Today we’re speaking of all things sweet in life, with French trained pastry chef, and Group Head Pastry Chef at Black Star Pastry, Arnaud Vodounou.

Arnaud describes how his six year long training in Paris, covering all the basics of pastry making, gave him the foundation to be confident, flexible and creative in his craft today. A kind of intensive training that is rarely seen today.

Data Scholar Michael Clark joins Looking Outside to discuss the value behind the data we collect and how the definition of data is changing.

Michael is a futurist focused on data, a digital payment and open banking and Vice President of Global Digital Transformation at Mastercard. To explore the topic, he starts quite simply by defining what data even is. Speaking to how data’s origin as a gift, quite literally the meaning of the word being datum or gift, has changed over time, Michael contextualizes not just what the concept of data is but how our relationship with it has changed.

We welcome Elena Doms, climate tech leader and head of Earth Plus, on Looking Outside to discuss the progress and positive action taking place in the field of climate tech.

Having spent 11 years at Mastercard on the corporate side, and now in the entrepreneur space in a start up, Elena brings with her a pragmatic and motivating perspective to driving impact in the climate space through partnership with companies big and small.

In this episode of Looking Outside, we’re exploring Culture and the role of brands leveraging or influencing it, with University of Michigan marketing professor and best selling author of For the Culture, Dr Marcus Collins.

On the show, Marcus explains how culture is shaped, defined and cultivated by people, to create uniformity and ‘normality’. Because culture is a curation process to find others like us and create synergy in commonalities, Marcus explains that the curation process evolves from the definitions of ‘how to behave’ that you’re born into (that are ascribed to you), through to the cultures to subscribe to once you’re older.

Today we’re talking about catapulting your career into unexpected places, driven by self-reflection, self-determinism, and a recognition of your own self-limitations, with change advocate, and Editor in Chief of Entrepreneur Magazine, Jason Feifer.

Speaking to a range of successful entrepreneurs is a part of Jason's day job, but he's also a bit of a start-up thinker himself. Aside from his role as editor, Jason is a podcast host, newsletter writer, speaker, start up advisor, book author … and perhaps most importantly, a reinventor, describing himself as an all purpose swiss army knife.

On this episode of Looking Outside we explore the reality and risk behind the hype of AI, with Executive Director of the Institute for Experiential AI at Northeastern University, Founder of Open Insights, Data Scientist and AI expert, Usama Fayyad.

Usama has been in the field of AI for three decades and has lived through three AI hype peaks followed by three winters. In this conversation he contextualizes how the current infatuation with the ‘eloquence’ of data-driven AI stacks up.

Looking Outside comes to you LIVE from the Dubai Future Forum, the largest gathering of futurists in the world.

In this conversation we talk about disruptive technology and transformative blue sky innovation with Airbus Senior Vice President and Head of Disruptive Research and Technology, Dr Grzegorz (Greg) Ombach. Greg describes the mindset shift he experienced in leading innovative transformation across various industries, each with their own lifecycle.

Looking Outside comes to you LIVE from the Dubai Future Forum, the largest gathering of futurists in the world.

In this conversation we talk about sustainable design with Arup's Director of Foresight, Josef Hargrave. Arup is focused on creating more sustainable built environments, and Josef speaks to how designing for the future needs to be anchored in decisions for the present, by understanding deeply the structural limitations and infrastructure of today.

Retail, shopping and lovers of physical activations, this one is for you. But perhaps it’s for all of us who look at bringing our brands to life in physical spaces. Today on Looking Outside we’re speaking with top voice in retail, Curator of Shop Drop Daily & Chief Thinker at iiiF, Tim Nash.

As a natural creative who was always good at art, Tim helps brands find ways to reach their consumers in ways that spark a connection through visual cues, smart use of space, and rethinking the DNA across platforms.

Today we’re talking about the big topic of Sustainability within big business. Former Chief Sustainability & Social Impact Officer at McDonalds, Bob Langert, joins the show and shares his three decade long journey in making environmental change happen at one of the biggest organizations in the world.

An environmental activist at heart, Bob shares how he was able to take a topic he cared deeply about but was low on the company priority list, and over time use his passion to make people notice and act. Bob speaks about the need for change agents; fewer people laying low and trying to stay out of trouble, more people who are open, patient and bring big ideas. Ultimately that passion and persistence helps the business, because as Bob says, “Businesses that are satisfied and content are going to die.”

In this episode of Looking Outside we venture into dark futures with global futurist Nikolas Badminton, crossing over the line of realism into dystopia.

While positive futures are important, Nik says facing into the fact that ‘bad stuff does exist’ is the important starting point. We often see plans or goals that are so far out, particularly in government policies, that are psychologically disconnected from the people planning them and therefore aren’t designed to provide anything tangible enough to motivate people to act.

