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Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! Im Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. A new McKinsey & Co. study finds that CEOs and their chief marketing officers (CMOs) are becoming increasingly disconnected, and the gap between CEOs and CMOs perceptions of the marketing function appears to be widening: Nearly two-thirds of chief executives say they are comfortable with modern marketing, up from just half in 2023; meanwhile, only 31% of CMOs believe their CEOs are comfortable in the marketing world, down from four points from a year earlier. That may be part of the reason CMOs and other creative leaders I met at Cannes Lions last week suggested that chief executives consider spending some time at the annual festival of creativity. To be sure, most marketing executives arent suggesting CEOs come to Cannes Lions for a deep dive into marketing tactics and metrics. Rather, they feel corporate leaders would benefit from being immersed in an environment that celebrates and inspires groundbreaking multimedia work and its creators. A creativity immersion experience I would love to bring CEOs to the basement of the Palais so they could see the work and draw inspiration from that, says Valerie Vargas, senior vice president, content creation and advertising, AT&T, referring to the conference center where Cannes Lions winning entries are exhibited. Vargas also recommends that someone from the head of advertising or marketing hand-pick a series of talks for the CEO to attend, sparking ideas and new ways of thinking about problem-solving. Finally, she suggests the marketing team organize a dinner for the CEO and their agency creative teampeople who usually dont get to meet with the companys top executives. Others believe a trip to Cannes could help CEOs understand the role that creativity will play as companies adopt generative AI tools and other technologies to increase productivitymaking it harder for many companies to boast an operational or information technology edge. Were moving to a world where creativity is the single most important differentiator among brands, says Zach Kitschke, global chief marketing officer of Canva, the design software company. David Droga, vice chair of Accenture (and most recently CEO of Accenture Song), goes one step further: Creativity is going to drive the outcomes of AI, he says. Thats what creativity has done every time it has been infused into a new technology. He cites the example of modern photography, a technology that was invented and advanced by chemists and scientists but flourished and took on new energy in the hands of artists and other creatives. Marisa Thalberg, executive vice president and chief customer and marketing officer for retailer Catalyst Brands, contends that Cannes may not be right for every CEO but says its important for chief executives to understand the value for attendants. For me, Cannes is a uniquely valuable few days, not only for the creative and business inspiration but for the concentrated opportunity for learning, connections, and idea generation, says Thalberg. I can make more happen in a few days that would otherwise take weeks . . . or never happen at all. Can Cannes bring CEOs and marketers together? CEOs, are you disconnected from your marketers? Marketers, what dont your chief executives understand about your role? Send your thoughts to me at stephaniemehta@mansueto.com, and Ill try to work the answers into my newsletters. Watch more: Cannes do How PepsiCo is using chips to power street food entrepreneurs Inside Apples award-winning advertising The future of socializing
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Since launching Boardroom in 2019, Rich Kleiman and NBA star Kevin Durant have grown the media company into an influential player that confidently straddles business, sports, and entertainment across content, films, TV, and events. Its newest venture is a membership club that Kleiman sees as key to building a long-lasting brand legacy. I really want to build a sustainable brand that lasts, Kleiman tells Fast Company. By having this core membership community, and having them become, in a lot of ways, voices of this brand, I thought was really crucial. Kevin Durant (left) of the Phoenix Suns and Rich Kleiman sit courtside at the 2023 WNBA All-Star Game. [Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty Images] Launching later this month, the Boardroom Members Club will feature regular members-only events, VIP access to Boardroom flagship activations at NBA All-Star, Art Basel and more, exclusive networking opportunities, and a private digital platform. For me, I saw this boom in membership clubs in the city, and while they all have their own thing, whether it’s the food or the location or the brand name or the type of people that go there, I didn’t think that there were actually communities there that benefited your career, says Kleiman. And for me, I felt like that was my special sauce, understanding the importance of being in a room with the right mix of people. Boardrooms media arm churns out newsletters, social posts, and content that reaches over 52 million unique monthly visitors. The company is on track to nearly double revenue in 2025, and average monthly reach has increased by 74% in 2025. Its film and TV output in recent years includes the Apple TV series Swagger, Showtimes Emmy-nominated doc NYC Point Gods, and the Oscar-winning short Two Distant Strangers. However, it was events like Boardrooms annual CNBC x Boardroom Game Plan Summit that showed Kleiman the potential in combining quality content and the community of people who gather around it. Like an IRL LinkedIn for cool people. I thought that was really exciting, and I wanted to create a version of it that was exclusive to members, he says. I wanted that to feel a bit exclusive, because those conferences can be overwhelming for people that are trying to get information and trying to connect. Members Club events will have the same vibe and feel of the brands bigger events but with more intimate programming. The big names are still in the room, but make them truly accessible and they understand that like they’re there now to integrate with this community, says Kleiman. And [those big names] want that too. It’s really infectious for anyone at any level, to be around that type of hunger and that type of curiosity and excitement. Seeing our consumers and knowing theyre part of our brand and in our comments and at our parties, but they wanted more, and I wanted to give them more. The combination of not only connecting with Boardroom content, but with fellow fans and members that can impact their own careers and businesses, is where Kleiman sees the most long-term potential. For me, the real excitement is creating something that I can point to potentially decades from now and say, That was us, we built that.
