Jerre Stead, celebrated CEO and philanthropist

Description of the video:

Speaker 1 (00:04):

Welcome, welcome, welcome, everybody in the room and welcome to our guests online. We have a very special guest today, Jerry Stead. Jerry Stead will be in conversation with us. So I will just start off with some questions. We'll be talking about leadership, philanthropy, and innovation as well. But before we get started with the questions, let me give you a little bit of background about Jerry Stead and the wonderful things that he has done so you have some ideas about what kind of questions you can ask. Jerry is a renowned business leader and philanthropist. He is the executive chairman and CEO of Clarivate Analytics and has held numerous executive roles at numerous other major international, international corporations. Together with Mary Joy is with us today as well. He established the Stead Foundation as a reflection of their commitment to give back lives when resources were scarce.

Speaker 1 (01:01):

Today the Stead Foundation has granted more than 400 million to healthcare education and faith-based organizations. In 2023, Jerry founded Stead Impact Ventures to invest with responsibility and pursue innovators whose ideas will positively change the course of health and wellbeing, particularly in the areas of neurodegenerative disorders, mental health and obesity. The studs are particularly committed to advancing research and services around mental health, motivated by both personal experiences and the enormous cost of mental health issues to society. The studs are proud to support Fountain House and they also started Community 43 in Phoenix, which is dedicated to helping people recovering from mental illness. Jerry has chaired numerous campaigns for nonprofit organizations, something that will be of interest to many of our students and has served on the boards of the SOC Institute, the Banner Alzheimer's Institute, Garrett Evangelical Seminary, the University of Iowa, Henry b Tippy College of Business, and the American Writers Museum.

Speaker 1 (01:58):

Jerry and Mary Joy are strong supporters of the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy in 2014, they and their family created the Stead Family chair and international philanthropy who was with us today and named the Stead Policy fellow at the school who was also with us today. Jerry is a lifetime member of the school's Board of Visitors. He's a graduate of University of IO and the Harvard Advanced Management Program in Switzerland. He served on 37 corporate boards during his career and has received numerous honors and awards, including the Kenneth B. West Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Corporate Directors and an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters degree from our own Indiana University. Jerry, thank you for being with us. It's great

Speaker 2 (02:38):

To be here. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (02:45):

I said earlier today, this is like our second home. Over the years, MaryJo and I have moved 23 times. Anybody beat us with that, but this has always been a place for many, many reasons that we've been in and out of and we're just so very thankful that we're able to be here today. It was a wonderful honor, great program. Jean told me it's our 35th anniversary of the philanthropy award program this year. It's just amazing and it's super fun. I thought we'd do this this way today so you can interrupt either one of us as we're going through this to ask questions because that lets it make it flow a little better and we've got 59 minutes to make it roll.

Speaker 1 (03:32):

We do. We do indeed. And we've had some already wonderful conversations about the intersections of the for-profit world, the nonprofit world, and the importance of building better connections between those two. So let's just jump in there and ask Jerry about what makes for good leadership in business and in the nonprofit world and how are they similar and different?

Speaker 2 (03:54):

Yeah, no, that's a great question and one of the things like with Civ that Amit just talked about a little while ago, what we're doing is all of the work going forward is helping startups. We've got seven we're managing with Tiffany Shaw as my CEO now, and at the same time all of them are involved in nonprofit and I have a huge belief that the great leaders of nonprofit understand for-profit and they're great leaders of for-profit, understand nonprofit. I don't think we have nearly enough of that in our world today, but that's what we've got to get. Over the years I've been blessed. I've led 11 public companies for 42 years, and just to give you a view of the success with my style of leadership, the average annual return was 23% compounded. A better way to think about that in the last 15 years, I outperformed Warren Buffet by 60% and Warren Buffet kept trying to buy my company.

