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    Roland Marconi

    Roland Marconi

  • How Wolfgang Puck’s teaching style has evolved over his five-decade career

    More than a chef and restaurateur, Wolfgang Puck is a teacher and mentor. Wolfgang Puck originally learned cooking from his mother before starting his culinary career at age 14. He apprenticed with renowned chef Raymond Thuilier and worked at several prestigious restaurants in France and Monaco until moving to the United States in 1973 at age 24, where he opened a succession of award-winning restaurants that have attracted up and coming chefs from around the world, eager to learn from the master. In his conversation with Yahoo Finance Senior Reporter Alexandra Canal, Puck recounts how he developed his teaching style from a rejection of the harsh working environment he experienced early in his career. In recent decades, Wolfgang Puck has made mentoring an essential part of his job as a restaurateur and continues to emphasize staying positive as part of his teaching style. He says: “Give people a positive experience so when they work, they say, I learned something today.” Puck’s culinary expertise and approach to his restaurants has earned him three Michelin stars and recognition as one of the most well known chefs in the world. He also has a long list of television credits including host, judge and even actor on several reality shows, sitcoms and dramatic series. Lead This Way is a new series from Yahoo Finance that features big interviews with business leaders shaping our world today. In these one-on-one conversations with Wall Street’s titans, we uncover their perspectives on how they approach leadership - from innovative thinking to sheer perseverance. For the full conversation with Wolfgang Puck, click here. For more on our Lead This Way Series, click here, and tune in to Yahoo Finance every Thursday at 3 p.m. ET.

  • Wolfgang Puck’s family restaurant style continues to feed his global brand

    Wolfgang Puck, both the man and the brand, are a household name. The renowned restaurateur and celebrity chef is known for his effervescent personality and his intense passion for food. In this episode of Yahoo Finance’s Lead This Way, the Austrian-American food icon takes off his gloves and apron and provides an inside look at how his curated leadership style fuels his global empire of award-winning restaurants. In the restaurant business for over 50 years, and earning three coveted Michelin stars, Puck credits a diligent work ethic and his family style restaurant approach to hospitality as the keys to his success. “I think you have to give people a family environment. They want to feel they belong to some culture or some kind of a family. I always tell people we have a family restaurant." Puck takes Yahoo Finance Senior Reporter Alexandra Canal on a tour of his New York City restaurant, CUT, treating her to signature dishes and providing the background of how he not only leads but teaches his staff his style of preparing and serving his gourmet recipes. Puck’s influences have certainly shaped how he leads, crediting his mother for her compassionate encouragement and citing a tough introduction to the restaurant business. As to how Puck mentors his staff, he says, “I want them to maybe feel the passion I have and maybe they learn something from that and they grow that way and learn more and become a good chef or own their own restaurant.” Puck began his career in some of France’s greatest restaurants, including the Michelin two-starred L’Oustau de Baumanière in Provence. After coming to the U.S. in the early 1970s, Puck gained prominence as chef of Ma Maison in Los Angeles before opening his first flagship restaurant, Spago, in 1982. Wolfgang Puck’s restaurants, cookbooks, catering service and other products are managed under his three business divisions: Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group, Wolfgang Puck Catering, and Wolfgang Puck Worldwide, Inc. Lead This Way is a new series that features big interviews with the business leaders shaping our world today. In these one-on-one conversations, we reveal how their approach to leadership helped them become Wall Street titans. For more on our Lead This Way Series, click here, and tune in to Yahoo Finance every Thursday at 3 p.m. ET.

  • Dan Schulman passes the torch to a new PayPal CEO

    Dan Schulman took global payments powerhouse PayPal (PYPL) to new heights during his nine-year tenure. When he announced his retirement from the position, the PayPal board needed to find a replacement who could live up to Schulman’s legacy. After a months-long search, Alex Chriss was chosen as CEO and President, effective September 27, 2023. Schulman reflects on the choice of Chriss and the transition to his successor at PayPal. While still on the board of PayPal, he expressed the need for new leadership in his interview with Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi. “I've been doing this for almost a decade. You know, it's time… to bring in new leadership, to bring in new ideas, new thoughts," Schulman commented. Chriss previously served as Executive Vice President and General Manager of Intuit's (INTU) Small Business and Self-Employed Group where he created Intuit's Partner & Developer Platform before serving as the Small Business Group's Chief Product Officer from 2017 to 2019. Lead This Way is a new series that features big interviews with the business leaders shaping our world today. In these one-on-one conversations, we reveal how their approach to leadership helped them become Wall Street titans. For more on our Lead This Way series, click here, and tune in to Yahoo Finance every Thursday at 3 p.m. ET.

