Stanford MBA: From Baby Boomer to Gen Z | Class of ‘95 Meets Class of ‘25

Podcast Ep. 7 Stanford MBA Kevin Steinberg meets '25 Michael Bakan

• Katharine McLennan • Season 1 • Episode 7

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Today, I’m joined by Kevin Steinberg from the Stanford MBA Class of 1995 and Michael Bakan from the Class of 2025. Kevin is a seasoned executive with over 25 years of operating experience founding, leading, and scaling some of the world’s most prominent professional services and talent-centric organizations. He is currently the Founder and Chairman of Ascent Leadership Networks, an advisory and executive talent development firm. His past leadership roles include CEO, COO, and President positions at the World Economic Forum, Purpose, Spencer Stuart’s leadership consulting practice, and The Brattle Group.

Michael is a second-year MBA student at Stanford GSB. Before business school, he worked in management consulting at Accenture, where he led digital transformation efforts and helped build the firm’s financial services sustainability practice. Outside the classroom, Michael brings his passion for sports to life—he helped run a girls’ youth basketball program on Nike’s Elite Youth Basketball League and recently spent part of his MBA summer working at the historic Royal Dornoch Golf Club in Scotland

Kevin and Michael offer intergenerational perspectives, weaving together lessons from the 1990s global business boom with today’s tech-infused, socially aware leadership landscape. Kevin reflects on his journey from McKinsey to the World Economic Forum and beyond, emphasizing people strategy, systemic risk, and the evolving role of leadership. Michael, a second-year MBA, shares insights from Stanford’s culture of deep interpersonal connection, AI’s rising influence, and his own search for meaning, values, and overlooked industries beyond the Silicon Valley bubble. Together, they explore how leadership, purpose, and human connection remain central, even as technology and geopolitics reshape the path forward 

00:00 Introduction and Backgrounds

06:01 Navigating Life After GSB

08:52 The Importance of Relationships

10:52 Experiences at Stanford GSB

13:48 Career Paths and Leadership Development

16:33 The Impact of Technology and AI

19:06 Exploring Overlooked Industries

22:17 Exploring Diverse Interests and Industries

23:30 Shifting Perspectives on Geopolitical Risks

25:54 Integrating Geopolitical and Socioeconomic Factors

27:08 Insights from International Experiences

31:38 Navigating Career Anxieties and Decisions

33:30 Reflections on Reunions and Career Journeys

35:20 Current Experiences at Stanford

39:06 Developing People Skills and Leadership

42:43 Lessons from Influential Leaders

45:27 Reflections on 30 Years of Growth

48:36 Hopes for the Future and Accompaniment

Join the Podcast Series
Stanford MBA: From Baby Boomer to Gen Z | Class of ‘95 Meets Class of ‘25

Each of these episodes will feature a different pair of Stanford MBA people -- one from the class of 1995, and one from the class of 2025.

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Katharine McLennan (03:11)

Michael, where do we find you on this wonderful Wednesday that's always interesting at Stanford? I can't believe it's still free,

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (03:08)

Well, thank you.

Michael Bakan (03:11)

Thanks for having us.

the wonderful Wednesday of no classes at the GSB. I'm in my apartment at Munger. I love living on campus. It's been a blast. So currently, you're on campus enjoying the day off.

Katharine McLennan (03:20)

Yeah, yeah.

Fantastic. And monger. What is monger?

Michael Bakan (03:31)

Yeah, Munger in reference to the Charlie Munger building, actually right next to the law school. So very close by, just a 10 minute walk from GSB.

Katharine McLennan (03:34)

yes. Yes. Okay.

And so that's the residence facility. that?

Michael Bakan (03:43)

It's one of them, so my first year I lived in the actual GSB residences that were just across the street from campus. And then decided to move to another part. So now it's a fun feeling of I'm on campus and get that fun feeling but feel a little bit more distanced from the first years and from the rest of the GSB.

Katharine McLennan (03:47)

Okay.

Yeah, it's awesome.

Kevin, I was talking to Michael before and he grew up in the area and what were you saying? Your parents are like a stone's throw.

Michael Bakan (04:10)

Yeah, I'm probably one of the few people in my class where the distance between the GSB and where my parents live is closer than the distance between where my parents live and where I went to high school. By just a few miles, but I beat it.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (04:21)

Wow. Have you lived

in the area all along or did you escape for a while and now make your way back?

Michael Bakan (04:27)

Yeah, I did the classic East Coast tour. So grew up in the Bay Area, went to Georgetown for my undergrad, fell in love with DC and was telling Kath that I was very much moved by the environment of friends sticking around and said, all right, maybe I'll stay in the DC area for a little bit. So spent three years in DC and then had the classic itch of need to get New York out of my system. So I went up to New York. I ironically lived with two other Michaels. It's a house of three Michaels in New York.

Katharine McLennan (04:50)

You

I

love it.

Michael Bakan (04:58)

and had a fun little charade up

there and then figured maybe I'll u-turn it back home and by some way ended up literally back in my backyard.

Katharine McLennan (05:05)

I love that.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (05:06)

That's great.

Now is the itch out of the system? Do you feel like you've had enough New York and DC or what happens from here?

Katharine McLennan (05:09)

Let's just ask him that. Yeah.

Michael Bakan (05:12)

We were debating that earlier. I told myself prior to GSB that I'd come back to New York. I told the Michaels that save a spot for me in the next apartment. But we'll see. I, it's weird, I've loved being back home in the Bay Area for personal reasons and professional. But then there's a part of me that loves newness and maybe I'll end up somewhere else. We'll see.

Katharine McLennan (05:32)

Kevin, where are you? What are you up to? okay.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (05:33)

So I'm based in the Boston area, so on the East Coast, and have

been in different parts of the world, but the Bay Area is great, but I love the East Coast as well. So I figure you can't go wrong and just have to figure it out before they put another Michael in the room.

Katharine McLennan (05:46)

Yeah, exactly, Kevin. Did you grow up in Boston?