Speaker 2 (05:06):

But here's what I've tried to do over the years. I always felt a company that was one that we created a vision, a mission and values, and they were real. They weren't on the wall. They were real with what we expected, how we lived, how we created the companies, and I did that many times and Tiffany's done it with me over the years and it was always, that's the place that we wanted. My measurement for success is if you're working at one of my companies or one of my nonprofits, will you ask your best friend to come and work with you there? That's by far the best measurement of the success that you get by leadership. I've always had five foundational steps. Number one, treat every person with equal dignity and respect. It's critical, and I see so many organizations that don't do that and both for profit and nonprofit, but think about that. The next role you take, the next place you go, the next opportunity you have, make sure that's real. And I've always believed that and I've always tried to be a role model of everything I'd said I do. I've never asked anybody to do anything that I don't try to do. I'm a bit of an unusual person in a sense. I've never had a contract of any of the companies I've ever led.

Speaker 2 (06:45):

If my people need them, I provide them, but I've never had one because I've always thought I can do what I need to do. When you were reading the one honor that we got back in 2017, I believe it was, there was about 600 board members and it was in New York City, 600 board members and CEOs there, and I got speak that night and I told the group, I said, and I've heard a lot about this over the years, I said, I've never needed a contract because the only reason you need 'em if you're a CEO of a public company is you expect to be fired. The room got pretty quiet. There was a lot of people that had contracts in there. And I said, but think about it. That's the only reason because there is no other reason. And the thing I've worked always so hard on is I get any organization I move into, we get rid of perks.

Speaker 2 (07:43):

There are no perks because what are perks? That's we, they, that creates structure of a class structure that I absolutely don't believe in. So every company I moved into, I'd say those that had company cars on and on and on, that's done. That's gone. I will reward you very richly and very successfully with the equity that we create for all of you and value, but that doesn't work. That's not what we want. So equal dignity and respects means we treat every person. Yes, we play different salaries for different skills and different experiences, but every person with equal dignity and respect, do I need to help my people be successful, help my people be successful. If you look, I'll give you just a couple of examples on that. When I was at Square D, second public company, I had a great company. It was 85 years old when I got there and I wanted to make it a greater company. And the first week I was there, I got two books that I was told because I was the new CEOI was the only one that got 'em. There was 400 policies. I burned them in the parking lot. True story.

Speaker 2 (09:27):

And if you want to go back, I was on the cover, I think it was February of 1987. That was not part of my plan by the way, a business week. I got a lot of pushback, including an older board I had at that time. In the beginning I explained to 'em, do we need those? Yes, but they've got to be built by our people. That's what we got to have. Those have to be tools for our people. So that's another critical thing that, and all of these apply to profit and nonprofit organizations. Third one is, if I had a dollar left, I'd spend it on training and development for my teams always and forever. That's so critical because there's nothing more important than helping everybody have the opportunity to do more success than they've had. And it was always my role to help them pick those and then we provide those opportunities for 'em. So feel very strongly about that. One of the things in both nonprofit and for-profit organizations I've seen over the years are that the higher you get in the organization, suddenly people think you don't need more development. That's craziness. You need more the higher you get. So I'm a very big believer in that fourth one, these apply, like I said, to all organizations facts as their friends think how difficult it is to get real facts Today on any subject, I can tell you one of the ways I do it.

Speaker 2 (11:02):

Normally I just had surgery, so I haven't been able to do exercises, but normally every morning I get up about three 15, don't use an alarm. That's just the way I get up and I go down to wherever I am or in a hotel room, turn on tv, I do 21 minutes of exercise, seven with CNN seven, with Ms. NB, C and seven with Fox. It's the only way I think I can arrive with what's fax as my friends are, and it's so important. We've always, every place I've gone, we try to get a one pager and it should be actionable facts. In other words, you write to me, here's the background, here's the half page of facts and tell me what you want me to do. What are the actionable facts based on that you want me to do? And I've used that over and over.

