In this episode of THE MENTORS RADIO, Dan speaks with Mark Donovan, President of the back-to-back World Champion Kansas City Chiefs. Donovan is responsible for all aspects of the club’s business operations and also serves as the President of Arrowhead Events, the arm that brings major events to Arrowhead Stadium, including the 2026 FIFA World Cup. During Mark’s 15 years with the Chiefs, the team has become one of the most iconic brands in the world of sports and earned four Super Bowl berths in the last five years, winning three.
In this episode of Dan talks with Greg Graves, retired Chairman and CEO of Burns & McDonnell. Greg led one of the fastest-growing and most successful engineering, architecture, construction and environmental consulting firms in North America. In his 13 years as CEO, employment (and therefore the number of employee-owners) quadrupled, revenues grew 10-fold to $3 Billion, and the company produced an average ROI in excess of 25% each year – all organically. Fortune Magazine listed Burns & McDonnell among it’s Top 100 Best Places to Work list six times, reaching #14 in 2014. His best-selling book Create Amazing about employee ownership has held the #1 positions in the Business, Human Resources and Democracy categories at Amazon.
In today’s episode, Dan talks with John Stanton, one of the creators of the wireless industry, the founder of multiple companies including T-Mobile USA, and now Chairman and CEO of the Seattle Mariners and Chairman of Trilogy Partnerships. John also serves on the Boards of Directors of Costco and Microsoft, the world's most valuable company today.
Learn the evolution of the wireless industry and why fans are driving changes to the most traditional of games—America’s national pastime—baseball.
John is truly a wireless pioneer, co-founding three of the top 10 wireless operators in the U.S. during the last 40 years. John helped found McCaw Cellular where he was Chief Operating Officer and Vice Chairman, which became the largest wireless operator in the U.S. and which was sold to AT&T to become AT&T Wireless. He then founded Western Wireless where he served as Chairman and CEO until it was acquired by Alltel, and he founded Voicestream, where he served as Chairman and CEO, selling it to Deutsche Telecom in 2001 for $50.7 billion. Deutsche Telecom renamed the company T-Mobile USA and it remains headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. John also served as Chairman of Clearwire until it was sold to Sprint in 2013. John is a member of the Wireless Hall of Fame.
In this week’s episode, Dan Hesse talks with Steve Case, one of America’s most influential tech visionaries, the CEO of the investment firm Revolution, the founder and former CEO of AOL, and the author of The Rise of the Rest. In addition to learning how entrepreneurs can make a great pitch to investors, we’ll discuss how innovation is moving to America’s heartland, rejuvenating major cities, and why this is so important to our country’s future.
Steve Case co-founded AOL in 1985. Under Steve’s leadership as CEO, AOL became the largest and most valuable Internet company on the planet, driving the worldwide adoption of a medium that has transformed business and society. He is currently Chairman and CEO of Revolution LLC, a Washington, D.C.-based investment firm that backs entrepreneurs at every stage of their development. The Rise of the Rest Seed Fund has invested in more than 200 startups in more than 100 U.S. cities, in partnership with many of America’s most successful entrepreneurs and investors. Steve was recently named co-chair of the National Advisory Council for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, an organization aimed at celebrating and accelerating entrepreneurship.
Read more and listen to the full episode on TheMentorsRadioShow.com or through the podcast player below.
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In this episode of The Mentors Radio, host Dan Hesse talks with one of the greatest baseball players of all-time, Hall of Famer George Brett.
George is the only major league player in history to win batting titles in three decades, and the only player ever with 3000 hits, 300 home runs, 600 doubles, 100 triples and 200 stolen bases. In addition to a career batting average of over .300, he retired as the American League’s all-time leader in being walked intentionally.
During George’s 21-year career with Kansas City, the Royals had 15 winning seasons with seven post-season and two World Series appearances, winning the World Series in 1985. A gold glove third baseman, his #5 was retired by the Royals, and George was inducted into the Hall of Fame with the 8th highest vote tally of all-time. Read the full entry at TheMentorsRadio.com.
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In this episode, host Dan Hesse talks with Manfred Krankl, the successful builder of multiple businesses including the restaurant Campanile and the bakery La Brea, but he is best known as a winemaking icon.
Manfred is the founder, owner and winemaker at Sine Qua Non, which has redefined the term “cult wine” and earned 25 perfect 100 point scores from Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, more than any winery in the world during this time period according to my research. Krankl is an innovator with unusual wine bottle shapes plus his own art that changes each year. According to Chat GPT, Sine Qua Non wines have appreciated more in value in the last decade than any wine in the world, including the famous French Burgundy Domaine de la Romanee-Conti. His new winery Next of Kyn is yet another remarkable success.
