Dhar Mann is an entrepreneur, creator, and founder of Dhar Mann Studios, one of the world’s largest digital storytelling companies. His path has included extraordinary success, major failure, reinvention, and the experience of building again from moments that could have looked like endings.

In this episode of From the Culture, Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin explore how we know when to keep going and when to release an old version of the dream, what failure can reveal about who we are becoming, and how our definition of success changes over time.

Because sometimes the most important thing we can do is keep going. And sometimes it is realizing we are allowed to build a different table.

In this episode of From the Culture, Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin explore the relationship between connection and agency. They talk about the people and communities that help us trust ourselves, what it means to create the conditions for someone else to grow, and how workplaces and relationships can expand our sense of what we are capable of becoming.

Because agency may begin within us, but the conditions that allow it to grow are often created together.

In this episode of From the Culture, Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin explore the media and technology diet surrounding kids, the role those experiences play in developing agency, and what changes when children are treated as active participants in shaping the world around them.

They talk about understanding the whole child behind the digital experience, creating healthier agreements with technology, and designing a future that makes room for kids’ ideas, perspectives, choices, and voices.

Because the future is already being shaped. The question is whether kids get to help shape it.

Heather Malenshek is a global marketing and brand leader whose career has spanned Harley-Davidson, Land O’Lakes, and some of the world’s most community-driven organizations. Across those experiences, she has worked at the intersection of identity, belonging, purpose, and the stories people tell about who they are.

In this episode of From the Culture, Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin explore perspective, compassion, and the ability to see the whole person in front of us. They talk about how self-awareness changes the way we lead, how different experiences shape what people see and believe, and why curiosity about another person’s perspective can transform relationships, organizations, and culture.

What becomes possible when we understand ourselves well enough to see other people more clearly?

Jackie Jantos is CEO of Hinge, and Tamika Young is Hinge’s Chief Marketing and Communications Officer. Their own relationship began years earlier at Spotify, where they helped build some of the brand’s most defining cultural moments, before choosing to work together again at Hinge.

In this episode of From the Culture, Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin explore what makes relationships worth investing in. Jackie and Tamika talk about trust, friendship, leadership, building with the people around us, and how those same principles shape the products and communities we create.

What becomes possible when we treat relationships as the foundation of culture?

Grace Dolan has built a career transforming businesses and brands across Sharp, Samsung, Frontier Communications, and Johnson & Johnson. Her approach starts with truth, curiosity, and a willingness to put everything on the table, then look closely at the strengths, people, and possibilities already present.

In this episode of From the Culture, Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin sit down with Grace to explore what it really means to create a turnaround, in business and in life. They talk about the courage to see things as they are, the power of asking better questions, how leaders recognize potential before the outcome is visible, and what becomes possible when we build from our strengths.

At the heart of the conversation is a bigger idea: transformation begins when we can see the potential in what is already in front of us.

Connor Lim is helping change that.

As Co-Founder, CEO, and League Commissioner of the International Dance League, Connor is building a professional sports structure around dance, with contracts, teams, standings, championships, global broadcasts, and a media rights partnership with ESPN.

In this episode of From the Culture, Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin explore what happens when dancers move from the background to center stage. They talk about how incentives shape behavior, why credit determines who gets to participate in the value culture creates, and what professional sports can teach us about recognition, investment, fandom, and ownership.

At the center of the conversation is a bigger question: what changes when the people creating culture receive the credit, structure, and opportunity their influence deserves?

Margot Machol Bisnow became fascinated by that question and went looking for answers in an unexpected place: the childhoods of some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs. Through conversations with founders and their families, she discovered recurring lessons about curiosity, independence, resilience, passion, and the power of having someone believe in you.

In this episode of From the Culture, Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin sit down with Margot to explore the environments that shape us long before we enter the workplace. They talk about raising entrepreneurial kids, learning to trust yourself, giving people room to find their own path, and developing the courage to move forward even when you’re scared.

It’s a conversation about parenting, entrepreneurship, and ultimately something much bigger: how we create the conditions for people to believe in what they might become.

Anne Morriss and Frances Frei have spent their careers helping leaders and organizations navigate change, build trust, and solve hard problems. They are the co-authors of Move Fast and Fix Things and Unleashed, and the hosts of TED’s Fixable, where they explore what becomes possible when we believe our biggest challenges can actually be solved.

