Relentless Incrementalism - Michael Nyenhuis - UNICEF USA - Episode #51

When you find yourself in the right place, doors start opening. When you find what you're supposed to do, doors start opening. And that's what happened to me.

Welcome to Not Another CEO Podcast. I'm your host, David Politis. Every week we talk to inspiring leaders and get the true stories, the ups and downs, the lessons learned, and come away with actionable advice for our own journey. Today's guest is a dedicated humanitarian leader with over 25 years of experience in global development and fundraising. He began his career as a journalist covering public health issues which ignited his passion for humanitarian work. He's a three time president and CEO of non profits and development organizations with Global Footprints. The first organization he led was MAP International. After that, he was the President and CEO of americares for six years. And he's now been at the helm of UNICEF USA since March of 2020. Under his leadership, UNICEF USA has continued to make significant strides in improving children's lives globally. Please welcome president and CEO of UNICEF usa, Michael Nynhuis.

Thank you so much, David. I'm so happy to be here.

I'm very excited we finally made this happen. Let's jump right into the first question. So what's the one thing you've done, big or small, at UNICEF USA that has had the biggest impact? And you do again if you're CEO of another organization in the future?

Yeah, great question to start with. And I might start my answer by saying this. Everybody in our organization, any of the organizations I've led, are critical to our success from the top, all the way down. Everybody plays a critical role, really as a team sport that we play here. But leadership matters. That's one of my key takeaways, Leadership matters. And what I mean by that here in the nonprofits that I have run has been our board of directors and my leadership team. So getting those two things right, I think are critical and are among the very first things that a CEO needs to pay attention to. And in all three organizations I have been the privilege to lead, we've gone through pretty significant board transformations early on in my tenure, and each one of them, not just prompted by me, but by board leadership as well, have really made a difference in creating best in class boards. I've often heard it said that a nonprofit is only as good as its governing board. I think there's some truth to that. So we work hard on really rebuilding a board, making it best in class, bringing in the right people there. But that matters too. In the leadership team. The people that are around me, the people that I count on every day and count on the most to make sure you have the right people there that built a team that really likes to work together, that brings different types of experience, background expertise to the table. And yeah, if I were to do it again, I worry about the whole of the organization, but I'd start with the board and the leadership team.

And so you joined March 2020, which we all know that we're going to get into some of the challenges when joining at that time. But how long does that process take? Because that's, that's not a small feat, right, to, to go and build that leadership team, build the board. Is that, I guess my question, is that an ongoing thing or is that a kind of definitive timeline? Hey, it took me two years to do that, one year. You know, what do you, how do you look at that?

Yeah, it's always a journey, right? The building and the rebuilding and the remaking. I think both are a journey, but I think there's this intensive period in both of them in the first year or two where you have to make serious progress to make sure that you have the right structures, the right people in the right places so that you can get on with the rest of the work. How long that takes depends a bit on the partnerships you have in the midst of that. The transformation we did with the board here at UNICEF USA was pretty swift in large part because we had a new board chair who came in the same time, took over as chair at the same time I took over CEO and he had a vision to make it a best in class board. So we worked together, the board worked on this. And so that kind of partnership is critical. And I would say same with the leadership team. Do you have, you know, two or three key people that you need who share that vision and they can help you to build, But I think, you know, focusing on that in the first year or two is really, really important.

Do you. So having been through building a number of leadership teams myself, a number of boards. But let's like leadership specifically when you're bringing in new people, there's that whole forming storm and Norman kind of that whole emotion that, that you, that you go through. How many people do you feel you can kind of bring in at a time, you know, that, that you can actually go through that. I will say for myself, at one point I tried to hire four C level execs, literally simultaneously brought them in like sequenced within a week or two weeks or a month of each other. And it was like probably the worst following that was probably the Worst six months I've had, you know, leading a team. Like, how do you think about that?

Well, I think there is a time in anything that we do, certainly in building an organization, there's a time for revolution and a time for evolution. And it depends a bit on the nature and characteristics of the organization that you inherit. So I was fortunate to not be in a place that UNICEF USA or americares before that needed a revolution, it needed an evolution, as organizations do. And so there was an urgency I felt about it. But not, not things that had to be done, you know, tomorrow or the.

Whole thing was a good description. That's a good. That's a good description.

So. So I think evolution is better than revolution because you can take. You can take a step at a time and sort of institutionalize those steps as you go, rather than trying to start all over. There are times, and you may have faced this when you had to, to bring in 4C suite people at the same time, that a revolution is necessary. But the hope is that you can do this in an evolutionary process. But I also believe strongly in a term that I picked up from an economist years ago, and I don't remember who it was, but he used the term relentless incrementalism, which I like, which is to say it's the small steps taken regularly that you can build upon, but you have to be relentless about it. So moving forward all the time and being relentless about it, but you don't have to take giant strides. You can do it in small steps. As long as you are fortunate enough to come into a situation that isn't falling apart. It just needs revival and evolution.