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (05:49)

I didn't. grew up in Montreal.

Katharine McLennan (05:51)

Montreal. Okay. And you know, again, we could say something about Canada and the US, but we might come back to that. are

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (05:58)

Love.

that discussion has gotten more heated in terms of Canada-U.S. relations.

Katharine McLennan (06:04)

It certainly has.

And have you given up your citizenship?

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (06:09)

I haven't, so I'm a dual citizen now. I became an American citizen, I don't know, 15 years ago or so. And so maybe have a little bit of perspective from both sides of the border.

Katharine McLennan (06:11)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's interesting temptation, I would imagine for some of you, Kevin, but Boston's a fantastic place. So are you tempted to return to Canada?

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (06:28)

to Canada

answer is I haven't been in any rush, but two of my three kids are fleeing the borders over the coming months, I should say, to start both the two of my three will be starting graduate school in Canada and the UK as of September. And they would say there's a little bit of a political comment. They were thinking about grad school anyway, but there's a little bit more complexity in that discussion these days.

Katharine McLennan (06:36)

Are they? You're kidding!

fantastic. Wow.

Yeah, there's a little bit of a political complex.

Michael Bakan (06:54)

.

Katharine McLennan (06:54)

So Michael, what is life like? What do you guys have? Three months left or something like that. Is that about right? April, May, June? What is the current mindset that you're facing in as you come to this wonderful adventure that's going to finish?

Michael Bakan (07:10)

Yeah.

It's weird. It's sort of an eerie time. And for those of us, including myself, that are figuring out the next steps professionally, it's this weird balance of

Loving the GSP because it's such a great place to dream and to think big and to try new things out. And then a little bit of like the rubber hits the road of all right, we need to find a job. How do we tactically make that happen? It's also I've noticed a little bit of a shift in the class around. There's sort of this like. This question of who do I want to bring with me from the GSP and recognizing that location will affect that. You know, especially for someone like myself, it finds it sometimes hard to.

Katharine McLennan (07:25)

Yeah.

Mmm.

Michael Bakan (07:51)

maintain those those relationships across distance. But it's been the first time where I've noticed the shift of rather than like, hey, let's go out and do these big group things. Let's just go for a walk on a Tuesday evening. Let's go talk about our feeling. And so it's kind of been this cool time with a lot of like deepening of relationships in a new way to

Katharine McLennan (07:54)

Yeah.

Awesome.

Isn't it awesome, Kevin? mean, I live in Sydney for goodness sake. and I have my dearest friends, Kevin, you must've kept up with everybody in terms of the network.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (08:24)

So I'll say this, I think I have good news for you, which is I don't think the clock runs out three months from now on your ability to think big or to try different things. So one of the lessons maybe from those that are closer to their 30th reunion than their first is that, you you'll change careers, you'll change locations, you'll try big things and small things and all that's well and good. And then the other thing too is it's not a binary decision now who you keep in touch with and who you don't.

Katharine McLennan (08:30)

You

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (08:52)

So there'll be classmates that you don't see for a long time and then you're back in touch and others that you stay close to the whole time. But two weeks ago, I was at the 60th birthday party of a 95 classmate and there were six or seven of us there and some, it was for Jeff's school.

Katharine McLennan (09:06)

Who was that, Kevin? Who was that?

fantastic. fantastic.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (09:10)

And

some of us were in close touch all along and some of us hadn't caught up quite as much, but it was nice to spend time with everybody regardless. And so the deadline of graduation seems like a big momentous one when you go from before to after, but there's a lot of bumps and variations and good and bad things and exciting things that will happen thereafter too. So all good stuff to come.

Katharine McLennan (09:16)

Yeah.

Eww.

And

yeah, but I love the way Michael that you're connecting to people

But what is it about Stanford that allows us to do that?

Michael Bakan (09:40)

I've been thinking about this a lot. One of the great joys I've had of opportunities on campus is that I'm pretty involved with Admit Weekend and serve as one of the Admit Weekend co-chairs. It's the whole team, but I have the joy of being able to see that whole process. And it means that I end up talking to lot of admits or end up talking to lot of classmates about this GSB boiled down version across the Admit Weekend.

And there's like environmental things and then there's sort of the interpersonal people side. I'll say for myself, some of my favorite memories of GSB are by virtue of living in the residences and having this community on touch. I joke that some of my favorite memories are literally walking my first year, like the first or second week. One of my closest friends now is named, ironically, is also Michael, and I promise all my friends aren't named Michael.

Katharine McLennan (10:17)

Yeah. Yeah.

you

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (10:33)

We're getting skeptical

on that front, Michael, but keep going.

Michael Bakan (10:35)

Exactly.

I know. We were walking up the stairs in J-MAC in one of the residences and we just ran into each other like, hey, do want to go shoot pool on the roof? And this was like a nine o'clock. And then fast forward, it's 1 a.m. and we're just hanging out watching the stars talking about life. And there's something about just like the physical environment of being able to have more spontaneous moments, think, led to that.

Katharine McLennan (10:52)

fantastic.

Yep. Yep.

Michael Bakan (11:01)

And then there's something else that I've loved about the focus on just the interpersonal. There's so many moments of, think in the first few months of the GSB, I probably knew more about people's lives, but like had no idea what they did for work. And that was a cool way to get to know them. And there's someone in sort of the whole Admit Weekend team that says this line that I think is worthwhile. It's sort of been the motto, which is like, it's change lives, change organizations, change the world.

I love how it's change lives first and it's not change strategy or change the capital structure or whatever. I've always liked how there's a focus on people first here.

Katharine McLennan (11:35)

Yeah.

Yeah, people first. Now, Kevin, that's been your deal for the last, I don't know if it's all your career, but you certainly have done some amazing leadership and talent services around the world. I love that, of course, because that's my field. But I'd love to hear how you ended up there. Because so many of our classmates went entrepreneurial and came to the top of the mountain. we're just, well, I'm watching them and seeing how they're climbing.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (12:06)

Well, I'll give the short version of a longer story and either of you can jump in with any questions. the short version is after spending a number of years with McKinsey doing some very traditional post GSB type of work, ended up going to the World Economic Forum, where I actually spent a little bit of time before the GSB and went to Geneva for what was intended to be a one year loan or sabbatical from McKinsey to the World Economic

Katharine McLennan (12:08)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, go.

