Speaker 1:

From the New York Stock Exchange at the corner of Wall and Broad Streets in New York City, welcome Inside the ICE House. Our podcast from Intercontinental Exchange is your go-to for the latest on markets, leadership, vision, and business. For over 230 years, the NYSE has been the beating heart of global growth. Each week, we bring you inspiring stories of innovators, job creators, and the movers and shakers of capitalism, here at the NYSE and ICE's exchanges around the world. Now, let's go Inside the ICE House. Here's your host, Lance Glinn.

Lance Glinn:

Each month on the Inside the ICE House Podcast, we engage in insightful conversations with business leaders, CEOs of NYSE listed companies, entrepreneurs, and visionaries. We explore their journeys, the challenges they've overcome, and their aspirations to shape the future. You can tune in every week on all major podcast platforms to catch these discussions and watch full video episodes on tv.nyse.com and on the NYSE YouTube channel. We kicked off the month with episode 488, the second appearance of NYSE listed KKR's Pete Stavros. In his first appearance in 2022, he joined us to discuss his employee engagement and ownership model ownership works. Now three years later, he's back Inside the ICE House to update the platform's success and discuss the growth of employee based ownership.

Speaker 3:

I referenced earlier we were seeing companies that were similarly situated, same industry, same size, same geographic composition, and we were giving each of those, let's just say two companies, the same tools. Employee ownership, how to drive employee engagement, etc. And in one company, we'd see Ingersoll-Rand type results, massive spike in engagement, drop in quit rates, and in a company, again, similarly situated, it wouldn't get worse, it's just engagement scores were flat, quit rates were flat. So I started to notice just anecdotally, personal traits of CEOs who were delivering these blowout culture shifts, and they fell into certain categories like women seemed to be doing a better job than men at driving these culture shifts. CEOs who in terms of their personal background grew up poor. CEOs who were immigrants, CEOs of deep religious faith. So there were these categories of folks, and I was giving, I think I was doing a fireside chat at some conference, and somebody asked me this question of, "Why does it work sometimes, but not always. You've already acknowledged Pete, this is hard. Doesn't always work. Why doesn't it work?"

And I said, "We think there's something about leadership. And more specifically, when I look at these categories of leaders who are doing such a great job, maybe there's a through line around empathy." I have no idea. This is just something we're spit balling with. And luckily for us, I think DealBook in the New York Times, or somebody, maybe it was Axios, wrote a little blurb, which was kind of like, "What a joke. KKR talking about empathy." Some kind of catchy title. And a psychology professor at Stanford named Jamil Zaki, who is the preeminent researcher on empathy, reached out to me. And he said, "Hey, I'm really interested to understand what you're doing, where you think you might take this." And so I went through what I just shared with you. And he said, "So what's your plan? When I hear you talk, is your plan to go focus on CEOs who grew up poor? That seems like kind of a crazy plan."

Lance Glinn:

Episode 49, featured Shelly Cayette-Weston, President of Business Operations for the NBA's Charlotte Hornets. The Hornets are redefining what it means to be a modern NBA franchise through innovation and a fan first strategy. She goes Inside the ICE House to share how the team's jersey patch partnership with Judi Health reflects a deeper commitment to performance and to community impact.

Shelly Cayette-Weston:

Well, yes. So they believe that, and they believe that we're going to do that with the right people, creating great culture of performance, and a winning culture both on and off the court. You see some demonstrations of that early and some momentum, right? So one, we won the NBA Summer League Championships this summer in Las Vegas. We have a great new, young, talented, great character draft class. Kon Knueppel was the MVP of that championship. And he, it's just, again, another example of the rest of our team of what's in the future of their investment into building a winning culture.

I think also, as you look at, again, their investment in, we are putting in the ground right now in construction of $170 million practice facility, a Novant Health Performance Center, that's going to be world-class to retain and also to attract new players. And we need that to be world-class and to have a winning culture. So a lot of things that we're doing now all lead and create momentum towards this, again, winning culture. And if we do it and we take the right steps, we're in this for the long haul. And we believe we're starting to see some of the fruits of that labor.