I like that. Relentless incrementalism, I like. I never heard that before, but actually that's a good, that is a good description. I have a company I work with, they say better every day, you know, and it's like, I like that because it's actually better than, like you said, trying to take massive step, function like I'm going to change everything overnight. It's like these, these little pieces, by the way, for the orchids, usually easier to consume also. So when, when you talk about your board, how large is the board?

We have about 20 members of the board.

Wow.

Yeah. And that's not unusual in our sector. My board at map was 16. My board at Americares was around 20. This one's around 20. I think that's relatively typical, I think, in our sector.

Got it. And for your team, specifically the leadership team that you brought around you, what is the attribute that you're Looking for.

For.

Like, what is that? If you have to. Obviously there's many things you're looking for, but what is that number one attribute? Because you've been. You've led multiple these types of organizations. Like, what is that attribute you're looking for?

Well, it's certainly not one thing. I would say it's several. One of them probably starts with passion for the mission. Right. You didn't come here just to do a job. This is, this is, you know, in this case of unicef, a passion for children and young people around the world. So let's start there. And then I think chemistry is it somebody that I can work with that fits into the team. That doesn't mean carbon copies. We still believe strongly in diversity. Different kinds of people with different backgrounds. But these are going to people you're going to spend a lot of time with, and you want to. Want to spend a lot of time with them. And then, of course, is the technical capacity that they bring, you know, their own professional backgrounds, the work they've done in the past, and how close a fit is that to the, to the, to the needs that we have at the organization at any particular time. So if you, if you find, you know, if you find all three of those things, passion for the mission, the right chemistry, and the appropriate technical capacity, usually end up with a winner with that. Yeah, it depends upon the job. You know, I strongly believe in the nonprofit sector and the professionalism of the nonprofit sector and the people who've worked in the nonprofit sector who've committed themselves to this kind of work. And so most of the people that we have, most of my leaders in the organization come from that sector. There are times when I think it's really nice to bring somebody who comes with a corporate background to bring a little bit different viewpoint to those cases here that I think are important. Our chief marketing officer came from the commercial side. I think it's really helpful to have someone who brings that kind of commercial bent to marketing. That's helpful. And our. And our CFO comes out of the commercial world as well. And again, you know, just thinking about the organization with a finance lens in the way a business would think about it is helpful for. For us. So. So I think there's, you know, there's room for both. But, but, you know, the nonprofit world, our particular world in global development and humanitarian assistance is a profession. There are people who've, Who've studied their, you know, studied this, who've gotten the right jobs, the right internships, the right experiences to do this Kind of work in the same way that an accounting firm is going to look for somebody out of an accounting background. We're going to look for somebody and lean toward those people who've done this kind of work before.

Yeah, because I feel when you talk about fashion, I feel like there's a lot of people who probably, I mean, especially for something like UNICEF usa, like they, they probably want to get it, you know, if I want to get involved, I, I think at least I have friends that I know that have tried to make that transition. And I think what I'm hearing you say is like, it's not that, it's just because you did, you know, whatever, whatever over here, like the non profit world is its only structure as its own skill sets, its own abilities that people build over time.

Oh, I, I have, I have many, many times have had people who spent their career in the commercial world who, who feel like they want to do something with meaning and, and want to come over, you know, to this side and, and sometimes that works fine. But I always try to remind them or help them understand, not remind them, help them understand that the people who are in this work chose this work. They went to school and got degrees that led them to this work. They got the internships that mattered to get these kinds of jobs. I remember somebody with a completely different background who came to me actually was a lawyer and was interested in, you know, I think I'd really like to do humanitarian work, you know, like emergency response work. And I said, well, okay, so tell me about any experience you have in that. It's actually a profession. People study this, they get the right jobs to get the right jobs in this. And I showed him the resume of the person I had recently hired to lead our emergency response work, who could done this work for 20 years. And you know, again, if you run an accounting firm, you wouldn't hire somebody from a completely different sector to do that job. Again, there are, there are places where that works. It worked for me early on. You know, I made this transition from, from being a journalist into this. I made that transition by coming into a nonprofit to help with the communication side of the business. Right. So there was a sort of a natural fit there. And as I said, the know, my CFO comes out of a commercial background and look, this is finance. It's finance and accounting and, and budgeting and forecasting and, and he's very used to doing that. Our revenue streams might be different, but they're revenue streams. Our expense base might be different, but it's still expense. So we, you know, anyway, it's a. It's a great sector to be in, but it is a profession that people train for and move through just like they do in other careers.

So I think one of the things for an organization like yours, if you joined a technology company, March 2020, everyone goes to work from home. That's one thing. But you're an organization with global footprint programs all over the world. How did you. How did you get on board? I mean, how. When you, when you started. I mean, what day that was like, the day that it started, that. I remember you told me. Right.