In this episode of From the Culture, Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin sit down with Anne and Frances to explore the power of inconvenience and what our problems can reveal about our organizations, our leadership, and ourselves.

Together, they talk about trust, change, responsibility, and how leaders can create cultures with the courage and capacity to face what needs attention.

Because inconvenience can be more than an interruption. It can be information about where we’re ready to grow.

That philosophy has shaped nearly four decades at BET, where Louis helped build one of the most influential cultural institutions in America and now serves as its President. Along the way, he has helped redefine the relationship between Black culture, media, and business, earning recognition as an inductee into the Advertising Hall of Fame.

In this episode of From the Culture, Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin explore the relationship between service and leadership, culture and community, and representation and responsibility. Together, they discuss why lasting institutions are built on trust, how culture creates belonging, and what it means to steward an institution while continuing to move it forward.

At the heart of the conversation is a simple idea: the places that shape us most deeply are the ones where we feel seen, heard, understood, and served.

Growing up in Harlem, Arturo was surrounded by communities, identities, music, food, style, and stories that shaped how he understood people, belonging, and connection. Those early experiences became a foundation he would carry throughout his career.

That understanding would eventually take him inside some of the world’s most influential brands, including Nike, Apple, the NBA, Coca-Cola, and Nubank. Today, he’s bringing that same perspective to hospitality, creating restaurants and spaces where people can gather, connect, and feel part of something.

In this episode of From the Culture, Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin sit down with Arturo to explore the power of cultural intimacy and what becomes possible when we understand people, communities, and culture deeply.

Our guest is Sam Rapoport, Senior Advisor of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion for the NFL and one of the driving forces behind opening new pathways for women in professional football. Through initiatives like the Women's Forum and the NFL Women's Careers in Football program, she's helped redefine who gets to lead, coach, and shape one of the world's most influential sports.

Today's conversation goes far beyond football. We talk through how Sam went from feeling like she could never fit into society in her queer youth to being a champion for women in one of the most powerful male-dominated cultural arenas in America. We find out how she learned to say “F it” in the face of potential opposition, we explore how cultures evolve, why representation alone isn't enough, and what it takes to build environments where people don't just gain access—they truly belong.

This is a conversation about leadership, opportunity, and the cultures that shape the future. Here's our conversation with Sam Rapoport.

Our guest is Francesca Hogi—coach, speaker, mediator, former corporate lawyer, and author of How to Find True Love: Unlock Your Romantic Flow and Create Lasting Relationships. Through her work, she's helped thousands of people build healthier relationships by first understanding themselves.

But today's conversation goes far beyond romantic relationships. We explore what trust, vulnerability, and belonging can teach us about leadership, teamwork, and workplace culture. Because the same skills that help us build meaningful relationships at home are often the ones that help us create healthier organizations at work.

This is a conversation about human connection, emotional intelligence, and the cultures we create together. Here's our conversation with Francesca Hogi.

Our guest is Mathew Knowles: music executive, entrepreneur, educator, author, and the visionary behind one of the most successful music careers of our time. For decades, he's developed talent, built high-performing teams, and helped shape moments that have influenced culture around the world.

But this conversation goes beyond music. We explore how leaders cultivate excellence, the cultures that allow people to thrive, and why the environments we create at work often determine the impact we have far beyond it.

Here's our conversation with Mathew Knowles.

Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin sit down with entrepreneur, investor, and UC Berkeley Haas Lester Center Fellow Jim Hornthal to explore how founders can move beyond hype and build organizations that genuinely solve problems. Together, they unpack the mindset behind successful entrepreneurship, why curiosity and resilience matter more than certainty, and how AI is reshaping everything from innovation to leadership.

From founder psychology and organizational culture to evidence-based innovation and the future of work, this conversation offers a thoughtful look at what it takes to create products, teams, and companies that people truly value in a rapidly changing world.

Dr. Gil Winch, founder of a call center, Call Yachol, that employs people with disabilities and others often excluded from the workforce, joins Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin to discuss belonging, culture, and why designing workplaces around human potential can create extraordinary results. Through powerful stories and practical insights, he makes the case that inclusion isn't just the right thing to do. It's a competitive advantage.

From unbreakable glass to billion-dollar businesses, the conversation explores how great teams create safety for experimentation, why action matters more than perfection, and how purpose can evolve after success.