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Youve no doubt heard of Microsofts Copilot. But can you define exactly what it is? If you find that question a challenge to answer concisely, youre not alone. In the scramble to convert increasingly ubiquitous generative AI capabilities into recognizably branded tools, Copilot has succeededsometimes to the detriment of its own brand. Consider the most recent evidence of the Copilot brands cultural profile: a request from the Better Business Bureaus National Advertising Division recently asked Microsoft to adjust its Copilot branding and advertising to avoid confusing or misleading consumers. Part of the problem, it seems, is the way Microsoft has stretched the Copilot brand into a kind of catchall for all things AI. (Microsoft Copilot itself says there are multiple Copilots, each tailored to specific tools and platforms, listing about a half-dozen key examples.) In part, the NAD argued that Microsofts claims that Copilot boosts productivity and ROI were backed only by a study that actually measured a perception of productivity. It also suggested Microsoft is using the Copilot name across so many AI products and features its not always clear which advertised capabilities apply in which use cases. A description of Copilot working seamlessly across all your data, for example, might mislead a user who wasnt clear on which Copilot-branded tool it referred to. Based on the context of the claims and universal use of the product description as Copilot, NADs recommendation concluded that consumers would not necessarily understand the differences. A Microsoft statement to Fast Company said that while it disagreed with NADs critical conclusions, it is happy to make small adjustments to help customers better understand the differences between the chat and in-app experiences, or to clarify when a study reflects consumer perception.It’s true that the Copilot name has (to the annoyance of some users) long replicated itself across multiple Microsoft product lines as an all-purpose signifier of AI integration. As The Verge has argued previously, this seems to be partly the fallout from efforts to attract more business customers to pay for Copilot capabilitiesand that plays out in occasionally confusing ways. For example, Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat (formerly Bing Chat Enterprise) is actually distinct from Business Chat for Microsoft 365 Copilot (formerly Business Chat, a component of Teams). This gets at a deeper issue. The irony may turn out to be that there are just too many Copilots (and not just at Microsoft), and the term is being run into the ground. In fact, it risks becoming less of a signifier than a near-generic cliché (see the sparkle emoji of generative AI branding). The first significant use of the term copilot as an AI-associated name was actually GitHub Copilot, a 2021 release, which allowed users to work with AI in a form of pair programming, according to a Tech Republic mini history of the term. But Microsoft (which owns GitHub) followed soon after, and swiftly came to dominate its use. Windows keyboards now even include a Copilot keyfeaturing the Copilot logo, a ribbony splotch of colorful gradientsto invoke the Copilot in Windows experience. In practice, Microsofts version of the Copilot brand Security Copilot, Copilot Studio, Copilot in Wordis sometimes a product and sometimes a feature. All of which has arguably diluted the impact of the Copilot brand. Salesforce, Moodys, and Appian, among other companies, now use copilot in AI-related product names. More generally, in the AI context, copilot has come to serve essentially the function that assistant used to: a humanizing nickname for a variety of tech products that are being sold as not just a digital tool, but a kind of trusted peer. Of course, one of the challenges facing such products at the moment is living up to outsized promises and hopes, like huge overnight productivity boosts. Oftentimes, these tools feel less like a copilot and more like a temperamental trainee. Thats not to say that generative AI wont deserve the promotion from assistant to something more partner-like. But copilot, as an increasingly common and all-purpose term, can sometimes sound like title inflation. And thats not a brand meaning Microsoft had in mind.