Yep. Yep.

Wow.

okay.

Yep. Yep.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (12:33)

But for

a variety of reasons, it was a wonderful experience, both professionally and personally. And the one-year loan turned to two and then three and then four. And four years into my one-year loan, effectively agreed to leave McKinsey, join the World Economic Forum full-time, move back to North America and found and lead their North American arm, which was a wonderful opportunity. And I did that for about eight years longer. And so I got to grow the...

Katharine McLennan (12:42)

Wow.

Kevin. my goodness.

Wow.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (13:02)

team had great impact. did really interesting work. It's phenomenal place to be. And when I left, I spent time in a number of professional services firms. One was a social impact focused consultancy called Purpose where I was the president. I spent very recently, so I'm saying this out of order, a few years as the chief operating officer of the Brattle Group, which is a global economic consultancy. The way I describe it is that's a law firm, but it's made of economists. So

Katharine McLennan (13:07)

Yeah.

Wow.

Kevin.

Yep,

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (13:29)

They advise

Katharine McLennan (13:29)

yep.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (13:30)

on everything to do with legal cases related to economics and damages and antitrust and other related pieces. And spent several years at Spencer Stewart. And at Spencer Stewart, I was the global COO for their consulting arm, which is effectively what they call leadership advisory services. And for those less familiar, what that really means is that 80, 90 % of the firm spends time replacing executives. And the part of the business that I oversaw spends time

Katharine McLennan (13:36)

Yep. Yep.

Yep, that's fun to...

That's right.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (13:58)

making executives more effective at what they do, which is bit of a different hat.

Katharine McLennan (14:01)

I love it. I

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (14:04)

And then that led to my founding my own firm and recruiting a number of people from Spencer Stewart, from the World Economic Forum and some other places to do leadership development in a very different way, largely based on experiential modules where you do things like go to Skywalker Ranch and spend time with George Lucas's team on innovation and creativity or go to a UN facility and focus on stakeholder engagement.

Katharine McLennan (14:27)

Fantastic.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (14:31)

in the same place where multinational treaties are negotiated. So really fun, experiential things. And I'm getting to the end of the story, but during COVID, all that in-person stuff stopped. The firm pivoted to becoming a consulting firm, advising clients to a much greater degree on talent and people strategy. And we're going to come full circle to where you raised the question, which is one of the things I've come to appreciate over time.

Katharine McLennan (14:48)

Gotcha.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (14:57)

is for many firms, but certainly for big professional services firms, your talent strategy and your corporate strategy are one in the same. So your assets are the people, that's what it's all about. It's probably true for every firm. So my team and I have been spoiled to talk to firms about their strategy, but focus on the people part, not necessarily the cost accounting or the supply chain or some of the other pieces, which...

Katharine McLennan (15:06)

Yay!

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (15:24)

Michael, to your point in summarizing what you remember, even in your short time at the GSB, you remember the people, you don't remember those other things. So I feel like we get to focus on the most fun, most impactful, changing lives part of the equation that you just laid out.

Michael Bakan (15:39)

Thanks.

Katharine McLennan (15:40)

Kevin, you are just singing my songs. I've been singing these for so long. It's nice to see a person that appreciates it. All right. One of the questions or reflections that I'm so interested in is my and I've said this and think some of the things I've written is that, Kevin, when we were graduating in 1995, Netscape went public and we basically entered the world of

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (15:47)

like them.

Katharine McLennan (16:05)

the internet, even though of course it had been going on for many, years, but it took off. So much took off so fast that it hit 2000, the tech bubble crashed and we say it says dot-com crash in 2000. But then of course it's, it's grown and the ability to have large amounts of data, get across all this was sort of our introduction to the information age. You guys are leaving at a very different time.

Information is a commodity. And I know in Accenture, I believe you did a lot of digital, I was going to say revolution, maybe it was digital revolution. But what are you seeing in this world that you're merging? And it would have changed even in the time you were at Accenture, I would imagine with the AI.

Michael Bakan (16:52)

Yeah, absolutely. That's the elephant in the room of pretty much every class and conversation now is AI.

Katharine McLennan (16:55)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I bet it is.

Michael Bakan (16:58)

I guess what's top of mind and this is this thread of the people side too. I a takeaway I had from experience in consulting and the thread that's sort of been interesting in the GSB is that the pace of technology is an innovation that space is rapidly increasing. The tools available at our hands are incredible. The like segmentation of the generalist versus the technical specialist that is getting a bit more blurred. And perhaps I say this a little bit self

Katharine McLennan (17:22)

Yeah.

Michael Bakan (17:26)

selfishly, but what I'm excited to see is like, where does like the people, the human interaction part interact with the technology? and both in terms of like freeing up time for managers to focus more on the people side to, or does communication change from this, or access to information and, you know, shoot big meta questions around like truth and factual information. so I'm kind of curious, looking from all of this, and I think a lot of classmates in our discussions are like, all right.

It's so cool being here because we're seeing the frontier edge of where tech is being developed. And we're also seeing like the big questions around values and ethical implications and how will the technology actually affect the human interaction part of any sort of business.

Katharine McLennan (18:05)

So does that gonna push you into a career direction, Michael, where you're looking at that? Or what are the threads? It's not a terrible question to ask somebody at this point in time in the career search. But anyway, what are the threads?

Michael Bakan (18:18)

Yeah!

Well, I think it's, it's, it's informed the discernment in a few different ways. It's hard not to ignore the AI strategy and PM roles that are kind of coming out there. And I'll be honest, there's a time where there's a little bit of foam of like, go check that out. That's where everyone's knocking these days. On the flip side, though, I think it's, it's for me made an interesting other question, which is like, what are the industries that are being overlooked at a place like the GSB that are interesting spaces to be that are

Katharine McLennan (18:37)

Yep.