Yeah. So the. Everything seemed to shut down on March 13, and I started work on March 30. So two weeks. Two weeks after, it was a Monday. I remember our offices are here in New York where I am today. And when I got. When I got hired, it was January, and Covid was a thing, but, you know, not a. It was a thing, but it wasn't like a big thing. By February, I had been asked to come into the office. My. My appointment was made public. I came into the office here in New York to meet the staff. You know, got a sense of the building was full of people. And that was in February. And then, you know, by mid March, everything was shut down. And when I. I remember the Sunday night before I started on Monday morning, the 30th of March, I'm sitting in my townhouse in Connecticut, me and my golden retriever, and I'm thinking, I'm starting a new big job tomorrow, and it's just going to be me, and you're in my little. In my little home office. And it was a. Yeah, a really challenging time. I have made a. A mental note to never take the next big job if, you know, a global pandemic is about to hit, if that's helpful to you or any of your. Of your listeners. It just makes it very complicated.

I can't. I can't imagine. Yeah, I mean, I can't. Did you. I mean, how did you. How did you meet everyone? How did you get on board? How'd you know about all the programs running? Like, how did you.

Well, number one, it helps that I come from this industry, right? So I understand the work. I have been involved in it. I had seen UNICEF's work all over the world and in my other jobs, doing, you know, work alongside in various places. So none of that was a mystery to me. I'd run an organization that had fundraising programs and, you know, overseen of, you know, all the operational pieces so. Oh, that was. But the key question is, when you come into an organization new like that, is to understand the culture of the organization and for the organization to get to know you. The leader. The new leader. Right. How is that going to happen? So one of the things that I did, actually, for the first three months, every single day, sitting at home and in my townhouse in Connecticut, I would shoot a short video on my iPhone, and then three, four minutes, and then I would post it on our internal kind of Facebook page that we had at the time. And I would. I would talk about things that. That I'm. I'm learning. I would talk about some of my experience. I would share a little bit about who I am, and I would post these things, and. And sometimes it would be asking questions, and then people in the comments, staff in the comments would, you know, add their voices to it and whatnot. But it was a way for. For. At that moment, with our staff suddenly dispersed, to stay connected to one another, to hear from the new CEO, to hear from me, to. To. To kind of understand my thought processes and to keep people interested in watching the videos. Every day, I would bring my golden retriever, Izzy, into them regularly, which helped. And even today, so Izzy became a bit of a mascot during that time. And even today, people ask me, how's Izzy? We don't see Izzy enough. Where's Izzy? So, anyway, I think we had to, you know, just be innovative and come up with new ways to stay connected. And I will say this. I mean, I think the disadvantage for me is I. It was very difficult to develop deep and more personal relationships with anybody, members of my leadership team, members of my board, because you don't get to spend enough time with them. You don't get to go out for lunch or for dinner and just talk about the world and talk about life. And you're all doing meetings. Meetings and Zoom, as opposed to spending time together where you actually get to know one another. So that was the downside. On the upside, I met more people faster than I ever would have in a global organization. I met more people faster because we were all doing Zoom and teams calls and things like that. So I didn't have to wait to meet somebody until I take a trip out to California. I could just meet them in a Zoom call. So I think I developed more shallow relationships, and there's some benefit to that, but fewer deeper relationships in that first period. And frankly, to. To make the changes that you want to make in an organization that, again, needs evolution, not revolution, but just evolution. To make the changes that you need to make. You need to. People need to know who you are and what you're thinking, and you need to know them. And so I think we were disadvantaged. So in that.

It's so interesting when you say, you know, I never really thought about it. The way you just said is like, you could access so many more people, so much fat. I mean, so much faster than getting on the plane and flying all over the place. But it's impossible, I mean, literally impossible to create the depth of relationship on a zoom. Like impossible. And that's a really. Since. Since, you know, kind of in the last couple of years is. Are you back in an office with everyone or.

Yeah, no. So we've embraced remote and hybrid work. You know, we have the offices here in New York, and if you come here on a Wednesday, you know, there's reasonable number of people, but not nearly what there was before. If you come here on a Monday, you're going to be pretty much all alone. But what we've been trying to do is create intentional moments for staff to get together. So we've done a couple of all staff retreats since COVID relented. And by that, I mean the US staff, the entire US Staff, we brought together twice. Teams kind of bring their groups together every time. We do what we call an intentional engagement day once a month, where staff in New York, in the New York area, tend to come into the office and we have lunch and we have a program and we interact with one another. And we have a collection of people in the Chicago area, and they all get together for lunch that day and see one another and talk about what they're doing, even if they're on different teams and don't see each other regularly. So just to create some of that sense, look, we have a really amazing staff. I mean, really terrific people, high quality caliber, nice people you want to hang around. And part of the benefit of working for our organization is you get to be with these people. And so if you're not with them, if you're isolated off all by yourself and you don't actually get to interact with them in person from time to time, I think it's, again, a real disadvantage. I am a strong believer, because we've adopted it in remote hybrid work, that it can work just fine. But you have to find those times where you are not isolated and you are interacting in person with people. Gratefully, my leadership team, most of us are in the New York area, and we make a. We're intentional about coming in on Wednesdays so that we have our weekly leadership team meeting on Wednesdays so that. Where most of us are face to face during that time. And that helps a lot.

