50 episodes listed below
After the breakdown, looking for the breakthrough.
Paul Laudicina, founder of Kearney's Global Business Policy Council, compares today's disorder with history's habit of following breakdown with renewal. His guests range from Martin Wolf on a fragmenting monetary order to Dr. Tiffany Vora on synthetic biology and two members of Congress on the incentives working against compromise.
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Reimagining the Future: Envisioning What's Next is produced by the Global Business Policy Council, a think tank inside the consulting firm Kearney. It is hosted by Paul Laudicina, who founded the council and is Chairman Emeritus of Kearney. The show tries to read the present disorder with a historian's patience. In the episode introducing its new series, Laudicina lists what the years since 2020 have brought: a pandemic, wars, geopolitical rivalry, broken supply chains and technological revolution. Then he makes his bet. Reconstruction followed the Second World War, the 1970s oil shock pushed innovation in energy, and the 2008 financial crisis produced new rules for regulation and resilience. Today's chaos, he suggests, may also be clearing ground for renewal. That idea gives the series its hopeful lean, but the conversations are not cheerleading. Martin Wolf's episode is blunt about the damage. It describes a world drifting toward monetary anarchy, calls the idea of tidy regional blocs a fantasy and warns that belief in democracy has been badly eroded. One line from it, 'even if it's temporary, it's permanent', shows the show is willing to stay with an uncomfortable idea. The conversation with Dr. Tiffany Vora trades economics for molecules. It argues that biology, not ChatGPT or pirate poetry, is the killer app for AI, then turns to a scientists' report raising a red flag about so-called mirror life. Molecular handedness is explained with nothing more than a pair of hands, and the thalidomide disaster serves as the warning. Kevin Cashman brings the focus down to the individual leader. He lays out five leadership mindsets, and host and guest agree that purpose and courage fall short without the others, including inclusiveness and integrated thinking. Laudicina adds his own point about peripheral vision: the ability to spot risks and opportunities at the edges. Politics comes in through a 2023 conversation with Reps. Gerry Connolly and Maxwell Frost. It was re-released after Connolly's death, with a tribute built around the Teddy Roosevelt quote he carried in his wallet. The conversation describes a Congress where even orientation for new members has split along party lines. Connolly suspects congressional leadership would rather members not spend much time across the aisle. Some episodes draw on the council's annual CEO retreat, an off-the-record roundtable of executives, thinkers and policy figures that met in Puglia, Italy, in 2025. Laudicina's takeaways from that meeting cite Robert Kagan's warning that the jungle grows back. They also cite Sir Alex Younger's view that strong men and deals, more than institutions and rules, will shape global conditions. The delivery throughout is formal and considered, and the show suits a listener who wants the long view rather than the day's headlines.
Made for: Suits a listener who follows geopolitics, economics and business strategy and wants measured, history-minded conversation about where the global order, technology and leadership are heading.
What sets it apart: Instead of reacting to the news, it measures current turmoil against historical precedent and draws some conversations from Kearney's annual off-the-record CEO retreat. It pairs sober warnings about the global order with a deliberate search for signs of renewal.
For the past five years, host Paul Laudicina has been reimagining the future on this podcast, talking to leaders around the world to understand this era of change and disruption. In this new series, we look not just at how we got here, but at what comes next — the green shoots pushing through the cracks. We'll hear from global leaders, bold thinkers, and the next generation of changemakers about the glimmers of hope that inspire them, the breakthroughs they're excited about, and the choices we can make now to shape a brighter future.Reimagining the Future is produced by the Global Business Policy Council at Kearney, a think tank that deciphers sweeping geopolitical, economic, social, and tec…
From Eleanor Roosevelt's memos to mirror-life bacteria, your future worries get better questions.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A steady conversation about the inner qualities leaders need when the future feels close and uncertain.
Courageous Leadership with Kevin Cashman frames leadership as inner work for a time when the future can feel as if it is bearing down fast. Kevin Cashman and Paul Laudicina link purpose and principles to self-awareness, authenticity, inclusiveness, and the kind of integrated…
A clear path from AI's biological ambitions to the unsettling prospect of mirror life.
The episode places AI's most consequential use not in parlor tricks, but in biology, where CRISPR gives way to the wider terrain of synthetic biology. Paul Lotticina sets the frame from a Kearney CEO retreat, and Dr.
Martin Wolf traces how economic fragmentation, regional mistrust, and political disruption are reshaping the global order.
Martin Wolf gives this PlayNext episode a sober sense of a global order losing its old lines of agreement. Speaking with Paul Laudicina around Kearney's 2025 CEO Retreat in Puglia, he links economic fragmentation with political strain, weakened faith in democracy, and a…
A grounded conversation about political trust, shared experience, civic purpose, and congressional orientation.
Political compromise gets a tangible frame here, as Congressman Connolly and Frost talk through whether relationships across the aisle can survive in a system that rarely rewards compromise.
Practical conversations from the decommissioning front line.
Commodity shocks, traced to market mechanics.
Kentucky tech, explained from the ground up.
Finance stories with consequences attached.
Paul Laudicina opens Reimagining the Future: Envisioning What's Next by naming Kevin Cashman, Vice Chairman of CEO and Enterprise Leadership at Korn Ferry, and noting that Leadership from the Inside Out has been used in curricula at 150 universities.
Paul Laudicina introduces a new podcast series exploring how periods of chaos and disruption often lead to renewal and breakthrough, featuring conversations with global leaders and thinkers about envisioning a better future.
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Host Paul Laudicina discusses global fragmentation and monetary chaos with Financial Times commentator Martin Wolf at a CEO retreat.
Paul Laudacina shares insights from Kearney's 2025 CEO Retreat, highlighting unprecedented global challenges and opportunities in science and technology.
Paul Laudacina re-releases this 2023 conversation with Congressman Gerry Connolly and Congressman Maxwell Frost after Connolly’s May 21 death, framing the discussion around political division, public service, and the future of U.S.
Doris Kearns Goodwin contrasts Trump's retribution rhetoric with Lincoln's call for "malice toward none."
Farnam Jahanian calls current AI one of his generation's most transformative developments, citing Carnegie Mellon's use of AI to change scientific discovery.
Mayo Clinic CEO Gianrico Farrugia says healthcare needs to “run towards AI,” with 159 algorithms already used in daily practice at Mayo Clinic.
Walmart COO Kieran Shanahan says leaders should stay conscious of risk while keeping the retailer’s purpose, “help people save money so they can live better,” in view.
Host Paul Laudicina interviews Mayo Clinic CEO Dr.
Paul Laudicina discusses the unprecedented volatility in global energy markets due to COVID-19 and the growing interest in alternative energy sources amid climate change concerns.
Paul Laudacina discusses the impact of COVID-19 on Africa and South Africa, including the potential acceleration of the fourth industrial revolution and the challenges of asymptomatic spread.
Vincent Lo discusses the pandemic as an opportunity for global cooperation, while the host highlights new disinfectant technologies.
Host Paul Laudicina discusses the economic and societal challenges of COVID-19, emphasizing the need for widespread testing and containment measures until a vaccine is available.