In this episode of The Mentors Radio, Host Dan Hesse talks with General (Ret.) Stanley McChrystal about his career, leadership, building teams, risk response and more.
A one-of-a-kind commander with a new perspective on organizational dynamics, Ret. General Stan McChrystal is known for helping elite teams tap into the potential of their people to better compete in a complex and interconnected world.
Few can speak about leadership, teamwork, technology and international affairs with as much insight can he. Ret. General McChrystal is the former Commander of U.S. and International Forces in Afghanistan, former leader of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and co-founder of The McChrystal Group. His exceptional and innovative understanding of organizational dynamics has led to remarkable achievements in both military and business applications.
In this episode of The Mentors Radio, host Dan Hesse talks with Tom Wheeler. Currently a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a Senior Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, Tom Wheeler is a businessman, an author of many books and former Chairman of the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) from 2013 to 2017.
As an entrepreneur, Wheeler started and helped start multiple companies offering offering innovative cable, wireless and video communications services. He is the only person to be selected to both the Cable Television Hall of Fame and the Wireless Hall of Fame.
Prior to being appointed to the FCC, Wheeler was president and CEO of the National Cable Television Association (NCTA) and following NCTA, he was the CEO of several high-tech companies. For 12 years, Tom Wheeler served as president and CEO of the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA). Read the full entry at TheMentorsRadio.com.
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In this episode, The Mentors Radio host Dan Hesse talks with Tom Watson, a true legend of the game of golf. Watson won eight major championships including five British Opens, two wins at The Masters, and arguably the most dramatic U.S. Open victory in history. He also has 39 PGA Tour wins, 14 additional wins worldwide and 14 wins on The Champions Tour, six of them majors. A six-time PGA Tour Player-of-the-Year, Tom Watson was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1988.
In this episode, Hesse and Watson discuss the role and critical importance of mentors in his life and career, and how he’s now paying it forward for future generations. The life lessons in this powerful interview are applicable in so many other areas of our life and definitely applicable to anyone’s career path.
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In this episode of The Mentors Radio, Host Dan Hesse talks with Tim Brown, one of the greatest wide receivers in NFL history. He is the only receiver in history to win the Heisman Trophy AND be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Tim grew up in Dallas and received a scholarship to play football at Notre Dame. After winning the Heisman, he was the sixth overall pick in the NFL draft, taken by the LA Raiders, where “Mr Raider” as he was called, played almost his entire 17-year NFL career. He made the Pro Bowl nine times. When he retired Tim trailed only Jerry Rice in career receiving yards. In the long history of America’s most popular sport, only 10 players have won the Heisman and later been inducted into the Hall of Fame. Eight are still living. He is the author of The Making of a Man. Off the field, Tim has been involved in various charities, including his work with the Tim Brown Foundation.
Listen Live at 1 pm PST each Saturday on the SALEM Radio Network (860 The Answer, San Francisco), and worldwide on iHeartRadio & TuneIn Radio.
This episode and past shows can also be found on your favorite PODCAST platform, like Apple, Google, Stitcher, Tune-In or Spotify, or at www.THEMENTORSRADIO.com.
In this episode of The Mentors Radio, host Dan Hesse talks with Anne Chow, the former CEO of AT&T Business, a $35B global operating unit comprised of 35,000 people. Anne became known for her unique style of leadership which prioritizes people, relationships, trust, and culture as the foundation for growth and success. Her leadership experiences span product management, marketing sales, strategy, customer service, operations, network engineering and more. Anne was named to Fortune’s Most Powerful Women in Business twice, Forbes inaugural CEO Next List of Leaders and is a best-selling co-author of The Leader’s Guide to Unconscious Bias.
Everyone harbors unconscious biases which reduce team effectiveness, that’s why leaders—at ALL levels, from entrepreneur, to small business owner, to manager and middle managers, to CEOs, even to nonprofits, volunteer leaders, parents and individuals—must reflect and discover their own biases in order to help their team members discover and mitigate theirs. In this episode Dan and Anne discuss how bias stands in the way of team performance and how to overcome it.
RADIO BROADCAST & STREAMING AUDIO
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This episode and past shows can also be found on your favorite PODCAST platform, like Apple, Google, Stitcher, Tune-In or Spotify, or at www.THEMENTORSRADIO.com.
In this episode of The Mentors Radio, host Dan Hesse talks with Mark Tatum, Deputy Commissioner and Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Tatum oversees the NBA’s global business operations. But Mark didn’t find his ideal career — one he loves — right out of the box. He just never stopped being his best self throughout his career…and his career insights and wisdom is excellent, as you’ll hear. Learn how a young man born in Vietnam during the war to a black serviceman and Chinese mother was educated at Cornell and Harvard – and worked at Procter & Gamble, Clorox and Pepsi, but he found his calling and ideal career in sports management, where he has played a key role in fostering innovation and building the NBA’s global brand. His favorite quote, “Find your passion and pursue your dreams.”