Lance Glinn:

In this month's installment of Markets in Focus, in partnership with Opening Bell Daily, Phil Rosen joined me at the New York Stock Exchange to explain why markets remain resilient amid the government shutdown. With economic data on pause, he says investors are fueling an everything rally driven by strong earnings, AI optimism, and expectations of more fed rate cuts.

Phil Rosen:

So Bitcoin investors know October is called Uptober, and the fourth quarter is excellent for Bitcoin typically. Bitcoin averages a 60% return in the fourth quarter dating back for 10 years. So is very bullish for Bitcoin. But also right now, you have the institutional backing and infrastructure of Wall Street going into Bitcoin. So you have these ETF products that are giving a lot of people exposure to Bitcoin that would never go out and get Coinbase and buy Bitcoin. So this is giving a lot of, let's say, older investors or skeptical investors, sort of a traditional asset to hold Bitcoin with.

Lance Glinn:

And it brings more to the party, essentially.

Phil Rosen:

Yes. Oh, huge capital going in. IBIT is the most profitable product for BlackRock, right? And that's their Bitcoin ETF. And it's only a year and a half old or something like that. So suddenly you have this massive institutional vote of confidence driving Bitcoin's price higher, and you have all the money on the sidelines coming in that maybe a year or two ago would have no reason or no interest in Bitcoin, but because suddenly there's an ETF for it, that's pushing prices higher for sure. And you have a lot of institutions buying into the Bitcoin treasury trend, let's say, right? So you have a lot of companies that are putting Bitcoin on their balance sheet to protect their purchasing power, because they don't want to hold us dollars anymore, because they know that a dollar is going to be worth maybe 20% less in five years. So to them, Bitcoin is a better bet, and I think in the last five years, Bitcoin's up 1000%. So it's paid off pretty well so far.

Lance Glinn:

As Inside the ICE House had breakfast on the balcony, Fetch CEO Wes Schroll joined the NYC's Joe Benarroch. Consumer rewards are entering a new era as technology transforms how people connect with the brands they love. He joins Inside the ICE House to share how Fetch is using AI to deepen brand relationships, personalize experiences, and empower consumers through data-driven insights.

Wes Schroll:

I believe that consumers are getting to a point where everyone continuing to launch their own one-off program is going to be toast. I think it doesn't work for either side of the equation. I think consumers are fed up with it. Consumers know that they're creating more value and therefore they can demand. I think with companies like Fetch, they've seen, "Oh, I can expect companies to come to me and play on my turf. I don't have to go and jump through all their hoops just to participate." So I think that's going to happen. But also for those companies, the smaller companies, when they're releasing these loyalty programs or different savings where the consumer's having to do all the work, the reality is the only people who are willing to spend all of that work are the 10% of people who are already spending the majority of their spend with them.

So it just becomes like a subsidy on the best consumers that you have. And that doesn't work for the company, and that doesn't work for the consumer. So I think that's toast. In terms of what I think is being toasted into is being able to personalize things at a one-to-one level that's never been seen before, utilizing AI. I think that's something that's going to be on the forefront of where we're going, where consumers aren't just expecting you to be able to display the right ads to them at the right time. They want that ad to be totally customized to them. They want to be able to ask questions as if they were talking with a friend and get answers quickly. They want to be able to, in Fetch's case, you scan all of your receipts, I should be able to say, "What item am I about to run out of?" And it should know, it should be able to answer that.

Speaker 13:

My husband would love that.

Wes Schroll:

Yeah, it's amazing when you're able to do things like that. So we are moving in that direction where we can unlock the power of the data that consumers might not even realize is a big component of what they generate.