Michael Bakan (18:51)

could be disrupted by this technology, but also just like unique places to call home. And I'm kind of curious, given your thoughts on this too, which is like, I think part of what I loved about really in my career was this debate and discernment about where do values and social impact and mission play? And in some ways it's been interesting being in the Silicon Valley right now where there's like this big question of where that all fits in in the equation. And I'm trying to figure that out right now as well, which is I want to be the place that makes my heartbeat.

Katharine McLennan (19:06)

Mm. Mm.

Michael Bakan (19:19)

and trying to keep that top of mind is the midst of like all this other stuff that's going around.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (19:24)

I'd love to get your take on this, it almost felt like there was this binary choice. Were you going into high tech? And that could be venture capital or a whole slew of things around Silicon Valley. Or were you going back to, I don't call it the real world, the rest of the world, where there was a feeling like...

Katharine McLennan (19:25)

Yeah.

That's right. Yep.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (19:42)

management consulting and Wall Street and all these other places were outside of that bubble. And not that they weren't affected, but they were sort of more traditional things. So you have that choice before you. And I think today that choice is largely gone in that if I think about clients that I work with, whether they're in professional services or financial services or elsewhere, they're all thinking about these questions and all think it is very, very relevant to them in the short term.

Katharine McLennan (19:48)

That's right.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (20:12)

So coming back to your comments of like thinking about values and coming back to how is this going to shape people, I think the interpersonal dynamics are going to change everywhere because of all this technology. And we don't necessarily know how, but we know there's no getting around it. And so I don't think you're going to have that choice. You and your class of like, do I want to go to the high tech world or not? You're just debating between which

parts of it, so to speak. And I love your framing of it because it sounds like you're thinking of it in those terms as well. And it might be hard to think about those overlooked places or things that don't touch the GSB because I think almost everything will. Even if there's some industries, I don't know, maybe when you get your haircut, there won't be robots and AI doing that so fast. I don't know.

Katharine McLennan (20:41)

That's so true.

Yet,

who knows? Michael, when you say overlooked industries, what comes to mind?

Michael Bakan (21:07)

Yeah, it's some of the, so I took one of my favorite classes was called formation of ventures. It was a survey of entrepreneurship. And it was fascinating to learn about manufacturing, industrial supplies, sort of like backbone economies, logistics, trade, this and that.

Katharine McLennan (21:21)

Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Bakan (21:27)

as well as also just things outside of the Silicon Valley. mean, another realization I found that's kind of interesting is like learning about the flow of funds and where that affects the entrepreneurship scene. but I'm also just looking at, there's a bunch of really interesting businesses that aren't VC backed and software as a service AI agents. but I've really interesting people problems. Yeah. everything from like sports has been a place that I've been looking a lot about.

Katharine McLennan (21:44)

Give us an example, Michael. What's an example?

Okay,

Michael Bakan (21:51)

I mentioned industrial supplies and manufacturing, particularly in the sort of broader supply chain and political environment that we're in. Even interest in payments a lot. My mom's from the Philippines and remittance payments were always something that were like top of mind, but learning about, what does that mean? Like an interesting space from tech meets human side meets international development.

Katharine McLennan (22:03)

Yeah.

Michael Bakan (22:17)

It's also another thing as I realize I get interested in a lot of different things and yeah.

Katharine McLennan (22:20)

Yeah, join the club. Home

the rabbit hole or the rabbit hole. But those are fascinating. I don't hear your classmates yet talk about those fields, the manuary supply chain, which is going to be absolutely radically changed if these tariffs do stick, right? So it'll be so fascinating to see the manufacturing sector of the United States. I mean, we've all but it's deserted manufacturing. We are a services and mining country. But that's going to be.

What do you guys think about that? In fact, let me jump to Kevin. When you listen to Michael, what strikes you about what you're seeing in some of your clients that you're working with in the climb the mountains kind of arenas?

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (23:01)

Yeah.

Well, so, you know, your articulation, Michael, I think of trying to think of the other industries beyond, let's call it the Stanford Silicon Valley bubble. And what's happening with all of them is very interesting in the sense that many of the people that I talk to think of themselves as outside of that bubble and thinking about what are all the changing dynamics that are going to affect them going forward. And interestingly,

Katharine McLennan (23:08)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (23:30)

six months ago, a year ago, I think a lot of the conversation was very much around how the Silicon Valley bubble was going to influence them. How does AI change the workforce? How does tech enablement take out steps from the supply chain, et cetera? What I think is very recent and very new, and part of this is our political scene, is we're talking about a whole bunch of other risks, whether they're geopolitical or otherwise, that feel like they have a little bit of the

last century heir to them. Like we're talking about nationalism, we're talking about tariffs, we're talking about populism, we're talking about a whole bunch of things that maybe weren't our radar as much 10 years ago or 15 years ago, maybe even two years ago or one year ago. So I think a lot of at least the perspective I hear is almost the flip of that. It's well, if we think of that as one set of technological disruption.

What are the various elements of systemic risk that are truly going to be disruptive? And nobody thought they went away. No one thought geopolitical risk wasn't sort of high on the agenda. But I'll tell you between Russia, Ukraine, the Israel, Gaza, the geopolitical things that have flared and seem omnipresent, maybe we should have been, but I don't think we spent as much time thinking about them two years ago, four years ago.

And so great questions in the broad sense of if we step back and you think over the arc of your career and the places you might work, the value chains you might touch and the like, boy, there's a broad set of considerations. And I don't want to say that's fun because a lot of it's disruption that's difficult to deal with, but there's a lot of meaty things for you to sink into at work and personally and all kinds of other ways, which is exciting too.

Katharine McLennan (25:18)

Kevin. mean, Michael, you spent time with Accenture in Washington, which is an interesting reflection of where things are happening. does your to Kevin's point over the last two years, have you guys really taken and integrated those geopolitical, those socioeconomic, those things? Because basically, I don't know, Kevin, I loved macroeconomics.

