape his work around things that matter to him personally.

In many ways, Marc’s ambition (and success) in this foray represents a modern shift in business; where people recognize a friction that exists between values and behaviors and work to close that gap. Marc calls it the 21st century way of doing business: companies already do make people’s lives better by providing solutions to existing problems, but now they can also make “multiplied impact in the value chain”.

While shifts to address environmental, social and nutritional challenges need to take place across many sectors, for Marc, the focus started with the food industry, where many of the issues arise from modern day lifestyles. We are good at scaling solutions quickly in the food industry, he says, but equally at scaling their consequences. This is part of the impetus for the plant-based movement towards alternative solutions, or as Marc and his team call them, ‘successors’ of the current food system.

Plant-based food are under a tremendous amount of scrutiny today, not just from the media but from frustrated customers and disappointed food retailers. Marc says a part of the declining performance is the fact that the industry was scaled too fast in a bid to tap into (warranted) enthusiasm to transform the food sector. But here speed came at the cost of a great customer experience, and most importantly, great taste. Marc says with transforming the food sector in sight, we forgot about the most critical target to win over – the customer.

Heura, the plant-based food company Marc co-founded in 2017 and leads today, is outperforming its European competitors on taste. Marc stresses this is pivotal in changing consumer behavior, while supporting the rituals that people love. Taste will always win, and you may get one shot to prove that to customers.

Marc believes plant-based food is only in the ‘early beginnings of potential’ and that we must expand frontiers of what we thought was possible. Planetary limitations are a reality of the future (put simply: many more people, consuming many more calories) and must be addressed in new ways.

Jo and Marc also discuss how, in the end, it’s easy to blame others for inertia in current food systems, but that blaming an entire industry, sector or category is not helpful, particularly when change starts with us – with individual actions. It’s also not helpful to reject or distrust a growing and emerging industry like the plant-based one, especially one that does not exist to destroy anything but to help maintain the traditions we hold close to our hearts.

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To look outside, Marc learns through others, hearing first hand testimonies from people that spark unique ideas and an interest to learn more deeply about something new. Meanwhile, time in nature, hiking and sports like boxing, and yoga help him stay grounded.

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Marc Coloma is a food activist and CEO at Heura. Born in Barcelona, Marc has been involved in social activism since he was 16 years old. In 2015 he decided to take part in an entrepreneurship

In this episode of Looking Outside, we explore personal and professional growth from the angle of imperfection; not having it all figured out and embracing what you don’t know as a lever for learning. Even if you work for the world’s biggest and best brands. Just like our guest has done, Marco Andre, author of Imperfect Stories and Head of Marketing and Generative AI at Novartis.

Marco shares how his journey from tech to pharma had no master plan, he was simply a geeky guy that liked designing things. A sustainability engineer by training, a jazz drummer by night and an author in his spare time, Marco has embraced adaptability and flexibility throughout his career. All while working for the world’s leading brands, P&G, Google and now Novartis.

Instead of a well-defined ‘life plan’, Marco describes his career journey as a desire to tap into his creativity, particularly as someone with “no shortage of ideas”. Creativity can mean assembling LEGO or writing stories, but it can also be expressed through learning a new topic. For Marco, his curiosity led him to Generative AI which he now heads up for his company, and speaks about on the public stage. He doesn’t call himself an AI guru, however. In fact, Marco approaches AI the same way he advises others to; with acknowledgement of the emotions that surround it (the 5 stages of AI grief), and with proactive experimentation.

Jo and Marco discuss how AI needs to be intentionally and carefully explored, as it’s important to stay close to the changes in the external world instead of living in denial with blinkers on. But that ultimately the way we use it (and when we choose not to) is up to us.

Even though Marco spends a lot of time presenting about AI and other topics, he makes it a point to do so with authenticity. He believes the time of polished and perfected TED Talks is over, and people want to hear more from leaders who have learnt from failure, who don’t know everything and who admit when they are scared. This, Marco says, is the new leadership that people – especially young people entering the workforce – expect. It requires us to think differently about traditional career paths that tied our professional expertise and personal development to one company for most of our lives.