Lance Glinn:

On episode 490, Mike Rost, then Mandi McReynolds of NYC listed Workiva joined us Inside the ICE House. Workiva is reshaping how companies approach sustainability and financial transparency through innovation, integration, and trust. They discuss Workiva's transformation and how AI data integrity and cross-functional collaboration are driving a more connected transparent future.

Mike Rost:

Yeah, so I think there's a couple of pieces that drive that requirement even more now. First off is just the amount of data. And there's studies, go into your favorite AI tool and look about the amount of AI... Amount of data that's been created over the last year, three years, five years. But just organizationally, organizations are dealing with a lot more data. The second is with things such as AI, the ability to consume that data has also become much more, much more easy to do for organizations, which then allows us, are we all looking at the same set of data? Are we consistent on what is the outcome of that analysis of that data, and we have that shared set of understanding and that shared data and collaboration around it?

So rather than having disparate desktop office productivity tool data, organizations as they move to the cloud now have these central data stores. And that really allows that collaboration across those functions. And again, ultimately for us, for our customers, it's the as you're reporting that data externally and telling that company's story to your investors or to your regulators or whoever the constituents might be, you need to have that consistency around it.

Lance Glinn:

Author and behavioral scientist Jon Levy joined ICE's Jen Ilkiw on episode 491. Now out with his new book Team Intelligence, Jon explores how organizations can unlock their collective potential by focusing on the dynamics that drive group success, and how leaders can foster environments where innovation and trust thrive even in high-pressure settings.

Jon Levy:

So here's what's funny. We keep being told they're these core competencies. And then when you compare them to, let's even say the most famous leaders, Elon Musk or Steve Jobs, neither of them were great at creating psychological safety or creating consensus. So they're nice to have qualities, they're not essential. There's actually only one quality that's essential for a leader. And it's kind of stupid. It's simply that they have followers.

Jen Ilkiw:

Okay, fair enough. Which makes sense.

Jon Levy:

Now when you ask why people follow, the most common answers are vision and charisma. But the funny thing is that most leaders don't have that either. And so what we ended up finding out is that, I guess the best analogy is anybody who has a teenager will probably be able to relate to this. Or if you can think back to when all of you were in high school, how do most of us feel on Sunday nights at about 6:00 PM when we're in high school?

Jen Ilkiw:

We're dreading the week and all the homework that we still have to do that we haven't done.

Jon Levy:

Exactly. And notice we're free, but we're experiencing dread. Now Friday at 1:00 PM, how do we feel?

Jen Ilkiw:

We know it's the end of the week and we get two days off and we get to relax and we don't have to go to class and get up early and we can sleep until 1:00 in the afternoon. So thrilled.

Jon Levy:

Exactly. Notice human beings don't relate to the present. They relate to the future we believe we have.

Jen Ilkiw:

Okay, that's good and that's true.

Jon Levy:

As a byproduct, the reason we actually follow is that when we interact with a leader, they cause us to emotionally feel that there will be a new and better future.

Lance Glinn:

ATM Media is redefining storytelling across advertising, technology, and media through authenticity and connection. Founder and CEO Robert Wheeler joins us Inside the ICE House for episode 492 to share how ATM's people first approach gives brands a trusted platform to celebrate their culture and their vision.

Robert Wheeler:

So since then from college, I really have been in media and then advertising and tech as well too. I really enjoyed the intrapreneurship. So working in a really large company to get things done for the executives that I was working with at the time. And then I got to do a lot of great exciting things within those companies as well too. But as media started to change, news started to change, and me working within communications and marketing, I felt there was an opportunity to spotlight more of the people, more of the things that are going on, and the culture of the business of what we call now Advertising Tech and Media, ATM. And so it was kind of this funny little thing that, "Oh, hey guys, I'm going to launch this thing and I want my friends in the industry, you're going to have to sponsor it."