But that was the only course that we actually looked at. The rest of it was micro, like you said, micro skills, micro that. How are you guys looking at the world now that's emerging for you to lead?

Michael Bakan (25:55)

Sarah? No, but in some ways I think it's been very hard incorporating that to GSB. And part of that is distance, part of that is some cultural things, many things that play there. I'll say for me what's been powerful though is it's been amazing being on a college campus in this time and seeing the way that Stanford reacts. And one of the things I've loved about having a student idea right now is the chance to go.

Katharine McLennan (26:08)

Yeah.

Michael Bakan (26:15)

When an event happens, guess what? There's something, there's probably some expert at the Hoover Institute or Stanford's economics department commenting on that. And so it's a little bit of a thing going sort of beyond the GSB's campus, although there's been ways that they've brought it internally. Also say it's been, some of my favorite memories have been some of the travel and the more kind of academic meets fun travel. I had the chance to lead a trip with a group of students to Saudi Arabia.

Katharine McLennan (26:21)

great.

Michael Bakan (26:40)

It was focused on some of their investments in sports and tourism. And more broadly, just look at this question of what does economic diversification look like in at least this modern iteration of that for Saudi Arabia. And it's amazing to find my favorite moments where the read a headline, then go talk to someone and kind of debating that at the ground level.

Katharine McLennan (26:42)

Fantastic.

Love it.

Wow. What was the most surprising thing about Saudi Arabia when you looked at that?

Michael Bakan (27:08)

Yeah, it was. That all at least in terms of the investments are making in sports and tourism, like they're gonna happen. And I think there was a lot of like, going in and like, what is real, what is fake? And I guess a surprising nuance I found was that I think I came into this narrative of, of there are like moral implications of this. There are sort of questions around the business case.

Katharine McLennan (27:14)

Absolutely, they're going to happen.

Michael Bakan (27:32)

And then the narrative we heard on the ground was, you know, people can say what they want. We think that we're de-risking opportunities for future investors. And maybe there isn't a business case. Maybe some of these will be extremely powerful. But there's a nuance or a different narrative to learn in that and realizing that I think I can hold both of those and debate those. But it was powerful to really like to kind of get that on the ground.

Katharine McLennan (27:55)

You guys are the amazing travelers. Kevin, what do you remember about the international aspects? I don't know if you got to go on. don't know if we did many trips like, like the classes do now, but what's the memories of that Kevin? And plus being in Geneva, come on, you're like at least at the center of Western, Western Europe anyway.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (28:08)

Yeah.

Well, I guess those are two different things. I'll comment on both, which is we didn't have the same opportunities as today. There were some trips and a minority of people went on the trips, but the business school is very international in the sense that there was representation from around the world. And so for me, despite being born in Canada and going to school in the States and being in undergrad that was nominally very international, when I was an undergrad,

Katharine McLennan (28:17)

Yeah, don't.

Mm-mm.

Minority, yeah.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (28:40)

you know, 10 % of the community was international. And that included me and I didn't consider myself particularly a traditional. The dynamic at the business school was very different. And I think it still is today. And I don't know the numbers. I want to say it's 30, 40 % people who are born outside of the US. And so, you know, that experience to me of different viewpoints, different perspectives, different experiences, that diversity is phenomenally valuable and interesting. And I still think of that today.

Katharine McLennan (28:57)

Going up,

Absolutely.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (29:10)

Katz, the second part of your question about Geneva and the World

Katharine McLennan (29:12)

To Niba.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (29:13)

Economic Forum, know, one of the really nice things about the forum is that it's another one of those places that might, like you said, it lets you think about the big picture. And so we would convene people in Davos and elsewhere. And one of the real themes was step back and try to think about what's important at the macro level, not necessarily at the micro level. So I got to oversee a project that was called the Risk Response Network, for example, and it was

solely focused on how do you think about risk from a macro perspective? How are all of those risks related? And this was years before, but the example I give now, which is intuitive to everyone, is we had a global pandemic, horrific. But when you think about COVID, the implications were a lot more than just the health impact on society. It reverberated everywhere. And that sort of interdependent systemic risk to me is the biggest picture kind of thinking.

Michael Bakan (29:54)

Okay.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (30:08)

and it has implications even today. And not that we couldn't have done this before, but like it feels like a treat for the three of us to be talking over video, recording a podcast. It'll be distributed through all these channels. The truth

is all this technology was available pre-COVID, but odds are that most people weren't using them yet. It really took COVID for video conferencing and working from home and all those changes in dynamics to...

quickly and dramatically escalate. And to me, I love that example of think through the implications expected and unexpected of all of these societal changes. The way things change isn't necessarily just because the technology is available.

Katharine McLennan (30:37)

did.

I love that, Kevin. you, Michael, you're all over it. I when you list sports payments and manufacturing and supply chains, is an interspersed, think an integrationist thinker. And one of the things I'm writing about is our choice right now between going isolation and integration. And my hope is that people that are coming out of Stanford are gonna start to.

do what Kevin is doing, bringing the fields together and working with the socioeconomic political changes as just the fabric that we've got right now. it'll be, I guess the question in there is, are there anxieties? Like, do you guys talk about the anxieties of going into this world? And if you do, what's the flavor of them?

Michael Bakan (31:39)

Absolutely. is, there's nothing like a lot of it's situational anxiety of like, there's this menu of options. Where do I start? how do I, where will this sort of decision point play looking back in 30 years around like the first job out of an MBA?

but I will say what's, what's been comforting is one of my favorite, in that class, I mentioned my favorite classes, formation, new ventures. One of the co-teachers of that was Dean Garth Solaner, former Dean of the GSB. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I'm going to, I love seeing that reaction because that was, I didn't really fully appreciate the magnitude of who he was until actually on the last, on the last day of class, he gave sort of a last lecture of sorts.

Katharine McLennan (32:03)

my gosh, he's still going. Holy cow, wow.