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Heres a troubling reality check: We are currently evaluating artificial intelligence in the same way that wed judge a sports car. We act like an AI model is good if it is fast and powerful. But what we really need to assess is whether it makes for a trusted and capable business partner. The way we approach assessment matters. As AI models begin to play a part in everything from hiring decisions to medical diagnoses, our narrow focus on benchmarks and accuracy rates is creating blind spots that could undermine the very outcomes were trying to achieve. In the long term, it is effectiveness, not efficiency, that matters. Think about it: When you hire someone for your team, do you only look at their test scores and the speed they work at? Of course not. You consider how they collaborate, whether they share your values, whether they can admit when they dont know something, and how theyll impact your organizations cultureall the things that are critical to strategic success. Yet when it comes to the technology that is increasingly making decisions alongside us, were still stuck on the digital equivalent of standardized test scores. The Benchmark Trap Walk into any tech company today, and youll hear executives boasting about their latest performance metrics: Our model achieved 94.7% accuracy! or We reduced token usage by 20%! These numbers sound impressive, but they tell us almost nothing about whether these systems will actually serve human needs effectively. Despite significant tech advances, evaluation frameworks remain stubbornly focused on performance metrics while largely ignoring ethical, social, and human-centric factors. Its like judging a restaurant solely on how fast it serves food while ignoring whether the meals are nutritious, safe, or actually taste good. This measurement myopia is leading us astray. Many recent studies have found high levels of bias toward specific demographic groups when AI models are asked to make decisions about individuals in relation to tasks such as hiring, salary recommendations, loan approvals, and sentencing. These outcomes are not just theoretical. For instance, facial recognition systems deployed in law enforcement contexts continue to show higher error rates when identifying people of color. Yet these systems often pass traditional performance tests with flying colors. The disconnect is stark: Were celebrating technical achievements while peoples lives are being negatively impacted by our measurement blind spots. Real-World Lessons IBMs Watson for Oncology was once pitched as a revolutionary breakthrough that would transform cancer care. When measured using traditional metrics, the AI model appeared to be highly impressive, processing vast amounts of medical data rapidly and generating treatment recommendations with clinical sophistication. However, as Scientific American reported, reality fell far short of this promise. When major cancer centers implemented Watson, significant problems emerged. The systems recommendations often didnt align with best practices, in part because Watson was trained primarily on a limited number of cases from a single institution rather than a comprehensive database of real-world patient outcomes. The disconnect wasnt in Watsons computational capabilitiesaccording to traditional performance metrics, it functioned as designed. The gap was in its human-centered evaluation capabilities: Did it improve patient outcomes? Did it augment physician expertise effectively? When measured against these standards, Watson struggled to prove its value, leading many healthcare institutions to abandon the system. Prioritizing dignity Microsofts Seeing AI is an example of what happens when companies measure success through a human-centered lens from the beginning. As Time magazine reported, the Seeing AI app emerged from Microsofts commitment to accessibility innovation, using computer vision to narrate the visual world for blind and low-vision users. What sets Seeing AI apart isnt just its technical capabilities but how the development team prioritized human dignity and independence over pure performance metrics. Microsoft worked closely with the blind community throughout the design and testing phases, measuring success not by accuracy percentages alone, but by how effectively the app enhanced the ability of users to navigate their world independently. This approach created technology that genuinely empowers users, providing real-time audio descriptions that help with everything from selecting groceries to navigating unfamiliar spaces. The lesson: When we start with human outcomes as our primary success metric, we build systems that dont just workthey make life meaningfully better. Five Critical Dimensions of Success Smart leaders are moving beyond traditional metrics to evaluate systems across five critical dimensions: 1. Human-AI Collaboration. Rather than measuring performance in isolation, assess how well humans and technology work together. Recent research in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons showed that AI-generated postoperative reports were only half as likely to contain significant discrepancies as those written by surgeons alone. The key insight: a careful division of labor between humans and machines can improve outcomes while leaving humans free to spend more time on what they do best. 2. Ethical Impact and Fairness. Incorporate bias audits and fairness scores as mandatory evaluation metrics. This means continuously assessing whether systems treat all populations equitably and impact human freedom, autonomy, and dignity positively. 3. Stability and Self-Awareness. A Nature Scientific Reports study found performance degradation over time in 91 percent of the models it tested once they were exposed to real-world data. Instead of just measuring a models out-of-the-box accuracy, track performance over time and assess the models ability to identify performance dips and escalate to human oversight when its confidence drops. 4. Value Alignment. As the World Economic Forums 2024 white paper emphasizes, AI models must operate in accordance with core human values if they are to serve humanity effectively. This requires embedding ethical considerations throughout the technology lifecycle. 5. Long-Term Societal Impact Move beyond narrow optimization goals to assess alignment with long-term societal benefits. Consider how technology affects authentic human connections, preserves meaningful work, and serves the broader comunity good. The Leadership Imperative: Detach and Devote To transform how your organization measures AI success, embrace the Detach and Devote paradigm we describe in our book TRANSCEND: Detach from: Narrow efficiency metrics that ignore human impact The assumption that replacing human labor is inherently beneficial Approaches that treat humans as obstacles to optimization Devote to: Supporting genuine human connection and collaboration Preserving meaningful human choice and agency Serving human needs rather than reshaping humans to serve technological needs The Path Forward Forward-thinking leaders implement comprehensive evaluation approaches by starting with the desired human outcomes and then establishing continuous human input loops and measuring results against the goals of human stakeholders. The companies that get this right wont just build better systemstheyll build more trusted, more valuable, and ultimately more successful businesses. Theyll create technology that doesnt just process data faster but that genuinely enhances human potential and serves societal needs. The stakes couldnt be higher. As these AI models become more prevalent in critical decisions around hiring, healthcare, criminal justice, and financial services, our measurement approaches will determine whether these models serve humanity well or perpetuate existing inequalities. In the end, the most important test of all is whether using AI for a task makes human lives genuinely better. The question isnt whether your technology is fast enough but whether its human enough. That is the only metric that ultimately matters.