In this episode of Looking Outside, we speak with someone crazy enough to think one company can make a difference, social entrepreneur Moritz Everding. Moritz founded food start up SOCHILI to act on his vision of creating food with purpose.

Combining his love of spice, his experience in business innovation and his passion for positive social change, Moritz created his business from Germany with far reaching impact into sub-Saharan Africa. On this episode, Moritz speaks to his conviction that a profitable business idea, whether by someone inside a big corporation, or an entrepreneur, can and should be pressure tested against social, ethical and environmental standards.

Another Aussie joins us on Looking Outside to explore the power of laughter and positivity through comedy, with stand-up comedian, actor and TV personality, Monty Franklin.

Having lived in the US and toured 42 states over the last ten years, Monty has performed to more than a million Americans, and whether it’s on stage or at the bank, he speaks to the privilege of making people forget their troubles, even for a little while. He says laughter is one of the greatest things people can experience, and it's his role to find the kind of comedy that is relatable; stories about day to day life that despite being his, are not really about him but his listeners.

In this episode of Looking Outside we explore living your life and career curiously through an openness to learning with trained pharmacist and director of the Novartis Pavillon exhibiting the wonders of medicine, Marcel Braun.

Marcel studied medicine but throughout his career has remained open to entering new fields and living in new places, something he calls both accidental in drifting from one opportunity to another, and intentional as he ticked off ‘dream roles’ from his bucket list. Marcel has worn many hats. He credits this to both chance (“What are the odds that I got to do everything I did?”) but equally to openness; as opportunities came up, scary or divergent as they may have been, Marcel first and immediate said yes, then worked out how to make it happen second.

In this special LIVE episode of Looking Outside, recorded at the Insights and Innovation Exchange event in Texas, we look more closely at the symbols and signs that surround us, the study of Semiotics, with semiotician, author and marketer, Dr Rachel Lawes.

Rachel blends her 20 years in Market Research and her academic training as a Social Psychologist, with a focus on how people communicate through the study of semiotics. Rachel describes this as looking more deeply and critically at what is at face-value, and how that can help us make more deliberate decisions.

Are some people simply more cut out to take on big responsibilities, where lives are at stake, or is it actually just good training? In this episode of Looking Outside, we explore the mindset and skills of preparedness in Flying with commercial airline pilot, Ricardo Nunes.

Being responsible for hundreds of people on the plane is not something Ricardo takes for granted. While many of us would find that extreme level of responsibility crippling, Ricardo says the confidence comes from understanding the weight of the responsibility, and taking that seriously by training for the worst.

Lars Behrendt joins us for this episode of Looking Outside, discussing the bureaucracy, ego and over-perfection that gets in the way of great innovating … in other words, Innovation Bullshit.

Jo and Lars discuss why innovation without execution is bullshit, and why no one but the customer is the real expert in what a good idea is. Besides, as Lars says, real market feedback is the fun part of innovating. He makes this shift in process successful only by getting absolute commitment upfront in a fast, iterative process where skepticism is left at the door and a safe bubble is erected with risk-averse people unwelcome. Why? Ultimately, people in the process who are ‘trying to find a problem, will create a problem.’

In this episode we discuss the future of snacking with daydreamer, sunshine chaser and optimist, Matt Weiss. Matt founded his own upcycled snacking company, RIND Snacks, and lives by the mantra of making weird and wonderful things happen, even if it feels impossible.

In this chat, Jo and Matt discuss what health means in the context of personal happiness and fulfilment, from what you eat, to the lens through which you see the world, to self awareness of what gives you sustenance (food or otherwise!).

Inspired by a conversation at the 2023 CES Food Tech Expo, today we discuss how one of the most traditional industries is being transformed through Culinary Creativity, with CEO and Founder of Hungry House, a platform for creative chefs, Kristen Barnett.

In creating Hungry House, Kristen shares how she puts the values of both the chef and the customer first, by focusing on food quality. Her platform allows the customer to add more meaning to the choices they make in how they explore and sustain through food, while the culinary creator, the chef, can ideate a full story around what they bring to the plate.

In these volatile and uncertain times, it can feel harder than ever to achieve things for ourselves and our teams, so today we take a cue from the performance experts, speaking about Motivation with mental performance coach, Lauren Johnson.

Lauren shares the principles of psychology that apply whether you’re an athlete or marketer. The principles of: self awareness to know your own signals before you burn out, self control to react appropriately in the space between external stimulus and your response to it, and of the laws of diminishing returns, beyond that point at which we are truly effective, whether we realize it or not.