  • Former PayPal CEO Dan Schulman reveals 3 things great leaders do

    Former PayPal CEO and President Dan Schulman has an impressive track record of employing innovative techniques to lead companies through difficult transitions to new heights of success and profitability. With Priceline, Virgin Mobile, and PayPal (PYPL), Schulman deftly navigated these iconic businesses through turbulent mergers, acquisitions and splits to emerge as sector powerhouses and highly profitable enterprises. Schulman reveals to Yahoo Finance the key things a leader needs to do in order to achieve their goals. He believes that having a moral compass that drives values helps to create the consistency effective leadership requires. Schulman states that some of the core objectives of a leader are: to be able to clearly define reality, inspire hope, and have a game plan to get from reality to that inspired vision. According to Schulman, by following these principles, he has taken PayPal to almost $30 billion in annual revenue, over 430 million active accounts and $1.5 trillion exchanged through the platform. Providing a foundation to his leadership principles, Schulman says that as a leader “you need to feel comfortable with yourself, whether times are going great or not great, because you need to be a very consistent leader.” Lead This Way is a new series from Yahoo Finance that features big interviews with business leaders shaping our world today. In these one-on-one conversations with Wall Street’s titans, we uncover their perspectives on how they approach leadership - from innovative thinking to sheer perseverance. For more on our Lead This Way series, click here, and tune in to Yahoo Finance every Thursday at 3 p.m. ET.

  • Dan Schulman: The CEO who made PayPal a household name

    Dan Schulman has led some of the most iconic companies in consumer finance, telecommunication, and e-commerce, including PayPal (PYPL), AT&T (T), Virgin Mobile, Priceline, and American Express (AXP), with game-changing innovation and bold risk taking. In this episode of Yahoo Finance’s Lead This Way, the former PayPal CEO and President shares the values that have driven his decision making as CEO of several of the world’s most iconic businesses. Recognizing that employees are essential to a company’s success, Schulman put in place an extensive program at PayPal that prioritized their financial wellness. Mentored through a tradition that business can be a force for good in society, Schulman has taken principled stands on critical social issues and has led with purpose, compassion and authenticity, while more than tripling the annual revenue of PayPal during his nine years as CEO. The outgoing PayPal CEO and President sat down with Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi at PayPal headquarters in New York City to share his vision for what makes a good leader. Central to his approach are an adherence to four key attributes: being humble, generous, authentic, and bold. Schulman sums it up by saying, “You have to have the confidence to make difficult decisions.” Schulman’s storied history as an executive began in the late 1990s as President of AT&T’s Consumer Division, which subsequently led to CEO positions at Priceline and Virgin Mobile. He was President of Enterprise Growth at American Express before taking the helm at PayPal, from which he resigned in September of 2023. Lead This Way is a new series that features big interviews with the business leaders shaping our world today. In these one-on-one conversations, we reveal how their approach to leadership helped them become Wall Street titans. For more on our Lead This Way Series, click here, and tune in to Yahoo Finance every Thursday at 3 p.m. ET.

  • NYSE President Lynn Martin’s advice on leading through change

    Handling change is one of the more difficult challenges that companies and especially leaders have to face. NYSE President Lynn Martin gives Yahoo Finance her advice for leading through change after guiding the historic exchange through the Covid-19 pandemic. Martin explains that “people tend to view change as scary. I think that's human nature.” Her advice is to communicate on multiple levels, “communicate with peers, communicate with your manager and communicate with the people that work for you because everyone craves communication during change.” Additionally, Martin says, “work hard. Keep executing your job. Don't fall, don't fall victim to water cooler talk, particularly around change… And then the third piece of advice I tend to give people is raise your hand if there's something that interests you. If it is not in your current job description, raise your hand to volunteer to do it.” Lead This Way is a new series from Yahoo Finance that features big interviews with business leaders shaping our world today. In these one-on-one conversations with Wall Street’s titans, we uncover their perspectives on how they approach leadership - from innovative thinking to sheer perseverance. For more from this episode of Lead This Way, click here. For more on our Lead This Way Series, click here, and tune in to Yahoo Finance every Thursday at 3 p.m. ET.

  • Keeping the New York Stock Exchange human in the digital age

    For 231 years, investors have been trading on what is now known as Wall Street. The iconic New York Stock Exchange has survived through the Civil War and the September 11th attacks. The person who navigated the exchange through the most recent challenge, the Covid-19 pandemic is NYSE President Lynn Martin. In the latest episode of Yahoo Finance's Lead This Way, she conveys how communication and empowering customers is at the core of her leadership style. Martin, who became the NYSE President in September of 2022 is the second woman to fill that role in the institution’s long history. Coming from a tech background, she says that she is a data driven person and relies on numbers to tell her story. Having led the NYSE through the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, she stresses that open communication is key to any successful enterprise. NYSE and its parent organization Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), host 2400 listed companies. Martin sees her primary job as providing these companies the tools to grow their businesses, amplifying what she describes as the “tremendous power of our community.” Martin gives Yahoo Finance Correspondent Diane King Hall an overview of how the 231 year old exchange functions behind the scenes and how her leadership skills are rooted in communication and challenging her employees to think “out of the box”. She iterates, “I like to throw ideas out there. A lot of times I throw them out there for reactions…I want people to push back.” Beginning her career as a programmer at IBM, Martin did not envision herself as leading such a historic institution as the New York Stock Exchange. But now she seeks to encourage and inspire younger generations, saying, “I took a non-linear career path to this job. You could too.” She goes on to say, “I'm not about just operating today's New York Stock Exchange. I wanna build the New York Stock Exchange for the next 10 years from now, for 25 years from now, for the next 231 years. And I challenge my management team to do that every day.” Lead This Way is a new series that features big interviews with the business leaders shaping our world today. In these one-on-one conversations, we reveal how their approach to leadership helped them become Wall Street titans.For more on our Lead This Way Series, click here, and tune in to Yahoo Finance every Thursday at 3 p.m. ET.