Yeah. You know, I think what's interesting is, I mean, there's. There's all the, there's so many benefits to remote work and the access to talent and all that. I, I actually think for the next generation of professionals, of people who came into the workforce March 20, you know, 20, 20, 21. Like, I, I actually think for a lot of those people, they don't know what they're missing. You know, you kind of feel like, oh, well, we get remote work. This is great. But actually, I would say a lot of my closest relationships were built in an office in my early days, you know, and people getting to know each other and building relationships that years later, I'm asking people for help with connections, they're asking me for referral, you know, reference, and you don't have that, you know, and I, it's, it's. I don't know, I actually feel like for that generation, it's almost. It's an interesting dynamic because it's the one that I feel wants remote work the most and then actually is missing the most from doing the remote work. And I'm, I'm starting to see. I don't know if you're starting to see this, but I'm starting to see in interviews that I'm doing for the companies I work with, that generation actually saying, you know what? I've been working from home since I graduated from college, and, like, I kind of want to come to an office, like, and, and I'm starting to see that slowly, Slowly. But I'm starting to see that happening, you know.

Yeah, I'm not sure either way is better or worse. They have advantages each remote or in the office, each has advantages and disadvantages. And the question is, are you being intentional about maximizing the advantages and mitigating against the disadvantages? So, again, I hear, you know, CEOs who are now requiring people to come in three days a week or, you know, two or four days a week, and that's fine. I don't think that's better or worse than what we're doing. Each has advantages and disadvantages. And the question, are you being intentional about maximizing advantages and mitigating the disadvantages? And I do think, and I say this to, I've said this to some, some younger staff, you know, having this kind of conversation with them that, you know, we will do everything we can as an organization to make you feel connected to the organization and to your, to your peers. Team meetings once in a while, a whole, whole organizational retreat, Staff meetings. We have virtual all that. We would do things to connect. But you have responsibility yourself to not be isolated, to build relationships with people on your team and across the organization. You have to take initiative to do that, to build the kind of relationships you were just talking about that are going to last beyond their tenure here.

Exactly.

People they're going to want to keep in touch with. You know, we can't do all. That's not our responsibility as an organization. We will do what we can. But you have to do that yourself. You have to, you know, if you're remote and you're, you don't have a team around you don't just schedule zoom calls for meetings. Schedule a zoom call with somebody in the organization. You just want to get to know and spend 30 minutes just getting to know them and building a relationship. You never know what comes out of that. That's kind of the water cooler conversation, right? Bumping into somebody around a water cooler. Well, create that moment, but you have to be intentional about it. And, and, and again, you know, you can build a lot of those kinds of relationships, at least to a certain level, because it's easy just to say, hey, you got 30 minutes, let's do a zoom call.

Well, if you do the retreats, the retreats is interesting because the retreats definitely make a big, make a big difference because even that short period of time, even if it's one day, two days, that period of time gives people that in person connection, you know, that they can then carry on, I think then they can carry on on Zoom, then they carry on on whatever messaging platform, you know, But I, I like that. So, so how often have you done those practices, like every couple of years or what?

Well, we've done it. We've done the all staff, us staff retreat twice since the pandemic. So in the last four years, we've done it twice. We have another one scheduled be a year from now in the spring to do it again.

People must love that. People.

Yeah. Oh, they do. And, and we do too. But it's, you know, it's an investment. It's not cheap.

Understatement.

We have to be careful. We have to be careful about it. And, but you know, there are other ways too. Like just today I had one of my monthly, I do like a CEO roundtable and we do a, we pull together. The HR team does this. We pull together a group of staff from across the organization. We use anniversary dates to pull a group of six, seven, eight, nine people. So they come from different tenures in the organization and different departments across. And once a month, I just did it this afternoon. We just have a conversation, 45 minutes. And I always start by having everybody introduce themselves because not everybody works together. Right. So introduce. And where are you working from? And if you don't mind, if you're willing to do this, tell us one thing going on in your personal life that you're willing to share. And we hear the most interesting things from our colleagues about who they are and what they do and things that are happening in their lives. And you know, somebody announces a pregnancy and somebody announces they're getting married and somebody tells us about the music band they play in. And, and from that my hope is that people will, will see somebody that they have something in common with and will make a connection and maybe we'll reach out to that person and have another conversation and, and create that kind of community. That's just one of the things that we do to try to help build that.

So, so just I want to get tactical because this is a real, this is. I think a lot of people could use this. So every, how often do you do these?

What's. Once a month?

Once a month. And how many people join somewhere?