This week, Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin sit down with Kathryn Petralia, co-founder of Kabbage, a data-driven company bought by American Express that provides new lending opportunities to underserved communities. They explore how better understanding people’s needs became the foundation of a huge business. Together, they unpack cognitive empathy, building community culture at the office, hiring for self-awareness, and how the best leaders learn to see the world through someone else's perspective. Plus, Kathryn shares her personal philosophy for success.

In this episode of From the Culture, Marcus Collins and Amanda Slavin talk with the industry-shaping entrepreneur about ambition, mental health, conscious capitalism, and the challenge of defining success on your own terms. Blake shares what he learned from his struggles with depression, why achievement alone is never enough, and how leaders can build lives and organizations that stay aligned with their values.

A candid conversation about purpose, fulfillment, and what it really means to be enough.

Julie’s religious faith, love of hip hop, and filmmaking passions “outside” of work inform her roles and her life impact in technology and equity. She explains a powerful framework, the “album and the mixtape,” to explain how our professional roles and personal passions coexist to shape who we are and how we lead. Together, they unpack identity, belonging, grief, service, and the courage it takes to show up fully in spaces that weren’t built for you.

At its core, this episode is about purpose. About the unseen experiences that shape our “body of work.” And about the responsibility we carry, not just to succeed, but to serve.

After navigating company shakeups at places like TikTok and Hulu, Nick now pursues companies that need help growing through uncertainty, including in his current role as President and CMO of First Round a consortium of brands that includes Cîroc and Lobos 1707. He shares why crisis mode can create unexpected opportunity, why he never wants to lead marketing in the same industry twice, and why change can be the fastest path to growth when you know how to meet it.

They also unpack personal resilience, building capacity during stressful seasons, and how to stop fearing change long enough to use it.

If your company, career, or life is in transition, this one’s for you.

Starting with a striking reality, HR is overwhelmingly made up of women, yet remains one of the most undervalued functions in organizations—they explore how roles rooted in traditionally “feminine” qualities like care, empathy, and nurturing are often dismissed as soft or secondary.

From HR to community-building, the conversation reframes these roles not as peripheral, but as foundational, asking what might shift if we treated care and connection as central to how work actually works.

From launching products like the iPod and iPhone to navigating personal upheaval, Courtnee shares a deeply honest look at success, failure, and the myth of having it all figured out. Together, they unpack the tension between helping others and doing the inner work, the importance of trusting your instincts, and what it means to grow and learn while leading.

At the center of the conversation is Courtnee’s powerful reframing: we’re never “finished” we’re always becoming. And the real work isn’t perfection, it’s having the courage to keep going, even when you don’t know what you’re doing.

They explore some of the reasons why patriarchal work cultures are bad for business and what it could look like to design a working world that utilizes traditionally feminine traits for business strategy and community culture. They unpack some of the ways women are often forced to navigate competing expectations just to exist, and they discuss why there’s a growing group of “older” post-menopausal women who want to stay in the workforce despite the ageism of patriarchy. The conversation also examines the role men play in building a more equitable world—and why real progress requires moving beyond shame, guilt, and reaction.

At its core, this episode is about shifting from survival to wholeness: letting go of old frameworks and learning how to show up fully, without shrinking to fit the room.

From leadership and performance standards to identity, representation, and resilience, Bing shares how an abundance mindset can reshape organizations, careers, and communities. The conversation moves beyond business strategy into personal growth, faith, and redefining success in a world that often defaults to scarcity.

The discussion goes beyond parenting. It’s about fear, trust, cultural norms, and how shared beliefs, often unquestioned can influence the systems we build and the freedoms we allow.

Change isn’t just a strategy, or a punchline, it’s emotional, messy, cultural, and deeply human. They explore trust, resistance, and the role values and shared meaning play in shaping behavior. The conversation also draws on insights from Javier Farfan, a seasoned marketing executive and current strategic advisor at J Wolf Advisors, who’s helped brands like the NFL, McDonald’s, Miller Coors, New Balance, and TIDAL navigate culture, entertainment, and technology to build impactful and lasting relevance.

Ultimately, this is a conversation about learning to see again — and how noticing what we usually ignore can unlock healthier cultures, better work, and more meaningful collective outcomes.