Positive Leadership

A country drifting toward narco-state. The answer isn't a hammer. It's warm water. 
Belgium is one decision away from becoming a narco-state. Judges in hiding. Prosecutors under armed protection. An 11-year-old girl killed in a drug-related shooting in Antwerp. The country hosting Europe's second-largest port now seizes over 120 tons of cocaine a year. And the Belgian government handed the mission of stopping it to Ine Van Wymersch. 
 
Ine Van Wymersch became Belgium's youngest Public Prosecutor at 39, after years as a youth magistrate making the kind of decisions that change a child's life forever. In 2016, she was the calm voice of a traumatized nation following the Brussels attacks. In 2023, she was named Belgium's first ever National Drug Commissioner. She now operates under armed protection. And she refuses the obvious answer. 
Her view: more police will not save us. Belgium needs a "warm society." 
Her iceberg metaphor cuts the noise. Above the waterline: shootings, seizures, violence. Below: corruption, money laundering, addicted parents, kids growing up without a chance. Attack the iceberg directly and a new piece grows back overnight. Warm the water around it, with education, jobs, mental health, dignity, and the iceberg starts to melt. 
Her work sits very close to a question I have lived with for years through Live for Good : how do we stop losing young people before life has really started for them? My years at Microsoft taught me that no organization, however large, beats determined people working from a shared narrative. Ine has built exactly that narrative for Belgium, and it deserves to travel far beyond it. 
In our conversation, we explore: 
→ Why repression alone cannot beat organized drug crime, and what "warming the water around the iceberg" really means 
→ The three pillars of her strategy: disrupt logistics, follow the money, rebuild society 
→ The story of Elvire, the illiterate woman approved for euthanasia who asked Ine to write her life 
→ How terrorist networks and drug cartels recruit the same vulnerable youth, and why a closed job market is a national security issue 
→ Why "a warm society" of education, mental health, and opportunity is the only sustainable defense against narco-states 
 
"If we warm up the water, we are creating an environment where organized crime is not surviving."
Ine Van Wymersch, Belgium's National Drug Commissioner 
 