Let's see, we had, we had seven staff and myself today. But small, small, small groups. Yeah.

And then you. And, and then everyone goes around, does the introduction something about themselves and then is it what it. What happens, Dennis?

Q and A. I always say it this way. I said let's just have a conversation. Anything you want to hear from me or anything you want me to hear. So kind of a two way. Anything you want to hear from me. Questions about the organization, the industry, me, whatever, or anything you want me to hear. Something going on in the organization. You think I should be aware of that maybe I'm not. Or something you or your teams are feeling. So it's a little bit two way love that turns out mostly to be what they want to hear from me. You know, so I get lots of questions about the organization and things we're doing and things happening globally and happens with the U.S. know what's happening with the U.S. government now and, and all of that. And sometimes people share kind of what they want me to hear too.

I like that a lot.

They're really good. They're really good. People enjoy them. The 45 minutes goes super fast. I do this too with, with new staff. We Do a new staff CEO roundtable so people can hear and, and hear directly from me. And on that I, again, it's usually a smaller group, three or four staff. And you know, whenever we have enough new staff to justify it and on that, I always want them to hear from me about our mission, our mission statement and our strategy. We have a really robust onboarding program for new staff. They always tell me they love it. Our people and culture team does a great job on onboarding, but they're but two things. Mission, like who are we and what we're about and strategy. What are we planning to do? I want them to hear that directly from me. So I usually give a presentation on those two things and then we also have an open conversation.

I love that, I love that. I love the roundtables. Like and because you do it by anniversary date, you're going to get different people and they've had different experiences at different points in time. I like that. Have you been doing that since, since.

You joined for a, you know, at least for the last three years? Probably. Wow.

Yeah. What you've mentioned a number of times, the staff meetings, this thing like what is your operating rhythm look like for the organization? Do you do an annual planning with your leadership in the board and then you have monthly all hand, you know, staff meetings? Like how, what is that operating rhythm?

Yeah, so we, our fiscal year runs July 1 through June 30. So we do an annual planning process that kind of kicks off a little bit before the holidays and then really cranks up in end of January, February, March, leading to our April board board meeting. And it's at the April board meeting, end of April, where the board, where we put before the board a refresh of our strategic plans. We usually have a three year strategy and we sort of update it every year because the world's changing so fast. You know, the days of doing a three or five year plan and having it sit are over. So we update it every year and kind of push it out another year and then do a detailed operating plan for the next fiscal year and a budget. And then many of the staff are involved in that process in the January, February into March timeframe. And then the board approves it there. So that's kind of that operating rhythm. And then yeah, we have monthly staff meetings. We have occasional town halls on particular topics that we feel like the whole organization needs to hear about. The board meeting, you know, meets quarterly. The board meets quarterly. We've got very active committees that meet between the board meetings.

And you do the leadership team meeting.

You said weekly leadership team meeting. Once a week. Once a week.

How long is that?

It's about 90 minutes every, every Wednesday.

Got it. And is his. How. Like, when you talk about these things, I'm always curious with people. They're operating with them. These things are like how rigid are. Meaning is the all staff meeting, like, that's once a month and that's once a month. Like that doesn't get missed, doesn't get messed. Okay. Yeah, I'm trying to. It's a leading question because I talk to some people, sometimes CEOs and they're like, yeah, I do staff meetings. Okay. When? About once a month. I'm like, about once a month. And they say, well, sometimes six weeks, sometimes 12 weeks. I'm like, I mean people, if they don't have, they don't know that there's that meeting there.

Yeah, no, first, first, first Thursday of every month dialed in. We have a team that works on it. It's a whole, you know, hour long agenda. I usually do the first 15 minutes with just some messages from me. We do a really nice. Again, this is a. For a virtual. So it's zoom meeting. After I'm done, we, we break everybody out into small group breakout rooms. It's kind of this, you know, just get to know one another moment. Oh, you're always with a different group of people, four or five people. And we have a question, some silly question for people to ask one another. And they have people love this. It's their highlight of the staff meeting. Forget whatever I had to say in the first 15 minutes. It's this interaction with their fellow staff members in these small groups talking about something off the wall or silly. And then we come back and then we have a good program, a good program. People from different parts of the organization presenting some new thing they're working on. We have certainly a program focus on some UNICEF program around the world. So we get connected to the mission that way. So it's a very structured meeting and we have a team of people that work on it and build the agenda and all of that. And it's. We take, we take it very seriously.

I personally believe that those meetings are one of the most powerful hours, you know, that you have in your, I mean, as a leader, in your tool belt, you know, in terms of what you can do to motivate the team, inspire the team, align the team. I think people who don't do it and, or don't do it with structure and the intention. I, I always tell you I think you're missing a huge, who knows where people in a month's time. A lot happens, not just in the world, in your business and your organization and your teams. Like, so I, there's a big topic for me. There's like a big thing for me right now that I'm trying to.