Listen to the recorded conversation below and find more show notes and past episodes at the home of The Mentors Radio.
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Listen Live at 1 pm PST each Saturday on the SALEM Radio Network (860 The Answer, San Francisco), and worldwide on iHeartRadio & TuneIn Radio.
This episode and past shows can also be found on your favorite PODCAST platform or at www.THEMENTORSRADIO.com.
In today’s episode, The Mentors Radio Host Dan Hesse talks with Robert (Bob) McDonald, former U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs, remarkable former Chairman, President and CEO of The Proctor & Gamble Company, and a U.S. Army Veteran who served with distinction in the 82nd Airborne Division.
Few have been trained in leadership at an elite military academy such as West Point and then applied and evolved their leadership skills throughout their careers across the “grand slam” of organization structures: Military, government, Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), and the private sector as has today’s guest mentor, Robert A. (Bob) McDonald.
Bob was nominated by President Obama to serve as the eighth Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA) where he led the VA and its roughly 400,000 employees on an ambitious transformational journey to become a world-class service provider and the No. 1 customer-service agency in the Federal government to give Veterans consistent, high-quality experiences. Before joining the VA, Bob was Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of one of the world’s largest companies, Procter & Gamble (P&G). During his tenure, P&G was widely recognized for its leader development prowess, with Chief Executive Magazine naming P&G the best company for developing leader talent.
Listen to the recorded conversation below. You can find show notes and past episodes at the home of The Mentors Radio.
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Listen Live at 1 pm PST each Saturday on the SALEM Radio Network (860 The Answer, San Francisco), and worldwide on iHeartRadio & TuneIn Radio.
This episode and past shows can also be found on your favorite PODCAST platform, like Apple, Google, Stitcher, Tune-In or Spotify, or at www.THEMENTORSRADIO.com.
In this episode of The Mentors Radio, Host Dan Hesse talks with Michael Milken, whose lifelong commitment to finding faster cures for terminal illnesses, including cancer, has help improve the lives of countless children, adults and families over the past 50 years.
Mike’s book, Faster Cures: Accelerating the Future of Health, is his memoir of his work in this regard and is well-worth the read. This work, however, has paralleled his revolutionizing of capital markets by pricing and rewarding risk more efficiently, ultimately helping to create millions of jobs. Mike Milkin has been uniquely successful in creating value, whether measured in lives saved (Fortune magazine called him “The Man Who Changed Medicine”), students inspired (Forbes said he is an education visionary) or jobs created.
A UC-Berkeley grad with highest honors and an MBA from Wharton where he was a Joseph Warton fellow, Mike and his wife, Lori, have been married 55 years and are proud of their three children and 10 grandchildren (so far). Hang on to your seats for a fast-paced, engaging, innovative and absolutely inspiring interview with plenty of “nuggets” that will help you to lead YOUR best life!
Listen to the recorded conversation below. You can find show notes and past episodes at the home of The Mentors Radio.
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Listen Live at 1 pm PST each Saturday on the SALEM Radio Network (860 The Answer, San Francisco), and worldwide on iHeartRadio & TuneIn Radio.
This episode and past shows can also be found on your favorite PODCAST platform, like Apple, Google, Stitcher, Tune-In or Spotify, or at www.THEMENTORSRADIO.com.
In this episode, Dan Hesse talks with Gail McGovern, president and CEO of the American Red Cross. An outstanding leader, with one of the most distinguished and eclectic careers imaginable, McGovern rose from being a programmer at AT&T to becoming president of AT&T’s Business Markets group and, later, president of the Consumer Markets group—the communication giant’s two largest business units. McGovern left AT&T at the top of her game to become President of Personal Investments at Fidelity, and then went across town to become a Professor at the Harvard Business School.
But McGovern finally found her purpose in 2008, when she joined the American Red Cross as its CEO, a position she still holds today. During her tenure, Gail has overseen the American Red Cross response to multiple high-profile disasters across the country and around the world, including Hurricanes Sandy, Harvey, Irma and Maria, as well as the multitude of tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, wildfires and other disasters that affect our country each year.
Listen to the recorded conversation below. You can find show notes and past episodes at the home ofThe Mentors Radio.
RADIO BROADCAST & STREAMING AUDIO
Listen Live at 1 pm PST each Saturday on the SALEM Radio Network (860 The Answer, San Francisco), and worldwide on iHeartRadio & TuneIn Radio.
This episode and past shows can also be found on your favorite PODCAST platform, like Apple, Google, Stitcher, Tune-In or Spotify, or at www.THEMENTORSRADIO.com.