Speaker 2 (11:57):

I will tell you, and Mary Joy is here and she'll confirm this. That doesn't work at home. If I say to Mary Joy, give me actionable facts, we, we'll still married after 62 years, but I learned long ago not to do that. But it does work at any profit or nonprofit organization because that lets you focus on what you really want get done. Then the fifth one, to me, and I think organizations, you need all five of these to be truly successful. The fifth one, it's so important is an intense external intellectual curiosity of your customer. First of all, you need to define the customer and then an intense external and intellectual curiosity for that customer. What can I do to make that customer better? I'll give you an example that changed my life and thinking of how I wanted to make sure every organization I was involved with did that.

Speaker 2 (13:02):

Bill Clinton called me three days after he became president. I was chairman, CEO at NCR at that time, and I'd met him before and he said, Jerry, I want you to come in and do the reinvent the government program for me. And I said, Mr. President, thank you. I'm very busy because right now I got a company that's losing almost $400 million a month. He said, that's interesting. I'll see you next week. That was Bill Clinton. Still is. So I went in and I worked with Paul O'Neill, who at the time was CEO of Val Cola. Paul had great government experience too, and he and I co-chaired it. Most of the work we did with was in Vice President Gore's office. Bill used Vice President Gore very efficiently as like a COO, which I think is a good way for a vice president to operate. We'd have the meetings and then once a month we'd go into the basement kitchen at the White House and wait for Bell because Bell was always late.

Speaker 2 (14:13):

It was a question of would he be late an hour or two hours or less? And he'd come in and we'd start to give him an update. He'd read everything. He understood everything. He knew what we were going to do. And I'll never forget the meeting I told him that had happened the night before. We had four of the secretaries of large parts of the government in a meeting at Vice President Gore's office. And I asked them because what we were trying to do was set up them to think about customers. And I asked them, who's your? Well, it was Bill Clinton, it was each other. It was Vice President Gore. And I raised my hand after five minutes. I said, it's me. I'm the taxpayer. The only reason you exist is me room. Got very quiet. And it was really interesting that night, Les Aspen, who was Secretary of Defense then wonderful representative, former governor in Wisconsin, gave me a ride to the airport and he said, thank you, Jerry.

Speaker 2 (15:21):

I never thought about that. He said, my mind was lost. And I used that not to be critical of them, but as an example of how critical it is for each of us with our responsibilities as leaders to make sure we are focused on who is the customer. What I've done with all the public companies I've led is, and probably one of the very few that's done it, but every person in every company had the opportunity to earn shares, not options, actual shares granted based on how well we performed against our customer delight scores. And those were we did twice annually. And those were the responses from our customers each year to be able to provide more guidance for them. So if you think about long answer, I'm sorry, but it really lays out, if you think about leaders, that's what we all should be doing.

Speaker 2 (16:19):

I'm sure you've got other ideas, but you do those five things consistently and you'll be super. Can I tell one Bill Clinton story? Go for it. So nine years ago when I was leading IHS and we have a largest energy conference every year in the world in Houston, and I was able to get George Bush number two, who I also worked with, I also worked with President Reagan, also worked with Bush Number one. I was able to get Bill to come with Bush number two to speak the first time they spoken together in front of a public group, 2,500 CEOs from all over the world and secretaries of energy. So two things happened. I was doing an interview with the Wall Street Journal and they were supposed to arrive at 1230 and one of my people came up and said, president Bush is here half an hour early.

Speaker 2 (17:21):

So I go down, talk to President Bush, learn about him taking up art painting. He said, I brought my book for you. And I said, I already bought one. I read it. He said, you got to be kidding. Nobody in the right mind would read that book. And we had a great time exactly. At 1230, president Bush turned to me and he said, where's Bubba? And I said, excuse me. And he said, yeah, president Bush, my buddy. I said, he'll be late. And at courted one, we go out to the card and meet President Bush, president Clinton, and he's there, comes up, gives me a hug, said, it's the earliest I've ever been late for you in my life. So we then jump onto the stage because we were tight. We'd sent all the questions ahead of time, of course, and we're sitting actually like this.