Yeah, we really lean on people from across the organization to present their work to their colleagues. And so you get to hear from all kinds of different people across the organization and all different types of work that's going on. And so it's a great way to keep up to date on the organization. A reminder of how many awesome people we have and the really cool work that they're doing. But I would say especially because we've chosen this remote hybrid in the office once in a while kind of a methodology for us it becomes even more important that we're doing that kind of a meeting and sticking to it and be serious about it.

One of the things, because of course in a non profit you have to fundraise and you have to bring money in. And I, I noticed specifically, you know, when, and I was doing research on you, like you're out there talking a lot and you're on panels and you're giving speeches and you're doing all that, which I think seems like, sounds like a requirement probably first for the job that you're in. Is that, does all that come natural to you? Like, did you just, were you like that before you even got into these roles, you know, three roles ago, or, or have you had to work at that? Because at least from what I see, you seem quite natural at it. Very easy. Like, you know, is that, is that natural to you?

Natural? That's a good question. I've been doing it a long time, so there's that. I do think that my background in communications and in journalism, in being able to present information or try to present it in a compelling way in a way that people can understand, which is really the goal of a, of a, of a journalist is to present information in a way that people can understand and hopefully find compelling. I think that background actually serves me pretty well in, in that in this particular part of my job, sort of the external spokesperson kind of a role. But yeah, you have to work on. I've done, you know, I've been through media training a number of times. I, you know, have had people around me in my life who have been honest to say, hey, that was really good and that stunk and you might think about doing it this way. So yeah, So I don't know if it comes, it probably comes natural now, but I would say maybe also this, that what I mostly talk about is the work that we do, which is really compelling in itself. Right. So work to improve the lives of children and families all around the world is just infused with interesting stories and compelling narratives and, and with a passion, you know, in, in which to deliver it. And I think that helps. I'm not, you know, I'm not talking about, I don't know, I don't want to, I don't want to go anywhere with that. I'm talking about stuff that people actually are sort of interested in and we find actually really compelling. So I think it's easy to tell the stories.

Yeah. And I think what's important, I actually believe this for leaders of any organization, doesn't matter. Nonprofit, private, commercial, doesn't matter. You need to be able to do this. Well, I tell people all the time actually am not a natural good public speaker. Had to work very hard, was very uncomfortable with it. But, but I think if you're going to lead any organization of size, with any external customers, constituents like, you have to be able to do it. And I think it's something I try to advise people, you know, a lot is like, even if it's uncomfortable, which it is for most people, you know, it's how do you get, how do you work on it, how do you get better at it? Because I think again, it's, it's being able to tell those stories, even if they're compelling stories, knowing how to actually surface those. Like that's, that's, I'm sure, you know, especially with an organization like yours, that's, that's what gets people to engage and that's, you know, and I want to kind of keep going on that because I think one of the things I've interviewed a couple people now who are running non profits and it sounds like in terms of constituents, you actually have a maybe wider set of constituents than you know, for profit founder of a tech company. Like you've got a lot from internal to external, to the board, to the donors to the programs. Like can you really talk through that and just how you manage that, which clearly you're good at if you're at the third time doing it. You know, I'd love to kind of get your, your take on that.

Yes. You know, one of the things we talk about, well, if you run a company and you ask the leader of that company who are your customers, they probably have a pretty good answer to that it's the people who buy their goods or services. Right. We have an interesting way to look at that here. Who are our customers. So on the one hand, our customers are the people, the children, the families in the communities around the world that we serve. I mean, they're the ones, we work for them. We try to deliver products and services that benefit them, that they want, that they see have value. So on the one hand, that's our customer, the mother and the child in rural Malawi who are going to a clinic that's served by UNICEF to get their vaccinations and basic health care that they need to stay healthy. That's a customer. On the other hand, I could look the other way and say, well, the customers that I deal with actually more day to day in my role are the donors who support this work. It's the company, it's the individual who's moved to give away their resources to help make this work happen. We're serving them in a different way and so we have to think about them as our customers as well. So we sort of look both ways. Who is the customer and how do we serve the needs of customers looking in both directions. So I think that does make it a little bit different maybe than a for profit company who was pretty clear about the customer.

Yeah, that's a good way to put it. That's a good way to put it. What is the biggest challenge you've faced since you joined UNICEF USA four or five years ago? I guess five years ago. Now, what is the biggest challenge you face and how have you overcome that?

Well, I do think it's starting to. At the beginning of COVID you know, I. It's just. I hope I never have to do anything like that again. It just complicates matters and makes things a little harder and slower than what. I mean, it was brand new for all of us, wasn't it? I mean, none of us have been through anything like there's no textbook to go to, there was no leadership book. That said, if you start your job in a global pandemic, here are some tried and true things that have worked before. Here's how you manage your organization. It was just very difficult. Without question, the most difficult part of the job has been that. Something I wasn't expecting and had no experience in how to overcome that. Despite having been a CEO twice, been through lots of different things. Economies collapsing, you know, times of plenty, deep emergencies, crises all around the world. You know, I've been through all of that, but I hadn't been through a pandemic like we had. So, yeah, without question, that was the most complicated piece.