🎧 Related Episodes: 
Élisabeth Moreno, "Realise the impossible" 
Muriel Pénicaud, "Lead like an orchestra conductor" (employment and skills as the foundation of a resilient society) 
Jacqueline Novogratz, "Building a better world together" (empathy, storytelling, and dignity for those society has excluded)
#PositiveLeadership #IcebergStrategy #WarmSociety #NarcoState #YouthOpportunity 
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Companies built on love outperform the S&P 500 by 14 to 1. Conscious capitalism, stakeholder leadership, healing organizations — Raj Sisodia proved it with data, then spent a year in the Himalayas and the Amazon proving it on himself.
Raj Sisodia, Co-Founder of the Conscious Capitalism movement and author of sixteen books including Firms of Endearment and The Healing Organization, grew up across four countries and eight schools before the age of 18. He trained as an electrical engineer in India because that was what you did if you were good at math. He stumbled into a PhD at Columbia almost by accident — following seven friends to pick up a GMAT application and ending up the only one who made it to New York. From there, he built a body of research that fundamentally challenged Milton Friedman's doctrine that the only business of business is profit. Then, at 60, he turned that same rigour inward: pilgrimages to the high Himalayas, silent retreats with Peter Senge, and the painful reckoning with a father who once pointed a gun at him.
This conversation runs close to what I have lived. When I watched Satya Nadella introduce "model, coach, care" at Microsoft — a framework Raj references directly — I saw firsthand what happens when a leader chooses purpose over power. And Raj's conviction that business must actively heal what it has broken echoes what drove me to create Live for Good: the belief that the organizations we build should leave people stronger, not depleted.
In our conversation, we explore:
 → Why companies that spend 95% less on marketing than competitors have the highest customer loyalty — and what that reveals about extraction-based capitalism
 → The four pillars of Conscious Capitalism — higher purpose, stakeholder integration, conscious leadership, conscious culture — and the specific acronyms (HEALING, SPICY, SELFLESS) Raj uses to make them actionable
 → The Bob Chapman story: how one CEO refused to lay off a single employee during the 2008 crisis by asking "What would a family do?" — and emerged stronger than every competitor
 → His year of conscious awakening at 60 — pilgrimages, silent retreats, ayahuasca in the Amazon — and what four women forced him to confront about his own unhealed trauma
 → What conscious capitalism demands of AI: the marriage of humanity's most important idea with its most powerful technology — and why the market will ultimately correct for unconscious companies
🔑 Key Themes: Conscious Capitalism, Stakeholder Leadership, Purpose-Driven Business, Healing Organizations, Personal Transformation, AI Ethics, Positive Leadership
🎧 Related Episodes:
 Paul Polman (ex-CEO Unilever) — Becoming a Courageous Leader: how Polman proved companies can grow while addressing environmental and social challenges
Vincent Stanley (Director of Philosophy, Patagonia) — Leading with Purpose: why purpose-led constraints drive innovation and stakeholder alignment 
Dr. Martin Seligman (Founding Father of Positive Psychology) — Paving the Way to Positivity: the science of flourishing that underpins conscious leadership
John Elikngkton : Rethinking Capitalism: A Conversation with the Godfather of Sustainability
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What does it take to start a global movement when you feel like the world isn't listening?
Today, my guest is Vanessa Nakate, the pioneering Ugandan climate justice activist, UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, and founder of the Rise Up Movement. Vanessa’s journey began in 2019 with a solitary strike outside the Ugandan parliament. Since then, she has become one of the most powerful and necessary voices in the global fight against climate change, demanding that the Global South—the communities most impacted by the crisis—are no longer ignored.
Vanessa’s story is a profound lesson in Positive Leadership. In 2020, she was famously cropped out of an Associated Press photograph with her white peers at Davos. She didn’t retreat. Instead, she boldly stated, "You didn’t just erase a photo. You erased a continent," using that moment of erasure to spark a vital, worldwide conversation about race, media, and climate justice.
In this episode, we explore what true, intersectional leadership looks like. Vanessa passionately argues that we cannot separate the climate crisis from poverty, inequality, and the empowerment of young women.
In our conversation, we explore:
→ How she found the courage to strike alone in Kampala, and how to take the first step when you have no followers
→ The Davos incident: How to turn being erased into a platform for global empowerment
→ Why climate justice IS social justice, and why educating girls is a critical climate solution
→ Building the Vash Green Schools Project to bring solar power to over 75 schools in Uganda
→ Why she chose to step back from the frontlines to pursue a Master of Public Policy at Oxford, and how she plans to bridge activism and policy
"When you are working with people, when you know that you have community, then it's easier to sustain the activism work in whatever field that you're working in... find your community, and it will make activism much easier." — Vanessa Nakate
If you want to understand what it really takes to lead a movement, build resilience, and fight for a future that includes everyone, this conversation will deeply inspire you.
🔑 Key Themes: Climate Justice, Youth Activism, Purpose-Driven Leadership, Resilience, Intersectionality, Community, Global South.
🎧 Related Episodes:
Hannah Ritchie — Not the End of the World: A Data-Driven Approach to Climate Action
Dr. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka — Showing humanity to others
Boyan Slat — Leading an ocean cleanup
🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, jpcourtois.com
🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, jpcourtois.com
📩 Subscribe to the Positive Leadership Podcast

