On September 28, 2017, Jeff Immelt, HBS 1982 and GE Chairman, along with Ben Shapiro, Professor of Marketing Emeritus, held a fireside chat for over 500 Harvard C-Suite Executives HBS alumni, students, and faculty.

Their conversation ranged from Jeff’s reaction to being a first-year MBA student in Ben’s marketing class to Jeff’s vision for GE as a major player in the industrial internet. Jeff felt two principals were key to his tenure as CEO: 1)The market rules and 2) The future always comes.

When Jeff took over as CEO, GE was a conglomerate that made money on things as diverse as refrigerators and consumer loans. The company had a US focus and had to reinvent itself as a global player.

The world changed in a large part due to the global financial crisis of 2007-2009. In 2010, Jeff realized that GE customers were increasingly interested in outcomes, not buying products. GE had to change from a company that sold products and services to one that could help their customers generate more revenues and profits from the existing $2 trillion in assets that GE customers had already purchased.

To do this, GE had to become more collaborative with their customers so they could become more profitable and in turn, so could GE. Instead of focusing on economies of scale, they had to be smart and able to deliver products and services at units of 1.

GE had to embark on this journey even though it was uncertain how it would evolve over time.

On Monday, October 2, 2017 HBSAB and the Harvard Club co-hosted a reception followed by a fireside chat with Golfing Legend and Entrepreneur Greg Norman and Larry Gulko, Brand Strategist & Entrepreneur.

Over 200 people attended to learn more about the business success of Greg Norman. After a golfing career that included 90 victories worldwide, two British Open Championships and the No. 1 position in the world rankings for 331 consecutive weeks, Greg was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2001. Showing the same level of tenacity and pursuit of perfection off the course, Greg has built a multi-national corporation, the Greg Norman Company, where he serves as Chairman and CEO. The company is a mini-conglomerate with numerous businesses including apparel, wine, golf course design, asset-based debt lending and more innovations in the pipeline.

The 90-minute conversation was followed by energetic Q&A. With his trademark charm and eloquence, Greg shared the secrets behind his myriad achievements. Illustrating the principles at the core of his success, he offered concrete advice for success. Practical, engaging, and incisive, the lessons Greg Norman shared demonstrated how anyone, at any stage of his or her career, can be a champion.

On February 28, 2018 along with over 120 attendees, we sat down with Trynka Shineman, CEO of Vistaprint. In her nearly 15 years at Vistaprint, Trynka has overseen significant growth and transformation – from a business of about $35 million in revenue, to one well over $1 billion today.

Trynka discussed the fundamental shift in focus that Vistaprint made 5 years ago, from a company that prioritized internal growth and transactions to a firm that is creating amazing value for its customers. She shared the steps the company took to become a customer-centric organization – enabling Vistaprint’s success for decades. The same steps can be applied to other organizations to create similar outcomes.

Trynka is responsible for the strategy and execution of the Vistaprint brand in North America, Europe and Australia/New Zealand. She has been instrumental in improving the customer value proposition of the Vistaprint brand and driving the culture to become more customer centric.

She brings more than 15 years of experience in market research and analysis, strategic planning, database marketing and e-commerce to her role. Prior to her CEO role, Trynka was responsible for global marketing and was also chief customer officer of Vistaprint.

Before joining Vistaprint, Trynka was a director and senior manager for PreVision Marketing, an Inc. 500 and Software 500 innovator in direct marketing where she developed programs for several major accounts.

Trynka holds a B.A. in psychology from Cornell University and an MBA from Columbia Business School.