And I'm like, "Ah, ha, ha ha. All right, now back to work to our large billion dollar global companies." And then when things would happen, you'd be like, "Oh, ATM should have covered this, that would've been great for ATM." So it was really more of a joke because I never thought, "Oh, this is what I wanted to do." And then when the ringing in my head continued to grow about this is an opportunity, this is not being met right now in the industry, I decided, okay, I'm going to do this. So I was working, I was the CMO of Group M. Now it's WPP Media, one of the largest media buying companies in the world. And so I said, toward the end of that summer of last year of 2024, okay, I'm going to do this. And then one of my mentors, Brian Lesser, took the global job as CEO of now WPP Media.

And I was like, "Well, I can't leave." He's like one of my closest friends, mentors. I want to help him. But I couldn't get it out of my head truthfully. And so I went to him and said, "Hey Brian, I need to talk to my friend Brian, not the global CEO right now." And I said, "I'll dedicate six months to you. I want you to get up on your feet, but then I want you to let me do this opportunity." And he had already known I'd been thinking of things like that, and he was super supportive.

Lance Glinn:

As the month came to a close, Christian Kleinerman, Executive Vice President of Product at NYC listed Snowflake, joined us on episode 493. Snowflake is transforming how enterprises harness the power of data and AI through innovation, security, and collaboration. We welcomed him to the New York Stock Exchange to discuss how Snowflake's open ecosystem, trusted governance, and deep partnerships are shaping the future of the AI data cloud and redefining what's possible for businesses worldwide.

Christian Kleinerman:

They published this architecture paper at Sigma, a well-known forum for database innovation. And I saw that paper and it's like, "Oh my God, this is legitimately good." Someone once told me that the definition of innovation, of true innovation is, "When you look at something, it's obvious that it's better, but nobody has done it before." And this thing definitely met the definition.

Lance Glinn:

No one had done it before?

Christian Kleinerman:

No one had done it. It made so much sense. And I remember also thinking it's going to be very painful to compete with this thing. And then Bob, who was the CEO at the time, he calls me, this is now another year later, and says, "Are you ready?" And I'm like, "I'm ready." I didn't even need any kind of [inaudible 00:17:09]. Because I could appreciate the depth of the innovation that Benoit and Terry had made.

Lance Glinn:

So Snowflake also, besides the launch of Cortex AI for financial services that we spoke to earlier in our conversation, Snowflake recently reached a pretty impressive milestone celebrating five years since its IPO. You've been part of the company's transformation since that IPO day, even a little bit before that too, playing a key role in its growth into a platform that is truly influencing how enterprises think about AI. What has allowed Snowflake in your mind from your perspective to make the leap it has not just in scale, but really in strategic relevance and overall influence?

Christian Kleinerman:

I think at the center of Snowflake, there's a true customer focus. I've seen organizations that are building products based on their gut, or they're building products based on the need for innovate, and we know better than customers, and at some point they'll see the light. I don't think there's any of that.

Lance Glinn:

You can listen to these episodes along with all past and future Inside the ICE House episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Remember that we also have ETF Central podcast episodes that release every two weeks on Wednesdays, and Market Storylines that release every Friday. Full video episodes of all our podcasts are also available on tv.nyc.com and on the NYSE YouTube channel. Be sure to join us every week for conversations with leaders, entrepreneurs, and visionaries. Thanks for listening.

Speaker 1:

That's our conversation for this week. Remember to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen, and follow us on X at ICE House Podcast. From the New York Stock Exchange, we'll talk to you again next week, Inside the ICE House. Information contained in this podcast was obtained in part from publicly available sources and not independently verified. Neither ICE nor its affiliates make any representations or warranties expressed or implied as to the accuracy or completeness of the information, and do not sponsor, approve, or endorse any of the content herein, all of which is presented solely for informational and educational purposes. Nothing herein constitutes an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy any security, or a recommendation of any security or trading practice. Some portions of the preceding conversation may have been edited for the purpose of length or clarity.