In today’s episode of The Mentors Radio Host Dan Hesse talks with Jack Swarbrick, Director of Athletics at the University of Notre Dame (UND) about his unlikely—and unexpected—transition from a 28-year career with the Indianapolis law firm Baker & Daniels (he was made partner in 1987), to become UND’s 12th Athletics Director in 2008. He’s now in his 15th year as the James E. Rohr Director of Athletics (AD) at Univ. of Notre Dame.
Listen to the recorded conversation below. You can find show notes and past episodes at the home of The Mentors Radio.
RADIO BROADCAST & STREAMING AUDIO
Listen Live at 1 pm PST each Saturday on the SALEM Radio Network (860 The Answer, San Francisco), and worldwide on iHeartRadio & TuneIn Radio.
This episode and past shows can also be found on your favorite PODCAST platform, like Apple, Google, Stitcher, Tune-In or Spotify, or at www.THEMENTORSRADIO.com.
In this episode The Mentors Radio Host Dan Hesse talks with Andy Reid, Head Coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, about Andy’s philosophy that success in life comes from teaching others. Winning two Super Bowls as the head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, Andy Reid trails only Bill Belichick in career victories among active NFL coaches. His Chiefs have won seven consecutive AFC West titles and hosted five consecutive AFC championship games. He’s considered an offensive mastermind, seems to be well-liked by everyone, and 11 NFL head coaches were mentored by Andy as branches on his famous “coaching tree.”
Listen to the recorded conversation below. You can find show notes and past episodes at the home of The Mentors Radio.
RADIO BROADCAST & STREAMING AUDIO Listen Live at 1 pm PST each Saturday on the SALEM Radio Network (860 The Answer, San Francisco), and worldwide on iHeartRadio & TuneIn Radio.
This episode and past shows can also be found on your favorite PODCAST platform, like Apple, Google, Stitcher, Tune-In or Spotify, or at www.THEMENTORSRADIO.com
In this episode, The Mentors Radio host Dan Hesse talks with guest mentor Paul Hobbs, dubbed “The Steve Jobs of Wine” by Forbes magazine. A third generation farmer, raised in upstate New York, Paul wanted nothing to do with farming as a teen and decided to follow his great-grandfather and pursue a career in medicine. He earned his B.S. in Chemistry at Notre Dame (UND) and was accepted into medical school. That’s the point at which mentors intervened, including his father, ultimately encouraging him to pursue a different path. Their advice made sense to Paul and he moved to California, graduating from University of Davis three years later with a Masters of Science in Viticulture and Enology. His winemaking adventure had begun.
Listen to the recorded conversation below. You can find show notes and past episodes at the home of The Mentors Radio.
RADIO BROADCAST & STREAMING AUDIO Listen Live at 1 pm PST each Saturday on the SALEM Radio Network (860 The Answer, San Francisco), and worldwide on iHeartRadio & TuneIn Radio.
This episode and past shows can also be found on your favorite PODCAST platform, like Apple, Google, Stitcher, Tune-In or Spotify, or at www.THEMENTORSRADIO.com
In today's episode, host Dan Hesse talks with Bill Zollars, former YRC CEO and a 24-year C-suite veteran of Eastman Kodak during the company's heyday. The story of how Kodak, the third most powerful brand in the world, lost its way and ended up in bankruptcy remains so shocking on the surface that its journey is studied in business schools worldwide. There have been accounts in academic and business journals written about the demise of Kodak, but none with the anecdotes and insider’s view that Bill shares.
Listen to the recorded conversation below. You can find show notes and past episodes at the home of The Mentors Radio..
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This episode and past shows can also be found on your favorite PODCAST platform, like Apple, Google, Stitcher, Tune-In or Spotify, or at www.THEMENTORSRADIO.com
Thad Allen, former U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Admiral, joins this episode of the Mentors Radio Show to discuss leadership during a crisis with Dan.
During this Coast Guard career, Thad was asked by two U.S. Presidents to take over leadership of the Federal response to two monumental crises—the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
To achieve, resolution in each of these disasters required bringing together a wide swath of diverse constituencies—each with their own focus, concerns, habits of communication and pain points. No easy task. Allen was so successful in his efforts that he became known in some circles as “The Master of Disaster.”
Listen to the recorded conversation below. You can find show notes and past episodes at the home of The Mentors Radio.
RADIO BROADCAST & STREAMING AUDIO Listen Live 1 pm PST Saturdays on the SALEM Radio Network (860 The Answer, San Francisco), and worldwide on iHeartRadio & TuneIn Radio.
This episode and past shows can also be found on your favorite PODCAST platform, like Apple, Google, Stitcher, Tune-In or Spotify, or at www.THEMENTORSRADIO.com