Speaker 2 (18:14):

I was between the two of them to do the questions. And George was sitting there like this. I was sitting there ready to go. I mean to talk to, the first question we'd agreed upon was, you were president for eight years. How do you feel now? President Bush started. He said, I've made some big mistakes and I'm sorry. I did do my best. I love my country. There's things if I could do over, I would do over, but I really did my best. Bill said, if it wasn't for the Constitution, I'd still be President. George never would've been. So that was the two people, but they were both great leaders in their own ways. And what was so remarkable that day, I then asked them this question, what's great about leadership? They were 90% in agreement. It was fascinating to me to see that. So that was a great education for me as well as fun with Bill.

Speaker 1 (19:16):

Well, what a terrific story. And I love the five principles of leadership according to Jerry. So just two quick reactions to that, and I think those are wonderful, very humane, infusing, dignity. Why don't more leaders behave that well? And then the second question is, I applaud the burning, the tome of procedures and doing all the great things once you're in position of authority, what do you do when you're not? What if you're climbing and you want to be a decent leader? What are your suggestions?

Speaker 2 (19:52):

Great question. Just tell me the first how you're thinking. The

Speaker 1 (19:57):

First one was why don't more leaders infuse this dignity and openness?

Speaker 2 (20:20):

I don't understand why you're doing this. The only reason that you're going to be successful is if you've got your people and if you've got your people feeling good about themselves, every morning when I get up, I start my day with how do I help? Great people do great things today. And I would say that to each of them. And it was interesting because I can still remember very, very large company that I was on the board of and he said, well, they don't care who I am and what I do with them because we're too big. And I said, I've had 400,000 people that have worked for me. Every one of them care. Everything starts at the top and it has to start at the top with your behaviors. And I again won't name people, but I can remember one saying, well, you'll never be successful because you're assuming people are want to be successful.

Speaker 2 (21:18):

And I said, yes, every person that ever walks in any of my doors, in any of my companies, I absolutely believe they want to be as successful as they can be. So what I learned over the time, it's such an important question, and I was just telling the Amer team a few minutes ago, I'm writing my fourth books now and it's called The Work is Played With a Purpose, and I'm writing it on this very subject because it's so important that you get leaders and as you become war leaders, and I'll answer that in a second. You think one thing, how do I help my people be successful? Your team, we all got people. All of us are CEOs of ourselves at the beginning, but we've all got people that we need to please and work with. How do I help them be successful and how do I measure that and how can I make sure they get to have the fun of being successful?

Speaker 2 (22:21):

And I shake my head that, and I've done a lot of Wall Street Journal articles about leadership over the years, which you get published, and they always do it with a shade of caution saying, Jerry, that's not the norm. And I said, but it should be the norm and it can be the norm. That's why I told you at the beginning, my 23% compound increase for share owners every year over 42 years, it does work. I can tell you the longer I was public and the longer my success was, the easier it was for them to start to agree because fact says, our friends, the performance, I would love for us to study that question though. And I'm serious because the logic is not, you can't be a leader if you don't start with the assumption of how do I help great people do great things.

Speaker 2 (23:25):

As I was growing up, just if you don't know, Mary Jo and I started dating when we were 15, got married the day before she turned 19, 12 days before I turned 19. I married an older woman and it's my favorite time of year, but it was. And so we lived in a 40 foot by 10 foot trailer for three and a half years. The University of Iowa, I worked 40 hours a week, did drafting and ran survey crews and what do you think, how much do you think we lived on a year at that time, including paying scholarship, I mean paying everything. What do you think? It was a year, this 19 62, 3 and four.