Michael Bakan (32:21)

And he talked about what he notices in reunions. And essentially what he was saying, he's like kind of calling out, maybe there's some anxiety right now. of that's decision part. That's maybe some fear of where the world's at a fear of, what's around the corner or what does the future look like and how do I make a career out of that? but one of my lessons was when he talked about what it's like to be at the fifth reunion and what he sees in the 10th, et cetera, is sort of this like bifurcation of we go out and kind of do our things, but

Katharine McLennan (32:35)

Yeah.

Michael Bakan (32:45)

What gives me comfort and hope is the chance to then come back together. And whether that's in careers, whether that's in personal life, you name it. I found that one of my first memories of GSB is doing a finance case that was brutal. And I was so annoyed by it and it gave me anxiety. But then three GSBers came together and somehow we figured it out and had a lot of fun along the way. And I'm hoping that maybe it's a bit of a metaphor of the next five to ten years of like.

Katharine McLennan (33:06)

Yeah.

Michael Bakan (33:12)

In the short term it feels a little scary, but maybe in the fifth, reunion there's some way to bring back together and do cool things with good people.

Katharine McLennan (33:20)

Kevin, so you go to a 60th birthday of one of our classmates. What do you notice about the types of conversations and, I don't know, anxieties, hopes?

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (33:30)

So I'll say this, and the thing, by the way, about your comment, Michael, that made me smile was working it all out by the fifth or tenth reunion. Because I think we're months away from our 30th. I don't think we've worked it out yet, at least most of us. So I think part of the journey is realizing that you either won't have to or don't work it out. That's perfectly fine. But I will sort of say with a little bit of retrospection.

Katharine McLennan (33:37)

Yeah, yeah!

Michael Bakan (33:38)

Mm.

Katharine McLennan (33:41)

you

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (33:55)

I do think that there's an element of the first five, 10 years when you're embarking on your career and you're probably thinking about, you know, financially, what does it mean? Where do you want to live? Thinking about family choices. There's a bunch of things that are consequential in terms of choices. And I'm not saying you can't change roles because you can. And I'm not saying your family situation won't evolve. It certainly will. And geographically, maybe you'll be back on the East Coast in D.C. or...

New York, maybe not, but none of those are really locked down. But I will say that I think the

Michael Bakan (34:27)

you

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (34:28)

worry about those things clearly fades over time. And I don't know if it's by the 20th or the 25th or the 30th, but there's a different feel to the reunions from sort of trying to figure those things out to having conversations about things that people are passionate about. And most of the time, it's not about like where you're working at that moment or

Katharine McLennan (34:33)

Mm-hmm.

Michael Bakan (34:41)

Mm.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (34:52)

whether you've achieved something on your checklist. So the good news is I think that tension goes away. I'm just saying it may not go away because it's resolved. may go away because at that point it doesn't matter.

Katharine McLennan (35:04)

I love that, Kevin, I love that. So, all right, Michael, so

what is gonna happen this week at Stanford that you're most excited? Bring us back to the time of our Stanford experience 30 years ago. What's going on?

Michael Bakan (35:20)

Yeah, well, it's the end of the quarter. And I joke that I don't think I've finished the end of a quarter well, in part because it's hectic and his group projects and this and that distractions. But life is wonderfully chaotic right now. Maybe I'll describe like what's going on today, which is that

Katharine McLennan (35:27)

You

Yeah, I bet.

Michael Bakan (35:37)

I don't have class, but somehow the day gets filled. And I always joke that some of my favorite moments at the GSB are a day when I'll sit down at night and do a journal entry or something. It's this feeling of like a whiplash of both the context switching, but also just like laughter to intense intellectual stimulation to perhaps even sadness and emotional connection to, whoa, like I didn't think I'd meet that celebrity founder person talking with Kevin today.

Katharine McLennan (35:40)

yeah.

Michael Bakan (36:04)

And so literally a moment like today, I'm going on the part of a leadership fellowship, the Arbuckle Leadership Fellowship on campus. so I'm doing a coaching session with a first year MBA. And never in my life did I be thinking at this point in time, I'd be spending several hours a week thinking about what does it mean to be a leadership coach. But I think that's like so unique and special. And then there's an LPF.

Katharine McLennan (36:17)

plastic.

We love that.

Michael Bakan (36:30)

later tonight, so social event that'll be fun to hang out with some classmates a little bit. I'm catching up with an alum who graduated last year, so already love that that connection is happening. And then talk is tonight for the NBA 2s. A dear friend of mine is giving her talk tonight. So we're poster making and making signs to support her and cheer her on as she shares her story in this beautiful forum. So I think today is going to be one of those days where it's like a little all over the place.

Katharine McLennan (36:51)

awww

Ugh.

Michael Bakan (36:59)

What's interesting too is I was talking to some classmates right now where

Even as secondary MBAs, at the end of the quarter, rarely do we talk about our week, does the C word of career come up. And that's kind of interesting. And I go back and forth on how that sits and how that feels, but the favorable interpretation I had about it right now, it's like, it's so cool that I and we are spending time with each other, supporting classmates that talk, doing things that are intellectually interesting. I guess trusting that that stuff will come later down the line.

Katharine McLennan (37:34)

I love that. Kevin, what are you? Yeah, go.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (37:34)

Nice. I was

gonna say that the listeners can't see, Kath, that you're smiling. And I think it's not just because Michael's thinking that you're a celebrity podcast founder. I love, love your noting that like nobody ends the quarter well or that you've never ended the quarter well. I love the image of like the whole class is just limping over the finish line three times a year.

Katharine McLennan (37:43)

you

Michael Bakan (37:45)

I'm

Katharine McLennan (37:45)

You go, you go. But Kevin, what- yeah.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (38:00)

I think there's some deep truth in that. And because it's everyone crams in everything they possibly can. And so you're just doing as much as it seems humanly possible. So by definition, you're sort of just making it to the finish line. I think that's a great and very telling sort of metaphor for the GSB experience in so many ways.