What happens when one of Silicon Valley's most accomplished engineers decides the system he helped build is broken—and walks away to fix it? 
Today my guest is Raffi Krikorian, CTO of Mozilla and one of the most civic-minded technologists I know. We explore why the fight for open-source AI isn't just a technical debate; it is really a fight for who controls our relationship with knowledge itself. 
Raffi's career path is uniquely fascinating. He spent his early years scaling massive engineering teams at Twitter and launching Uber’s first self-driving fleet. But then he did something rare. He pivoted to public service, becoming the first-ever CTO of the Democratic National Committee to rebuild their cybersecurity from the ground up. He then went on to drive social-impact technology at Emerson Collective, applying his engineering mind to systemic issues like immigration and climate change. 
At Mozilla, he is now on the frontlines of the AI revolution. We talk about what it means to be "technically optimistic" right now—which also happens to be the name of his excellent podcast. For Raffi, optimism isn't about blind faith in algorithms. It’s about demanding that our tools are trustworthy, transparent, and built to serve humanity, rather than exploiting it. 
In our conversation, we explore:  
→ The Twitter crash that taught him his job was not to be the architect, but to create the conditions for others to do their best work  
→ Why he left Uber's self-driving program after discovering their models misclassified people based on skin color  
→ How a week of Google Sheets transformed an asylum-seeker nonprofit more than any AI chatbot could  
→ His conviction that we need seven billion AGIs—one for each of us—not seven controlled by massive corporations  
→ Why patience, not speed, is the leadership skill that actually builds movements 
"We have outsourced dreaming to a few people who are building companies and we all need to dream again." — Raffi Krikorian, CTO, Mozilla 
If you have ever wondered whether the technology on your phone is truly working for you—or for someone else—this conversation will completely change how you think about what comes next. 
🔑 Key Themes: Open-Source AI, Responsible Technology, Purpose-Driven Leadership, Digital Trust, Civic Tech, Cybersecurity, Technical Optimism. 
🎧 Related Episodes: 
Kevin Scott — Empowering people with AI: 
Navrina Singh — Building Trust in AI: Leadership, Governance, and Human Values 
Rana el Kaliouby — Human-Centric AI (purpose meets profit in technology)  
🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, jpcourtois.com 
🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, jpcourtois.com
📩 Subscribe to the Positive Leadership Podcast

What if the greatest turnaround in modern corporate history wasn’t driven by financial engineering or restructuring, but by an unshakeable belief in science and human talent? 
In this powerful episode of the Positive Leadership Podcast, I welcome Pascal Soriot, CEO of AstraZeneca—a visionary leader who transformed a struggling pharmaceutical company into a defining global force in oncology, cardiovascular disease, and respiratory care. 
He is also someone I know personally: I had the privilege of serving on the AstraZeneca board between 2008 and 2016, and I was in the boardroom when we appointed him as CEO. 
What makes Pascal’s leadership so rare is his non-traditional ascent. He didn't start with an elite corporate playbook; his foundational lessons were grounded in learning the value of loyalty and protecting his people. By beginning his professional life as a practicing veterinarian, he developed a profound sense of empathy—traits that continue to drive his unwavering commitment to putting patients first today. 
But Pascal’s story isn’t your typical corporate trajectory. Raised in a humble background where he learned early lessons about loyalty, standing up for his team, and defending his territory, he began his professional life not in business, but as a veterinarian. It was this experience that profoundly shaped his empathy and his "patient-first" approach to leadership. 
In our conversation, we explore: 
🔬 The Turnaround – How Pascal orchestrated AstraZeneca's massive transformation by instilling a clear, shared purpose and focusing relentlessly on patient outcomes. 
🛡️ The Pfizer Takeover – How Pascal defended AstraZeneca against a massive hostile takeover bid from Pfizer by betting everything on the truth of long-term science. 
🌍 COVID-19 & Global Access – The leadership lessons learned during the pandemic and the drive to ensure global, equitable access to the vaccine, particularly for countries in the Global South. 
🤖 AI and the Future of Discovery – How AI is accelerating the race to cure cancer and redefine medicine. 
Pascal’s insight: “People come to work because they believe they can make a difference. First, a shared purpose. Second, clarity about each person’s contribution to that goal.” Whether navigating a corporate crisis, defending core values against short-term pressures, or building a culture of psychological safety and innovation, this conversation is a masterclass in resilient, purpose-driven leadership. 
Key Themes: Corporate turnarounds, healthcare innovation, purpose-driven leadership, AI in medicine, empathy, resilience, scientific truth, navigating crises. 
🎧 Related Episodes You’ll Love: 
Indra Nooyi: Driving performance with purpose
Sir Ronald Cohen: Reinventing capitalism for impact
Gianpiero Petriglieri: Leadership, a matter of love
Fabio Barbosa: Leading with Purpose: Profit, People, and the Planet

🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, jpcourtois.com
📩 Subscribe to the Positive Leadership Podcast