Speaker 2 (24:14):

Good guess two, no, 2,900, great guess. And we were the happiest people in the world. And people said, how can you do that? And we said, because we didn't know what we couldn't do, so we did it. And that's always been my theme for leading and being the leader. So we ended up going to work for Honeywell. I had nine job offers. We took Honeywell one because we loved what I thought the culture was there. Two, they said they were putting me in a high performance one year program. I get to meet everybody, blah, blah, blah. And three, we wanted to get far enough away from our parents with our kids. So they weren't there. They were in Iowa City every weekend, but not too far. So we started there, and I'll never forget, June 14th, 1965, July 5th, I go into the person that was overseeing my one year program and she said, Jerry, we're moving you to the downtown plant.

Speaker 2 (25:23):

You're now a foreman. I was 22, you're now a foreman. You have 400 people, three shifts, local 1145, Teamsters Union, good luck. So that was my one year prep program. That was three weeks. I went there and I went up to the floor that day and I got the group leaders together who were union members also. They got paid, I think 30 cents more an hour. And I said, I have no idea what you do, but if you'll tell me what we should do, I'll make sure we do it. And I learned that work that it came back time after time. I took what they wanted to get done. Everybody wants to be successful and everybody wants to be a winner. And so I took that and I've done that every place. As I grew up in the organization, we traveled a lot. We were moved a lot of times.

Speaker 2 (26:22):

We moved 23 times, but I had just moved back to Minneapolis from four moves and I had about 10,000 people reporting to me then. And I took the plan book into my boss and he threw it at me. I'll never forget this. And he said is not a good plan. He hadn't even looked at it. So I walked out of the room, left, went to Mary Joy that night at home, told her, probably going to get fired tomorrow, but I'm going to go back and tell that man, that's not the way I'll let my people be treated. So I got there early that next morning, his secretary was there, she said, why are you here? And I said, I want to talk to Mr. So-and-so, and she said, okay, but he's not expecting you. And I said, I understand that he got there, this was back in the cigarette days and this guy was smoking a cigarette. He walked in. Carol secretary, I can still remember, brought his coffee. And he said, why in the blank blank are you here? And I said, because you can get rid of me if you choose, but you can't treat people like that if you're going to treat people.

Speaker 2 (28:00):

When I moved to Europe, and I'll never forget when he came in and he said, you had the courage that you all must have and should have. You're always going to run into a situation and sometime during your career that you have to just say, I'm going to do what my beliefs do. And I did that all the way up. And I still do it because I think it's so important. So long answer again, but it will work, I promise you.

Speaker 1 (28:28):

Well, you also challenge some of us to do more research on this kind of humble and principled kind of leadership, which I think is inspiring. I wish we saw more of it out there, but we at least have you to show us the way. So somebody who is this humble and principled as was successful in leading so many enterprises, let's turn to your philanthropy. And so how does your career, your family, your civic roles, how does that inform your philanthropy? What's your approach

Speaker 2 (28:57):

There? Mary Joy and I tithed on that 2,900 a year and gave to the Methodist Church. At that point, we learned that Mary Joy had missionaries in her family. In fact, her great grandfather was a missionary for 42 years in India. I had two pastors in my family in a very two wonderful grandmother, sorry, very, very giving oriented. And we grew up with time, talent, and treasure, the three T's and how do we help the world be a better place? Example only when I was a paper boy, my nana said, any profit, I got a third, went to the church, a third to savings and a third to me. And we actually grew up believing that. So we always felt, and it was so fun when we did that when we were 19, 20, 21, we learned the joy of giving then and the first job that I got at Honeywell and we continued to, I mean we felt rich.

Speaker 2 (30:13):

And my first start at my first job was $6,780 a year. And we felt rich on it, bought a house, went from there. And the second first move we had, they moved us after two and a half years, was to a house in suburb Arlington Heights of Chicago. And Mary Joyce said, someday when we can give more, I want to give more than we make. And that became a goal and it was a great goal. I can remember the day we made that happen. It was when we returned from Europe and I took over as executive VP at Honeywell with three groups, and that was the year we were able to tip the side over. Now we were blessed because I always worked for public companies. I always helped them be successful, and I therefore helped owned a lot of equity, all of which we gave away over the years.