Where is UNICEF USA three years from today?

Well, if you look at our strategic plan, it would tell you some of those things where I think we're going to be in three years. But sort of broadly, I would say this. It's our goal to have an even bigger impact on children around the world. That means we have to do even better job in what we say is our mission here at UNICEF usa. Not our mission, our purpose, which is to rally the American people to support this work. Our job in the United States is to motivate people, to influence people, to be a force for good here that encourages people, individuals, institutions, the governments to take up the cause of the world's most vulnerable children and help them out. And we want to do more and more of that. So we have some big plans around some of the big initiatives that UNICEF is implementing around nutrition, around digital education, and around children who are caught in emergencies that nobody's talking about that don't get any attention that are being sort of left out to really make a difference in the lives of children through big initiatives like that.

I want to. I want to transition a little bit to your background. Where are you from originally?

I am from the Midwest, born in Wisconsin, grew up in Minnesota. So, yeah, true and true Midwestern.

And did you. So you started in journalism?

Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I went to. Went to undergraduate school to study environmental science. Had a roommate who worked for the campus newspaper, said it was a great group of people, you should come over and hang out. I went over and hung out, got a few assignments to write some articles, decided I love journalism, finished my degree in communication, started a career in journalism, which I did for about 10, 10, 11 years, and then. And then made a transition into the, into the NGO sector.

And that was. You mentioned before because you got into communications that like you got a communications job at a nonprofit.

Yeah. So I was doing some reporting in Honduras, of all places, on some global health issues. And I was visiting this little tiny community, very poor community, and I met the local nurse in this community who had been trained as a nurse. She was from this village. She been trained as a nurse. She'd gone through some public health, community health training. She'd gone back to her village to try to improve the health of children and families in her community. And I was so taken by her. She was. She was this tiny little woman who was a giant, and she. She just was transforming the place the way she really Thought about public health, about community health, like not treating diseases, but how do you help people be healthy? Working with farmers on agriculture techniques to grow more nutritious crops for the community. Working with mothers on home environments and how to make them better and healthier. Working with children on hygiene issues and things like that. And she just transformed this village. And I had, I had sort of an epiphany moment. Like, I just want to help her. That's what I want to do. Like, how do I just help her? That's, that's the job I want. What is that? What job is that to just help her? Because she seems to know what she's doing. Like, what do I know from the outside? It's not my community, but she sure seems to know maybe we should get behind her. And, and over time, what I found, of course, is there's lots of hers, there's lots of people just like her. And what I've been interested in my whole career now in that, in, in, in this sector is helping local people who have a vision to improve their communities carry out their vision. Not our vision, but their vision. How do we help them carry out their vision? The first organization I worked for then, so what I did at that, at that time was I said I got to find my way into this world. How do I find this world? That I, I got to know the a US based, not for profit that had done the training for her for this nurse in community health, public health. So they must know what they're doing because look what she's doing. And I got to know them and, and, and found my way into that organization on the communication side. That was my, that was my entry.

What was, what was like your big break? Because I mean, to go. It hasn't been that long that you went from that to being c. I mean relatively speaking, like what was the break?

Right place, right time, a little bit. But just one more piece about that. Their tagline at the time, this was MAP International. Their tagline at the time was serving the servants. The whole idea was that the servants, like this nurse, are the real servants and our job is to serve them. Them. And I loved that idea because that's what I felt in that, in that community. So, so I joined this organization, Communications. I was there at a time of a bunch of transitions. I like to tell people that, that when you. I say to a lot of young people, ask career advice and things like that, I say, well, someday I hope it happens to you. Happen to me. When you find yourself in the right place. Doors start opening. When you find what you're supposed to do, doors start opening. And that's what happened to me at MAP International. Just kept getting jobs with more responsibilities there. And I ended up really under the mentoring of a new CEO who came in, who sort of lifted me up through these various layers. And I ended up being his chief operating officer. He trusted me to kind of run the organization while he was the CEO. And he left and the board did a national search. It took them nine months to do it. And in those nine months, they really came to like what we were doing. I was the interim CEO at the time, and they thought, why make a change? We feel like it's going in the right direction. And so they took a chance on me. I was young. I didn't have the resume for the job, but they liked where we were headed. And I, you know, I wasn't me. It was them giving me a chance. And it. And it. And it worked out so.

So that CEO that. That was kind of like the person who, I mean, change changed everything, right? I mean, he.

He, again, he. He found me in the organization and he sort of pulled me up through different roles until I was the CEO. And. And then when he left, the board didn't have much of a choice but to ask to lead it while they did this search. And I don't think I was a candidate in their minds initially, but gratefully, the search took a long time. And in that time, they came to, like, where we were headed and the team that I had in place and. And decided not to rock the boat and to give us a chance. And they did. It worked out for me. I mean, I feel really blessed sometimes. I feel like I didn't deserve some of the roles that I've had, but I'm grateful for them.