It also requires businesses to adapt to enable and incentivize these types of next generation leaders. It’s important, Marco explains, for companies who are particularly inward focused and disconnected with their customers, to think differently about how they “inject oxygen” into a stale environment by bringing in the outside world.

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To look outside, Marco goes for a walk to clear his mind. And when he’s trying to look differently at a topic, he leverages a small group of trusted people to gain a perspective that differs to his own. Then, taking in theirs and considering his own, he makes up his own mind.

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Marco Andre is the Global Head of Marketing and Generative AI Excellence at Novartis. He is a keynote speaker, AI advisor to executives and a published author.

Marco has worked for 20+ years in companies such as Google, Procter & Gamble and YouTube, where he held local, regional and global roles in Marketing, Sales, Partnerships and Operations. Marco’s achievements include scaling a country marketing operation 4x in two years, managing a $20M brand budget across 18 EMEA countries and advising C-Level executives on digital transformation for brands worth $40B in sales.

Outside of work, Marco is the author of the book - Imperfect Stories, and builds a ton of LEGO. He is a proud owner of 20+ sets, with his favorite one being the Star Wars Millennium Falcon.

• Follow Marco on LinkedIn and...

On this episode of Looking Outside we discuss the evolved art of photography and its role in capturing the state of nature and wildlife as a form of conservation, with nature photographer and conservationist, Derek Nielsen.

A photographer for more than 20 years, Derek’s journey to capture images from across each continent of the world started with curiosity; his passion for global travel prompted him to bring a camera wherever he went. Soon, this became a mission with a sense of responsibility to be an ambassador for the wildlife and nature degradation that can’t speak for itself, through his photos.

Fearless since he was a child, Derek has been driven throughout his life by a calling to see things that are less comfortable and unnerving. He describes this as a “free fall of curiosity” that followed his passion for and companionship with nature. And prompted him to do more than just record and observe.

Derek’s describes how photographers are storytellers today, tasked with providing more to their audience than beautiful images or documents of facts, but to move them through stories that they otherwise wouldn’t have the ability to hear.

Derek’s stories incentivize people to do small or big action in support of the conservation cause; whether it’s a monetary donation or simply picking up their trash.

One story Derek shares is in a moment of connection with a baby chimpanzee while he was visiting the Nyungwe National Park in Rwanda. The moving photo that captures the moment they locked eyes helps Derek tell a story of wildlife protection – and therefore inspire future photographers and donations. He says it’s in this way that photographers can play a bigger role in the world than garnering likes on social media.

Having travelled to more than two dozen countries, Derek has seen some haunting things, and explains how important hope and optimism is in not becoming overwhelmed by the deterioration of the world, desensitized to problems, or disconnected from every day life back home. He seeks this out by surrounding himself with people who are kind and with the things that are driving positive change, not just with things to be outraged by.

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To look outside, Derek finds play. Whether it's Ping-Pong with his wife, a dog wrestle, or messing around with his nieces and nephews. Play re-centers him back to family and the things that are important in life. He calls this both instant happiness and a non-negotiable.

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Derek Nielsen is a conservation-driven fine art photographer of nature and wildlife who wants to inspire the world to fall in love with nature. After 20 years behind the lens, Derek's journey to capture, share—and ultimately help preserve—the fragile beauty of our planet has taken him to more than two dozen countries and every continent, from Rwanda’s endangered silverback gorillas to the overfished waters of Antarctica. His images and storytelling educate people about important conservation topics. With an emphasis on what is worth saving, he brings large-format fine art prints of beautiful landscapes or exotic animals to people's homes and offices so they can enjoy the benefits of nature daily.

• Find more at dereknielsen.com
• Follow Derek on LinkedIn, Instagram.

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Looking Outside is a podcast dedicated to exploring fresh perspectives of familiar business topics. The show is...