archiveInside Director Insider

Try scrolling your favorite platform without blinking. Before your eyes finish moving, dozens of posts, ads, and videos have already raced past. In that blur, what actually stays with you? It’s probably not the loudest thing. It’s the most precise, something small, emotionally resonant, and surprising enough to make your...

Founder-CEOs: Corporate America’s Rarest Breed The question is more than academic. Founder-led companies are celebrated in startup mythology, but by the time a firm reaches the Fortune 500, the odds that its CEO is also the founder shrink to just 4.8%. That’s 24 individuals in a sea of professional managers—underscoring...

The 2025 holiday season is already shaping up to be one of the most complex shipping environments in recent memory for retailers. Businesses are facing shifting global trade policies, rising shipping costs, and heightened consumer expectations, causing an increasingly narrow path to deliver products profitably, punctually, and without friction. Among...

A Hands-On Leader with a Clear Mission When you meet Jeffrey Belk, Founder of Innovation Restoration in Charlotte, North Carolina, one thing becomes clear right away — he’s not the kind of business owner who watches from the sidelines. “I’ve always believed that leadership means being involved,” Belk says. “You...

The rapid advancement of generative AI (Gen AI) presents both a tremendous opportunity and a significant challenge for organizations. To fully capitalize on this transformative technology, leaders must prioritize continuous learning and development, ensuring their workforce possesses the skills and knowledge necessary to thrive during workplace transitions. By doing so, leaders will empower employees...

As a large public-company Chief Human Resource Officer (CHRO), one of my biggest aha moments happened when I reviewed our company’s self-insured health care plans. It wasn’t just the cost per employee. Or the premiums. Or the year-over-year percentage increases.  It was the sheer cost of this behemoth: Nearly $500M. And significantly more than our company’s combined short- and long-term incentive plans. Every. Single. Year. My take-away: Status quo was far more risky than change. So we dug deeper, created a business case and made...

Unless you married one, talking to a lawyer is never good news. Legal disputes take years to settle, with high labor intensity on the lawyer’s side and time and money intensity on the client side. Lawyers are, we may like it or not, needed, as they help institutions to execute the principles of the...

In September 1956, when I was 10 years old, political turmoil and violence erupted in Ceylon, forcing us to abandon our homeland. Within three weeks of the surge in fighting that filled our streets, my father had packed up our entire belongings in a few suitcases, withdrawn from his law...

We don’t often get a lot of slack, especially early in our careers. With so many people being so quick to write us off, we’ve got to put our best foot forward in any given moment, at any given meeting, on any given day. That often means doing the work...

In the rapidly shifting landscape of global business, effective leadership is not just about vision ,  it’s about adaptability. Today’s CEOs and executives are expected to navigate international markets, build remote-first cultures, and travel frequently to maintain global partnerships. But with business travel costs soaring and logistical complexities multiplying, corporate...