You mentioned people come to you and talk to your mouth, you know, career advice. I'm sure especially in nonprofit world. I can't imagine not that many people in presidency of multiple, you know, three already. Do you do anything formally around, like mentoring or that kind of. Or it's more just, you know, as you come, people kind of come across you.

Yeah, more. I would say more that rather than formal mentoring, talk to, you know, we. We have. Because we're UNICEF usa, we're focused on children and youth. We have a lot of youth who are involved with us. We've got here in the United States, we have UNICEF clubs at colleges and high schools all across the country. Got more than 20,000 youth that are part of that. We have a National Youth Council, which is kind of the leadership body of all of that. We interact with them all the time. And so I have lots of chance to interact with young people and lots of chance to have conversations with them and answer their questions. But the most powerful mentoring that I've had was from the youth themselves. So this was last year, and for half a year, I took on three young people as mentors to meet. I wasn't mentoring them, they were mentoring me. So we believe strongly in the importance of youth at the table, that they have a voice, that they're not just about the future, but they're about the present. We are. When we talk about UNICEF's work, we talk about it this way. Every child, healthy, educated, protected, and respected. And the respected piece is the fact that they are people who have points of view, who have a unique point of view that we don't have. And so they need to be at the table. We need to hear from them. So as a part of that, I took on these three members from our. From our National Youth Council who were my mentors for half a year. And I would meet them once a month on a zoom call, and I would share with them stuff I was working on and ask, what would you do in this situation? What's your point of view about this? And I would ask them, you know, what are the youth thinking? What are. So I made it really clear they were my mentors, not reverse. If I could be helpful to them, I would be. But it was really about, I want you to mentor me. And it was great. It was really, really lovely.

I love that. Knowing everything you know today and all the experiences you've had. If you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice before you started your first job in journalism, you know, back then, what would that one piece of advice be?

I think it is to be really aware of the balance, the needed balance between confidence and humility. So what I mean by that is, look, I'm a leader of an organization. I have a vision for the organization. I have a point of view. I have experience to back it up. I believe in what I'm saying. I have confidence in the direction that I'm talking about, but at the same time, I don't know everything. I'm not the smartest person on the planet. I'm not the only experienced person. I got lots of experienced people around me. I got lots of young people who are giving me cool ideas. And so finding the right balance in leadership to give people confidence that you are confidently leading, but not so much that you don't listen to anybody. And I think early in my career, I didn't have enough confidence. I was young, I was new. It was all new to me. I probably had some gut feelings of things we should do or not do, and I didn't, I didn't, I didn't follow them and probably listened, you know, tried to build consensus all the time. And sometimes you just, you have to just lead. But over time, I think I've found a bit, much better balance in those two things. And I hope today that I don't always lead with the confidence that I have enough humility to bring the other voices there. But I think finding this balance between these two as a leader is really important.

I think that's really, I find, you know, it's a little bit. I, I, My opinion at least, is like, because of imposter syndrome, which I think many people kind of deal with and face at every level, you know, you end up in situations, you don't really know what the right. You want to be confident, you know, and you almost may not want to be so humble, if you will, and be listening because you want to prove like, I know how to do it. And then in other cases, you're like, I don't know how to do it, so I'm not going to become. And that balance is really, I, I think for, you know, for, I think for most, actually, for most human beings, I think, you know, that that's a reality of, of, of imposter syndrome and feeling that. And when you get more confident, you actually can do both simultaneously because it doesn't, it doesn't come across as weakness or ego. You know, it's like, yeah, so I, no one's given this advice. No one has said this. So I think I've interviewed 50 people so far. No one said this, and this is a really. That's a great way to end this. So.

Yeah, yeah. And I think the way that you said that, too, the difference, you know, it's between, between ego on the one hand and. How did, how did you phrase that? You said ego on the one hand and.

Yeah, it's like the overconfidence.

Yeah, exactly. This is the. Again, it's a struggle. It's a struggle all the time. But I think being aware that it's a struggle and always trying to find that balance has been helpful to me. And I'm fortunate that I'm leading my third organization now. It's been 20 years. I have a lot of experience doing this, so I hope I'm better at it today than I was when I started.

Michael, I really, really, I appreciate this. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for responding to my cold outreach and being willing to join me for this. I'm happy to capture this and share this story, so thank you very much.

Well, thanks so much for having me appreciate these things that you do and help us all think about our jobs in a new way.

Thank you. Well, hopefully everyone who's listening, you enjoyed a lot of good learnings from this. And if you did, please share this with your networks and we'll see you for the next episode of Not Another CEO Podcast. That's a wrap for this week's episode of Not Another CEO Podcast. Thanks for joining. For show notes and more, please Visit not another CEOPodcast.com we'll see you next week. Sam.