Speaker 2 (31:16):

And it's always been because, and it doesn't matter if it was $290 a year at 2,900, what matters is the joy you get out of doing it, the joy you get out of helping other people and the joy you get to see them feeling good. So we've done that forever, and I know you all feel that way, but it's a wonderful thing in life to be able to see others be successful. And there's nothing better than that. And that's why we got so involved with nonprofit and philanthropic and we've led 26 capital campaigns over the years to help create great institutions you're all part of. And over those years we've always thought about how do we help be role models for others? How do we make the example of how great giving truly is? And I know you all know this, but it's true for us. The more we give, the more you get. That's really true. The more joy you get, the more good feelings you get, the more happiness you get and the more opportunities we get to be with wonderful people like you all. And that's what life's all about. So we've done that more and more and more. The generosity Commission that we're just completing that you all give 'em two minutes on that so I can take my part of it.

Speaker 1 (32:47):

Oh, the Generosity Commission. So this is a national commission that was formed after research by Unes team at our school. And the philanthropy panel study showed that households in the United States are giving less than they did in the past. And so this National Generosity Commission was founded to study the implications of that for the nonprofit sector and for our democracy more broadly. And Jerry was a major investor in making Yeah

Speaker 2 (33:13):

Happen. We paid for it because I couldn't think of a better way to take this. That's now being completed. You'll see the final report in September, what we learned a lot, but what was so interesting to me was we're now turning over our findings to the Aspen Institute to implement them. But what strikes me with all of that effort, so exciting, this is going to make a better country for us. I spend all of my time in nonprofit and profit world now saying, we got to get rid of the red and blue. We need red, white, and blue. And it's everything I do is my very best effort to get people to think it's okay to disagree, it's okay to have different feelings about things, but the end of the day you've got to be able to respect each other. And so that's what we've been doing in all the philanthropy things we do.

Speaker 2 (34:11):

And Jane Wells, who was the original chair and I both believe in that so much because our country we're so blessed, and I know you know this, but what we've learned out of generosity, and you can look at it, you'll see the report, but out of that commission, one of the things, because I did finance it, I asked to make sure happened was we had the guy that's the head of the Salvation Army for the Americas on there. He's by the way, a Harvard grad, a lawyer now leads the Salvation Army. He taught the rest of them more good things because they touch more people, more people give to the Salvation Army than anything else. And yet they helped 33 million people a year. I mean, that's the ultimate if you think about efficiency. So as we went through all that and now I'm so excited about how it's going to play out for us. The other thing we realized is that some of the larger institutions have become so bureaucratic that people are giving up going to them. And that's a job we all got to work on because that should never happen. And so I just couldn't feel better about what's coming out of that. And I love Mary Jo and I love leading the campaigns for different organizations. It helps great people do great things.

Speaker 1 (35:47):

No, and yeah, that's a wonderful initiative. And I'll just remember remind folks that Jane Wales came to our school about four years ago and that was an opportunity for Ted Grossnickle to recruit her to join the generosity work. So we definitely embrace her philosophy of helping other folks succeed and lifting all boats. So I'll ask my last question before we open it up to the audience, and that would be kind of on the theme of innovation and everything you've done both in business and nonprofit has been about fostering innovation. And recently, I believe last year you started something you referred to with its acronym, SS stead Impact Ventures. Tell us a little bit about that and why, what you hope to achieve with Stead impact.

