In this six‑question, seven‑minute interview on the Winning at Business and Life podcast, Professor Pete Alexander talks with Michael (Mikel) Mangold, a French‑German chemist with a global education and recent Silicon Valley experience. Mangold shares his moonshot goal of linking science, technology, and people to benefit society. He describes the pharmaceutical industry as a hotbed of digital disruption, noting that senior leaders are increasingly receptive to millennial ideas. Emphasizing health as the foundation for performance, he explains how regular exercise triggers BDNF, reduces cortisol, and boosts dopamine, enhancing leadership effectiveness. Mangold recommends three fellow leaders—public speaker Anthony Lee, bioinformatics entrepreneur Renée, and emotional‑intelligence advocate Tony Saccario—as podcast guests. He advises leaders to retain talent in the gig economy by fostering purpose, empathy, and personal development. Reflecting on his first job at a fruit‑and‑vegetable market, he highlights how early failures teach self‑knowledge. Finally, he provides his online contact points (website, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram) and encourages collaboration.
Chapters
This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast, where business leaders share their insights. It is 6 questions in 7 minutes because successful business leaders are busy and rarely have more time to spare. So let's get to it. Question number 1: In a few sentences, please tell me who you are and what you do.
Hi everyone. I am Michael Mangold. I grew up in France, but I'm French-German. I am chemist by training, studied in 4 different countries, and in the 12 last months I've been in Silicon Valley. I realized that I'm really passionate about science, technology, but I also traveled the world in 32 different countries. And now my goal, my moonshot of my life, is to connect science, technology, people to impact society. And to impact society, we need to be inspiring and serving leaders. That's also why I'm trying to be in my life right now.
Michael, it's great to have you on the show. Question number 2: What's the best thing about working in your industry?
So right now I am working in the healthcare industry, and even more precisely, the pharmaceutical industry. What I really love right now about this is that it's— this industry is completely being disrupted. You know, you have digital transformation, You have the drug discovery process that is more and more expensive, and we need to find a solution for that. The complete— the culture is completely being changed with new people, new leaders, and are trying to change the mindset of every healthcare professionals. I don't want to talk about technologies. The tech needs to be implemented, but it has a hard time because it's a very conservative industry. But as a millennial, I'm really happy because The senior employees accept my ideas because they need them. And it is an opportunity for me to be a leader and to be heard by the industry. And it's a very exciting time because we need to embrace change, we need to embrace disruption, and to bring ideas to the table.
That's great. It's very exciting. Question number 3: I hear from other business leaders that staying in a good work-life balance for them and their team members is a challenge. What are your thoughts?
You know, I believe that the secret of longevity is to stay healthy. If you have no energy, you have absolutely no life. And every healthy individual that got the habits of waking up, working out, sweating a little bit will never remove it from their life.
Why?
Because when we wake up and we sweat a little bit, we activate what is called BDNF, brain-derived neurofactor, or something around that, and it decreases cortisol and then activates dopamine. What every business leader needs. We can learn better, being more efficacious, more efficient in our work, and just being more performant. So I think it's just a matter of why, what do we want to accomplish in our day, and if we know exactly why we're doing what we're doing, we know we need to be healthy because health should be the basis foundation of everything in our lives.
Absolutely. I like to say that without your health, nothing else matters. So it sounds like that's, that's what you're communicating to us. Exactly. Question number 4: What other successful business leaders like yourself should be on my podcast?
I know a few business leaders out there that are amazing. The first one is called Anthony Lee, is a company that is a public speaking company, and I think this is really important in our world today because people need to use their personal story to to share dry information because you cannot detach the messenger from the message. There's another business leader I recommend you, she's called Renée and she has a bioinformatics company. And what I love is that she's trying to revolutionize the pharmaceutical industry using technology to be more efficaz, more efficient and to be faster. Another business leader that I recommend you is called, is working in the EQ industry. I need to find his name. But Tony Saccario, exactly. And he has an amazing message to the world, is being more empathetic and developing emotional intelligence. I think that's also very needed in our industry.
That's great. Anthony Lee is actually on my calendar to be on the show. So we both have that connection in common, and I'll reach out to the other two as you suggested. Thank you.
Of course.
Question number 5: What insight or advice would you give to other business leaders?
You know, as a millennial, I am a very young person. What I realized is that outside in the world, we always talk about the war of talent, but to be honest, we live in a different world today than 20 years ago. We live in the gig economy where having a new job is very easy. And to keep talents, to keep motivated and driven individuals, you need to find the purpose of what you're doing. And to inspire them, you need to be an empathetic leader that is trying to understand what the employee is seeking, what do we want to develop, what do we want to learn, and then trying to import and to make this person a new leader. If you don't do that, motivated employees are going to leave the company because it's never been so easy to find a new job.
Yeah, that's— it's very insightful that you say that because it's true. Even, even in a, in a challenging economy, the good employees can find the new jobs if they're not motivated at their existing one.
Exactly.
Question number 6: Tell me about your first job.
It's a very interesting question, and to be honest, not a lot of people ask this question, but I think this is the basis foundation of who we are as a person. We always listen to the successes, but it often starts with failure and kind of wrong experiences. When I was 13, I was an F student, and my mom, her motivation that was I was active going out there. My first job was at the fruit and vegetable market. What I realized there is that I didn't like it. You know, you wake up at 5 AM, you go to the market, and you bring some vegetables from a truck and you put it on the market, and it's not really enjoyable, and you don't get really incentivized for this hard work. But what I realized is that through, through experiences, you learn who you are, what you love, and then you can select. And I really encourage everyone to have that situation and doing something we don't love, to really enjoy and being grateful when we have a situation that we really love.
Yeah, it's, it's interesting how, uh, the failures— we learn from our failures, uh, and we also learn from our successes. So it sounds like that first job was a perfect example of that. Awesome. That's great. Michael, it's so great to have you on the show. How can people find you?
I am a strong believer that online leadership is more necessary than ever before because we all connected to big leaders and we— I am personally inspired by many of them such as Richard Branson or, um, you know, Jay Shetty, all the guys like this. So I am online. I have a website, michaelmangold.com, but you can find me on LinkedIn. Twitter under the name Michael Mengel, but also active on Instagram under @mm_dreambig. Please reach me out. I'm happy to connect you with other amazing individuals I know. I'm happy to collaborate on a project, and I'm happy to discuss ideas and talk.
Wonderful. This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. For more insights and ideas, please go to LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, or iTunes and search for the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Thanks for listening.