Katharine McLennan (38:21)

love, but it is. And but what I also love and what I also love is the coaching that you guys are learning and the speaking that you guys are learning from when I talk to your classmates. It's such a huge emphasis on the skills of those, the people skills. Kevin, we only had leadership as a concept introduced to us in the last year, I believe. And and look, we had a thing called organizational behavior.

which sounds like rats, but there wasn't that much, Michael. I'm just delighted. So learning about coaching, learning about teaching, what's the most challenging aspect of the people side of the equation that you're starting to see? And you would have had some eccentric ones as well.

Michael Bakan (39:06)

Yeah, well there. Dean Salar had a great line about, in that same last lecture about sort of like building resilience, more or less when stakes are low, and using this as an interesting time to sort of take those risks. And I found that in many ways in coaching or even just the leadership side, the, like I even feel like a heartbeat getting nervous at times when it happens, like

What does it look like to lead in conflict? What does it look like to hold something really emotional from someone and learning how to respond to that, creating space for all those different things? So I found those to be like beautifully challenging in a way that it's uncomfortable. And in some ways too, there's like this air of relationship management and wanting to manage that, but also getting into it with classmates. But it's felt incredibly valuable because I think I'm going to look back in 30 years and say, well, I'm glad I kind of least began to start to figure that out.

as a student and also kind of giving your perspective on like as you deal with leaders as well like the things and tools that you lean on.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (40:03)

Yeah, so I'll say this. To grossly generalize in a way that's probably unfair, most of the leaders that I know, not all, but many, have risen to their positions not because of their management or leadership excellence, but because of their sort of functional excellence. And what I mean by that is they became the global CFO because they were really good at the financial elements of their job, not necessarily because they were great leaders.

And so you end up with this sort of generic, like the best litigator leads the law firm, the best surgeon leads the hospital group, the best academic at research ends up leading the university, and you go through all these examples. And so part of what I find interesting is your comments really focus much more what I would consider the leadership elements or competencies or skills, we want to get a little bit more of the technical terms, as opposed to the functional skills and the like.

And so none of us have talked about the importance of financial accounting. It matters. It's a key course of the GSB. I'm not knocking it, but it's probably not what you're thinking about in terms of how you're going to change lives and change organizations. And it's probably not the things that will make you an exceptional leader. So I'm delighted to hear you talk about some of those other types of skills, which I would put into the leadership bucket, as opposed to

There's a functional things you need to go through before you graduate. So you've seen, you know, the range of different competencies and skills that will serve you well.

Katharine McLennan (41:35)

Yeah, it's awesome, Michael. I don't remember it, Kevin, and maybe my mind is going, I just don't remember talking too much about the people orientation. The one thing, Kevin, that you mentioned was the strategic notion of talent and talent development. I have been

trying to tell private equity and venture capital over here to use my services because I can look at companies in the way. I've shared this story a couple of times. Well, I had an investment class with Professor Van Hor, God bless him. And Warren Buffett came as a guest and we asked him, so what are you investing in, of course? And he said, well, I'm not investing in those technology stocks. I'm going to invest in those hard steel cap boots when I can look the person in the eye. Now, of course,

once it got settled, could look in the eye, you know, he became Bill Gates, et cetera. But that's interesting. So when you see people, these guests, so I don't know, all the guests, what is the common thing that you leave with the people that are leading great businesses? What's the messages that they're leaving with you?

Michael Bakan (42:44)

That's for me. Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (42:45)

Yeah, Michael. You're our hope. We just want

you to go and give us hope! Yeah, exactly!

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (42:50)

It's too late for us.

Michael Bakan (42:53)

There's a couple of things. And maybe the first one that's come up recently in some ways that that response to what you're saying, Kevin, about the kind of functional expertise as well. A couple of the classes in the last quarter were debating this warmth versus competence dilemma. Like, do I lead with strength and lead with sort of the competence or lead with warmth? And I think I came in feeling a little bit polar.

And it's been fun to talk to leaders that say you can kind of do both and the ability to sort of hold both in various different situations and having that flexibility can be a powerful skill. And that's been, I think, a takeaway at times when even when I feel maybe out of the room, skill set wise in terms of confidence, what are the other things I can lean on to be influential? Another thing that's come up as well in some of the leaders is like trying is noble.

It's worthwhile trying. And that can be a powerful thing, whether that's taking a bet on self, a space, something else, values, you name it. And then another theme that's, I think, also been big for my second year as well is that in some of the leaders and speakers that have come to class, there's just the humility, like knowing when to say I don't know and knowing when to ask for help.

knowing when to lean on people. I think first year in some ways was a little bit of this pedestalizing of leaders. And second year has been this kind of cool, like no longer a love letter to entrepreneurship or leaders, but realizing that these are tough and getting a little bit of a glimpse of like how to handle the tough moments has been powerful.

Katharine McLennan (44:17)

Hmm.

Michael, that is fantastic. Let's then roll back a little bit, Kevin, as you look back over the 30 years. And this is always hard for us because we don't think 30 years has passed. When we look at you, you're the same age. We're right with you. No, no, no, no, we don't. It's exactly the same.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (44:45)

Right.

We look no different, Michael, just to be clear.

Michael Bakan (44:49)

I

love it. I'm seeing it here.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (44:53)

Sorry, that's why this is a podcast, just as well.

Katharine McLennan (44:58)

But if you look over the last 30 years, you bring yourself back to Michael's, you know, think of our graduation ceremony or whatever sticks out in the last couple of months. And you bring and you look here. This is such a hard question, but what is the fundamental two to three lessons when you take the world of Stanford and you put the world of Kevin today and how have you brought those with you over the last 30 years?