Speaker 2 (36:31):

Yeah, and I'll give you a real life lesson on this, and I think it exists everywhere. There are millions of smart people, including every one of you in this room that have an idea that could be successful. And it's so hard because you don't know where to go or to get the capital and so on. And one of the example, I've now sponsored 47 startups. It has been my hobby all during my career. And now we're at the point that it's, I have to say it's my hobby because Mary Joyce says I'm retired, but it's a wonderful hobby that Tiffany leads. We have seven startups, but I'll give you an example of it and then this is what's so exciting. I was at University of Iowa, I'm very active on the teaching there, et cetera, and I was meeting a friend of my friend of my son's son and he's chemical engineer, and he was in his third year and I met him for breakfast and I said, how are things going?

Speaker 2 (37:43):

And he said, great, A team I'm working on just won the entrepreneurial contest for Rice University. And I went like, wow. Because the ultimate, I said, tell me more about it. What she did. Not one person at the university knew these, I'm was going to call 'em kids. I'm sorry to me, the ARC kids, I'm 81, so it's okay. But young people and nobody had helped them. Nobody knew anything about it. So I started that company for them. It was first called the Iowa Way. It's now called Ferra Paltz. Last month, the FDA approved it as the only exterior instrument, medical instrument that adjust heart pressures and heart timing that have ever existed. We sold it for 1.2 billion to Boston Scientific. And I'll tell you about the founder in just a second because they're all out there for us and we need to find them.

Speaker 2 (38:51):

But what made this one so good was that we went to Europe first. If you know the world of getting FDA approval, you can speed it up quite a bit by getting it in Europe, 87,000 people have been treated that way while our FDA took an extra year and a half, doesn't matter. It's now there and it's now happening and it allows surgeons to do eight a day versus two or three. It's a hundred percent accurate on 87,000 people in Europe, the ablation program in the US has been about 50%. And so what that did is incredible, but it only happened by accident. The founder who is a researcher, if Steve was here, he would not look at any of you. He'd look at your shoes. He doesn't ever look at people, but he's one of the most brilliant guys I've ever met in my life.

Speaker 2 (39:52):

He's still there. After a year, he called Mary Joy and I and said, I don't understand the share stuff. Give me money, I'll give you all my shares. And I said, no, Steve, you're not going to give any of your shares someday. This is going to make you a wealthy person. So we loaned him, I think $400,000. He just collected $85 million two years ago. Now guess what he's doing? He's taking that money with people that are at the University of Iowa to help them start startups. So I've never seen more where the innovation is there, you can find it. We just need to be curious and we need to, one of the things Tiffany and I talk a lot about, because each of our seven, and we'll do many more in the years to come, each of them are unique entrepreneurs in their own way, but they need help and they need respect. I have 74, 75 people now that, including Tiffany, that have worked with me that are now CEOs of their own companies and the success that we see, most of that comes from finding often internal innovation in corporations, but it's a nonprofit too. So we just all have to be looking for that as we move forward.

Speaker 1 (41:20):

I think that's really important. I think in terms of the requirements to join our community, they're very tough. You just have to be curious about philanthropy and that's how you can, that's the right word, that's the right, the curiosity

Speaker 2 (41:33):

Can't be overemphasized doing what you do and do 'em really well and staying curious and staying focused on where do I want to go in the future? One of the things I do that can help you, but I don't believe in big breaks. I believe in little things that happen to get us to where we want to be. I always reach out to the future 3, 4, 5 years and say, with companies I lead or myself for nonprofits, what do we want to be doing five years from now? Reaching that, setting a vision for that and a mission and then working backwards. And it works personally too. And tell him, I'm glad he works at La Mackay. I think that's great. What you all should know is Mary Joy is the first female in history to be on a national fraternity board.

Speaker 3 (42:28):

Hi everyone. I first want to publicly thank Mary Joy and Jerry again for founding the stat family chair in international philanthropy, which I'm so grateful to be holding since 2018. So thank you so much. Can I get a round of applause please? As a step family chair in international philanthropy, I get to teach global philanthropy to our students. And one of the things my students do in the course, the master course I teach, is they have to interview two people who identify with a different culture than themselves, themselves to. And what they have to ask in an interview those people is, what does generosity mean to you?

