Join the HBS Club NEO in collaboration with the HBS Club of Chicago for a Fireside Chat with Chad E. Foster (HBS ’16) and Bill George (HBS Senior Fellow)

The stories we tell ourselves either limit us or propel us towards our goals. Are you ready to turn your biggest obstacle into your biggest advantage?

---

When most people were preparing for the adventure of adult life, Chad E. Foster was watching the world he grew up with fade to black. But going blind in his early 20’s didn’t stop him from living. Becoming an avid coder, he built software Oracle thought was impossible and won over $45 billion in contracts in the business world.

Overcoming his own struggles and inspired by Bill’s teachings at HBS, Chad discovered blindness was a “gift” from which he developed the mental stamina and resilience to live his best life.

Chad and Bill will discuss how finding the courage to authentically lead offers us a path forward in life, regardless of our circumstances. They will also review the journey, lessons learned and the tools Chad used to adapt and mold himself into who he is today, which he describes in his upcoming book Blind Ambition: How to Go from Victim to Visionary.

In this session, be prepared to:

• Stop staying trapped, discover your unique strengths and bounce back
• Learn the mental model that Chad uses to quickly overcome frustrations and stressors
• Gain a new perspective of diversity and inclusion
• Shift your mindset, turn your excuses into personal motivation, and decide that you are in charge of who you want to be

SPEAKER: Chad E. Foster, HBS ’16, Motivational Keynote Speaker and Sales/Finance Leader

Chad E. Foster is a motivational keynote speaker, sales/finance leader, and inspirational change agent who works at Red Hat/IBM. He was the first blind executive to graduate from Harvard Business School’s Program for Leadership Development and has been featured with NBC, Forbes, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, USA Today, Thrive Global, and Chief Executive Mag.

“People are often surprised at what I was able to achieve in spite of being blind but to the contrary, I feel I am successful because I am blind, not in spite of it,” says Chad.

After losing his eyesight while attending college in his early twenties, Chad started at Accenture, and has built a career in the technology industry where he has directed financial strategies and decisions resulting in more than $45 billion in contracts. Determination, ambition, and resilience are the key drivers to his incredible journey.

The Atlanta Opera has commissioned an opera inspired by his life story and his first book, Blind Ambition: How to Go from Victim to Visionary, is available for pre-orders on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple Books, Bookshop, Books-A-Million, Google Play, and other fine retailers.

If you order before February 16, 2021 and enter your order details on blind ambition you will receive the audio book for free and start reading today. Please also take a look at the book trailer for a preview of Blind Ambition: How to Go from Victim to Visionary.

Today, Chad speaks to corporate audiences and professional athletes to help them develop resilience in the face of uncertainty, better understand how to harness diversity for innovation and show people how to overcome their own blind spots. He lives with his wife and his 2 children in Atlanta, GA.

MODERATOR: Bill George, Harvard Business School (HBS), Senior Fellow and former Chair & CEO of Medtronic

Bill George is a Senior Fellow at Harvard Business School, and is the former Chair and Chief Executive Officer of Medtronic. He is the author of Discover Your True North and The Discover Your True North Fieldbook, Authentic Leadership, True North, Finding Your True North, 7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis and True North Groups. Bill has previously served on the boards of Goldman Sachs, Mayo Clinic, ExxonMobil, Target, Novartis and The World Economic Forum USA. In 2014 the Franklin Institute presented Bill with the Bower Award for Business Leadership. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2012 and was named one of “Top 25 Business Leaders of the Past 25 Years” by PBS. Mr. George received his BSIE with high honors from Georgia Tech, his MBA with high distinction from Harvard University, where he was a Baker Scholar. He has received honorary PhDs from Georgia Tech, Mayo Medical School, University of St. Thomas, Augsburg College, and Bryant University.

It’s not about you. Instead, leadership depends on how well you unleash the potential of other people. That is the radical redefinition of leadership from UNLEASHED: The Unapologetic Leader’s Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You. (Harvard Business Review Press, June 2, 2020)

Authors, Frances Frei and Anne Morriss, have already made headlines by putting their theory into practice with disruptive impact.

Please plan to join us on January 28 when HBS Professor Frances Frei will join us in a virtual environment to talk about their research and the results of the implementation of their findings. “The first step in breakthrough is self-realization. The next step is harnessing the Career-catapulting lessons in UNLEAShED” (Bozoma Saint John CMO, Endeavor)

Professor Frei most recently served as Uber’s first Senior VP of Leadership and Strategy to help the company navigate its very public crisis in leadership and culture.

Anne Morriss is the Executive Founder of The Leadership Consortium, a first-of-its-kind accelerator for building diverse executive teams. She has appeared on “CBS This Morning.”

Anne Jones, a mother and an HBS alum (HBS ’97), will share how to simplify the proven Harvard Business School case method into a framework a child can understand. Anyone can tell a one-minute story with a question in the end! The children become confident decision-makers and thoughtful problem-solvers. Parents bond with their children while using a world-renowned method to prepare their children for life.

Native of Finland, Anne Ylipahkala Jones graduated summa cum laude in Systems Engineering from Georgia Tech while on a full track scholarship and then on to HBS. Before “retiring” from over ten years in the corporate world, Anne held progressively senior positions in strategy, finance, and performance improvement with NYSE companies. Once she met Mark, her husband, Anne focused on revitalizing the family surgery business and being a wife and a mom. Anne, Mark, and Jupiter, their youngest son, reside in Atlanta, Georgia.

Join HBS NEO for a conversation with Fred Brown, MBA‘85, Medicinal Biochemist

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND — Reprise of 9/30/20

Fellow HBS alum Fred Brown, MBA ’85, is a medicinal biochemist who has been on the discovery, development and/or launch teams of 27 major pharmaceutical, 13 diagnostic and 6 vaccine products. Collectively, these products save the lives of over 5.6 million people annually and generated over $35B of revenue in 2020.

Fred will provide insight into the latest developments with COVID vaccines including the Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna/NIH, and AstraZeneca/University of Oxford vaccines. Fred has in-depth experience with vaccines, having led the vaccine development effort at Roche, and from his involvement in the development and launch of over a dozen vaccines worldwide.

Based on his review of the vaccine data, he will share his inside knowledge of the logistics coordinated by Operation WARP speed, and his ongoing consultation with Governors across the country including our Governor DeWine. There is much to say — Fred will prioritize the most important information for 45 minutes with some time for questions. He has graciously agreed to remain available afterward to provide additional detail, and have additional discussion and interaction following the scheduled time.

Please join us for this informative discussion where Fred will separate fact from myth, offer insider insights, and express hopefulness while offering appropriate warnings/caveats.

It is purely social!

RSVP before 11/30/20 and we will deliver to your home a six-pack of the holiday offerings from PLATFORM BEER CO.