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (45:27)

So that's a great question. And it's funny because I probably would answer it differently today than 10 years ago or 20 years ago. So there's definitely an element of circumstance to that. But I'll say this. I mentioned earlier some of my journey from, know, McKinsey World Economic Forum is doing a lot more in terms of leadership development and working with executives on how they can make their organizations more effective. And

Katharine McLennan (45:34)

Yeah, yeah, it would.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (45:54)

In a way, I feel like I've almost come full circle because now I work with a number of different companies as clients that do a number of different things. And so that diversity of perspectives in some ways is more valuable now than when I was in an executive role in a particular company focusing on something that was much more narrow and specific. And so I find at least with the benefit of hindsight, some of

Michael, what you referred to as thinking the big picture, being able to sort of get away from that day to day to be enormously valuable. And it's part of why I actually enjoy even more talking to classmates, talking to faculty, talking to people involved with the GSB because they have all of those broad perspectives. And just to illustrate, I'm working with a billion dollar large PR and communications firm.

It's not a space where I necessarily spent a lot of time until the past year, but actually relying on people I know, the networks I've built and the like to get insights has been great. And so I'll say the 30 year version of that answer is there's something really nice about the people, the network, the broad perspectives, all those interpersonal things that you spoke about that I now find even more value in.

Katharine McLennan (47:05)

Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (47:19)

that I necessarily did when I was in my narrower focused mentality of my fifth reunion, when I was at McKinsey and I was doing financial services and it felt like the blinders were still on because I was focusing on something very specific.

Katharine McLennan (47:34)

Isn't that true, Kevin? what's interesting, I mean, it's network, network, network, and not just for career, but, you know, one of our classmates dies and we have to reach out to each other to understand the implications of that. One of our classmates goes bankrupt. There's many of our classmates that have gone bankrupt. One of our classmates loses their home in the fires just recently. And

This hits the heart of, wow, getting emotional here. It hits the heart of who we really are. And I think the question of who I really am, which I don't think we ever answer, by the way, just is wonderful to celebrate with your, that playing pool and going up on the roof and just being around till one o'clock. We all have forms of that and it's just so special. So let's.

Let's wrap this up in that that say, what's your biggest hope, Michael, going out? What's your biggest hope it can be for a personal for the world? What what comes to mind if I say hope?

Michael Bakan (48:37)

Yeah, it's the first word that pops in my mind is accompaniment. And I think that's whether that's the GSB or that's intergenerational conversations like this. think a learning I have that's really top of mind is that following people in heart and doing things together is

what makes my heartbeat and gives me a lot of joy. And having even been at times that felt more lonely. think what always was powerful in that was having people to walk a path together. And so it gives me hope is that for myself and in this period of time with everything going on, that there's potentially a bid for connection and a bid for accompaniment.

Katharine McLennan (49:00)

Yeah.

What a fantastic word. Kevin, hope.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (49:19)

Hope, well, I'll give my hope for Michael first and then I'll give our hope for us. Cause I feel like there's two things there. so Michael, my hope for you as you phrase this is that A, you sort of find yourself enjoying the journey and not only thinking about the people with you on the journey and the destination. Cause in some sense, I think that's what it's all about. And the GSB network are people who will be on your journey and supporting you and part of it. And whether it works out or not almost doesn't matter. I mean,

Michael Bakan (49:22)

Yes.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (49:47)

it does. if there's bumps along the way, I very much agree with sort of enjoying the journey and being accompanied by people. It's hard to go wrong if that's the case, even if normally it feels off the rails. Anyway, my hope for us to, Kath, in the sort of 30th-aniversary perspective, is that we don't lose any of the eagerness that Michael is displaying, because I think there's always this chance that we start talking about the things we

Katharine McLennan (49:56)

Yeah.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (50:12)

wanted to do and didn't have a chance to do and the like and we're still like all of that opportunity is still open for us in all kinds of ways. So we have to just live up to that and keep your advice in mind too.

Katharine McLennan (50:20)

my gosh.

I love it. And you know what, Michael, I guess maybe I'll end with this is that's what if it's a real interchange between our generations, I just want to thank you guys because you've just opened up so much energy and so much curiosity. What can we do for you?

Michael Bakan (50:42)

Wow. And I want to play back that gratitude. Maybe I'll say that it's...

And the theme of accompaniment, I'm thinking of this question of what's next. And the theme that I've loved hearing about this is that it seems like it's a constant question. And so one, would love accompaniment as I figure that out, but also perspective and I get a lot of joy of hearing stories of the pattern recognizing across event. Gosh, Kevin, there's probably 20 things of notes I have that are going in my GSB learnings journal, just from this conversation alone.

Katharine McLennan (50:55)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Michael Bakan (51:13)

And that comes with lot of gratitude and respect. so accompaniment in the sense of, yeah, shared perspective and discerning that like, what's next? How do I make that next question? Would be very valuable.

Katharine McLennan (51:25)

that's a great.

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (51:25)

That's awesome. And Kath, I

wonder if, don't know what the plans are for the podcast, the series, how many, how often, whatever, but it does feel like there's some culmination of this where a group of the 30th and a group of the soon to be graduating can actually have a conversation along these lines. It's sort of the Adam Grant give and take perspective of how do we just support each other and accompany, right? So I love that notion.

Katharine McLennan (51:31)

Yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah. And

it's a great way to end because I've already, think I've got 20 and I'm going to start releasing them next week. I've got four stocked up. So I want to release one every week because the, the, the sharing is so rich and it doesn't, it's the topics, the, the, energy, you know, I am pumped.

about what you guys are going out to do. It's so varied. And it is the integration part where AI is not, you're not going out to do AI. You're doing AI to solve Medicaid, one of your classmates. You're doing AI to solve some of the environmental issues. You're using AI to do something. And you guys are just fantastic. So I'm noted, Kevin.

We'll have to reclaim them from wherever they are except if they're doing their double law degree in which case So, you know, they're still gonna be hanging around we might have to pull some of those guys But thank you guys are really a wonder what a wonderful conversation And I'm just gonna Yes Yes Yeah, love it. I love it

Kevin Steinberg JD/MBA '96 (52:53)

standing. Well, a pleasure meeting you, Michael and Kath. Thanks, hats off to you for putting these together and I'll look forward to hearing the final version

and the other ones as they get released too.

Katharine McLennan (53:04)

I love it.