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Cities, and those who live in them, are clamoring for more green space, and the benefits parks, trees, and recreation areas provide. The Trust for Public Lands annual ParkScore report found nearly a quarter of Americans in the 100 largest cities dont live within a 10-minute walk of a park or green space. While few cities have acres and acres of space to transform into parkland, they do have opportunities to create new types of urban parks, such as elevated parks, pocket parks fashioned from vacant lots, rails-to-trails projects or capping highways to create new greenspaces. New research, including exclusive project analysis for Fast Company, finds that these projects have a significant cooling impact, showcasing how these kinds of infrastructure interventions can provide some of the densest parts of urban America with much-needed cooling. A study conducted by Climate Central on behalf of the High Line found that New York Citys iconic linear park offers unique cooling and shading benefits, in addition to the social and environmental benefits of adding park space. High Line, NYC [Photo: Max Harlynking/Unsplash] We always had a suspicion that we can also make our community more healthier and livable, and we wanted data around it, says Alan van Capelle, Executive Director of Friends of the High Line. Researchers started by tracking the urban heat island intensity (UHII) of the areas surrounding the High Line in Manhattan. This measurement captures the additional heat created in urban environments by buildings and pavement, as well as density. Some neighborhoods near the High Line exhibited a 12.9 degrees Fahrenheit UHII, among the highest temperatures Climate Central has found after analyzing 65 U.S. cities. But the parkvia the obvious shading impact from the structure itself, but even more importantly, from the additional shading, transpiration, and overall cooling benefits of so many additional trees and plantscut the UHII to just 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit along many stretches of the park, creating an 8 degree Fahrenheit cooling impact. There was variance along the High Line, with areas that are primarily rocks and shrub exhibiting a less pronounced cooling impact, underscoring how its not just shading that makes the difference. And its not exactly news that parks provide cooling benefits to cities. But evidence that adaptive reuse parks in the midst of cities can achieve such pronounced temperature differences suggest that they can be an important tool for urban cooling. High Line, NYC [Photo: Polina Rytova/Unsplash Climate Central found that other such parks exhibit similar impacts. In exclusive research for Fast Company, Jennifer Brady, senior data analyst for Climate Central, applied existing data and research to a number of newer urban parks across the country and found similar cooling impacts. Chicagos 606, an elevated rails-to-trails project on the citys near northwest side, may cool the adjacent neighborhoods 6 degrees Fahrenheit to 8 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on the precise build type and density. Klyde Warren Park in Dallas, which caps a highway adjacent to downtown and runs through one of the citys hottest neighborhoods, yields approximately 4 degrees Fahrenheit to 6 degrees Fahrenheit cooler temperatures. The Lafitte Greenway in New Orleans and Railroad Park in Birmingham, Alabama, both located in relatively cooler parts of their respective cities, still cool adjoining areas by 4 degrees Fahrenheit. Chicago, 606 Trail [Photo: Shep McAllister/Unsplash The design of these parksincluding shade structures, shading impact with bridges and overhangs, and of course plants and tree covercan make a big difference, said Brady. It also helps that much of this kind of abandoned industrial infrastructurecomposed of cement and old buildingsadds to the heat, so simply removing them reduces urban heat gain. But it also shows that targeting particular dense areas with the most pronounced heat island effect can be done, and make a dramatic change. Theres always been a strong case to transform vacant lots and leftover lots in areas without park access, both from a recreation and health angle as well as public safety. Adding cooling and climate resilience to the list should make an even stronger case for more investment in these kinds of industrial reuse park projects. Klyde Warren Park, Dallas. [Photo: TrongNguyen/iStock Editorial/Getty Images Plus] Last year, the nations 100 largest cities invested a record $12.2 billion in parks; steering more of that funding towards these types of projects can have serious resilience impacts in an era of heightened climate change. Van Capelle said theres currently 49 other such reuse park projects taking place across North America that are part of the High Line Network, an advocacy group for these kinds of green space projects. He sees the heat island mitigation impact as just another reason to advocate for and invest in these projects. Being able to step out of your apartment and go into a cool location, being able to know that in the summertime, when the city can become uncomfortable, theres a place like the High Line that runs along a number of neighborhoods is vitally important, said van Capelle.
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E-Commerce
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