Speaker 2 (43:09):

Generosity for any of us is giving yourself, that's the most important thing. And knowing what you're going to get back and what you will get back is joy forever. I happen to believe in the way Mary Joy and I operate. The more we give, the more we get more we get to meet wonderful people like you, the more opportunities we have to give more. And I think generosity is never ending. I think the more you're able to provide and remember, it's time, talent, and treasure. Treasure is always third time. And talent is so critical. And a lot of us have, I've always thought because people say, how did you do all the things you did plus leading companies and so on? And I said, because there is no limit to time, there's no limit to time. People tell you, I don't have time. I always sit down and talk to 'em about it.

Speaker 2 (44:11):

I say, well, let's talk about that together. There is time we can make time. I'll even say, just think about what things you are doing that you don't need to do. But the generosity to me is being able to feel the pleasure of seeing successful. I mean, it's as simple to me as an example. When I walk through the car park of organizations I've led, I love to see if the cars are more expensive over the years. That means I'm doing some things to help every person in that organization be successful. And I believe the thing that's so important to me is generosity. No matter where you are, no matter what you do, remember the person that's walking into that room, that door of that organization today has carrying a lot of burdens. And if we can find one of those or two of those and take that burden off of them, that's generosity.

Speaker 2 (45:17):

And it's just, I've never gotten tired of trying to do that in a positive way. Then the last thing on generosity to me is that don't ever let it be a scorecard. I've met too many people that want to tell me how much they've done. Don't ever let that happen. Not it should be your life's scorecard. If you want to have a scorecard on how do you feel about what you've done, great question. All the things we did that we were successful doing were for a purpose, and that was to help other people in the nonprofit side. That's the way we grew up. And I can promise you, if you think that way, live that way, act that way, it'll happen. That's the amazing thing. And what was the first part?

Speaker 4 (46:10):

How would you convey the spirit of philanthropy to the younger generation?

Speaker 2 (46:14):

And I'll tell you seriously, it's so important. When they turn five, we don't give them gifts anymore. What we give them on their birthdays and Christmas and holidays is the opportunity to depict something to give to a charity. We started that with every one of the grandkids. We now have grandkids between the age of 32 and 15, seven of 'em, and every one of them think and believe in generosity. Every one of them think and believe in giving because that's the way you grow up. That's the way you embrace, and that's the way you get the opportunity to live. I will tell you, and it won't surprise you, one of my plans, you learn to make change with plans. Mary Jo and I always thought, well, the Stead Family Foundation would go to our sons and then eventually to our grandchildren, getting seven grandchildren to agree on a focus we found an easier way.

Speaker 2 (47:16):

We gave them all their own foundations because there is a big think about us and what we've lived through and done. They're givers and they're great believers in philanthropy, but it's a different view of the world. So the more you can help them enjoy that time, talent, and treasure, the better. So that's why we've set up S Civ because under Tiffany is our foundation and our startups and the way we've got that, because we want that to be never ending. Tiffany can retire when she's 75. We may still be here, we'll see, but in case we aren't, her job is that she creates the next positions with people because we all of what we do with the startups as they're successful and get sold off or taken public, every cent that we didn't put in that we've made with those startups that we didn't put in at the beginning goes to the foundation. So we want to see that, and we want that to become a role model for the world. And it's one I hope it will be because I love being able to set with wonderful people like you and talk about the most important thing in the world, which is the joy of giving. So thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (48:45):

I hope you got a little taste of the wisdom and the curiosity and the fun that I have been a beneficiary of in terms of talking to Jerry and Mary Joy ever since I became Dean Gene Temple and I, my first trip as Dean was with him to go visit with Jerry and Mary Joy. So this is a wonderful homecoming that they get to see the school for the first time and our new place here as well. And so please join me once more in congratulating them on the spirit of philanthropy and for thanking them, for including us in their community of philanthropy.